Uber In Retreat Across Europe 460
HughPickens.com writes: Mark Scott reports at the NY Times that Uber is rapidly expanding its ride-hailing operations across the globe but some of Uber's fiercest opposition has come in Europe, where the culture clash between the remorseless competition of the US tech industry and the locals' respect for tradition and deference to established interests is especially stark. In Frankfort, Uber shut its office after just 18 months of operation spurred in part by drivers like Hasan Kurt, the owner of a local licensed taxi business, who had refused to work with the American service. Uber antagonized local taxi operators by prioritizing its low-cost service, and then could not persuade enough licensed drivers to sign up, even after it offered to pay for licenses and help with other regulatory costs that totaled as much as $400 for new drivers. "It's not part of the German culture to do something like" what Uber did says Kurt. "We don't like it, the government doesn't like it, and our customers don't like it."
Uber also pulled out of Hamburg and Düsseldorf after less than two years of operating in each of those German cities. In Amsterdam, Uber recently stopped offering UberPop, in Paris and Madrid, Uber has been confronted by often violent opposition from existing taxi operators, while in London, local regulators are mulling changes that could significantly hamper Uber's ambitions there. Uber's aggressive tactics have turned off potential customers like Andreas Müller who tried the company's Frankfurt service after first using Uber on a business trip in Chicago. Müller said he liked the convenience of paying through his smartphone, but soon turned against the company after reading that it had continued operating in violation of court orders and did not directly employ its drivers, who are independent contractors. "That might work in the U.S., but that's not how things are done here in Germany," says Müller. "Everyone must respect the rules."
Uber also pulled out of Hamburg and Düsseldorf after less than two years of operating in each of those German cities. In Amsterdam, Uber recently stopped offering UberPop, in Paris and Madrid, Uber has been confronted by often violent opposition from existing taxi operators, while in London, local regulators are mulling changes that could significantly hamper Uber's ambitions there. Uber's aggressive tactics have turned off potential customers like Andreas Müller who tried the company's Frankfurt service after first using Uber on a business trip in Chicago. Müller said he liked the convenience of paying through his smartphone, but soon turned against the company after reading that it had continued operating in violation of court orders and did not directly employ its drivers, who are independent contractors. "That might work in the U.S., but that's not how things are done here in Germany," says Müller. "Everyone must respect the rules."
Respect for the law for everyone, not just the poo (Score:2, Insightful)
It's what sets Europe apart from the oligarchies and part of what the city slickers want to get rid of in the UK.
Re:Respect for the law for everyone, not just the (Score:2, Insightful)
Then your grandfather was an intellectually lazy bigot.
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Then your grandfather was an intellectually lazy bigot.
We have a number of them over here.
Re:Respect for the law for everyone, not just the (Score:4, Insightful)
With each post your perplexing signature makes more and more sense. You are so incredibly apt to lump all kinds of disparate people together under one simple label, to judge away and ascribe whatever motive you want to their actions. No wonder you are so confused about nearly every topic you discuss here.
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It's not the paradigm itself, it's that there's a lot of shady employers out there who want to call their employees "contractors" simply to shift all the risk - and none of the benefits - to them.
If you
Re:Respect for the law for everyone, not just the (Score:5, Funny)
When I would ask my grandfather what the difference was between the U.S. and Europe, he used to tell me that America was made up of the descendants of the European people who were willing to work hard and take the risk of a better life in the New World. Europe was made up of the descendants of the European people who were too lazy or frightened to leave the Old World.
What I don't understand is why they don't value money over absolutely everything else. What's wrong with these people?
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It depends on the time period, and which group of people you're talking about.
When the Irish came over during the famine, they didn't come for "greater opportunity", they came because their local economy was a disaster and they were starving (thanks to the asshole British). They were then mistreated and abused in their new home, but at least there was work for them and they could eat.
When the Puritans came over, they came because they were a bunch of wacky religious nuts who were unliked by the local popul
Being an asshole doesn't work (Score:5, Informative)
Who would have thought?
Re:Being an asshole doesn't work (Score:5, Funny)
We are the Silicon Valley. Lower your firewalls and surrender your appers. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.
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Around here, Taxi companies are run and worked at by some of the worst assholes of all. Show up when they want, take detours and pretend not to understand you, gouge you as much as possible. I'm glad someone is undercutting them.
Re:Being an asshole doesn't work (Score:4, Informative)
It's not about the drivers, it's the company itself.
Remember when they tried to bullshit their way out when someone complained that their drivers were pretty hostile towards disabled customers?
That's just one example of their attitude problem. They think laws don't apply to them and that it's okay to pretend they're anything other than a taxi company and that they do not have to play by the rules.
I have no love for not-so-good-ol' taxis. I'd welcome some proper competition, but these sleazebags are not it. A company competing with them without any shenanigans would certainly get my business.
Don't speak for 'all of europe' (Score:5, Insightful)
Here in Belgium (Brussels for me) lots of people used Uber, even after the threat to close them down. Its cheaper and more convenient than the expensive and slow taxi service. Most everyone I know has used them at least once and everyone (in my circle) was not happy with them pulling out of Brussels after threat of legal action.
I think if you talk to anyone who isn't a taxi driver or associated with the police, you'd find they like Uber and are not happy with the monopoly of the taxi service on this industry.
Of course, Belgium is well known as a 'fuck the rules' sort of country. But we're also the seat of the EU so the irony is not lost on me about this story.
Still, most people would have been happier if our fucking governments had found a way to work with Uber instead of just bowing over to the taxi unions.
Re:Don't speak for 'all of europe' (Score:5, Insightful)
Here in America, we see that the winner-take-all economy leaves us with monopolies that are even more inefficient, greedy and unresponsive than the unions and regulated monopolies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] And you saw what Uber did to their competitors like Lyft.
Once Uber has driven its competition out of business, they'll be able to raise prices for riders and drive their "contractors" (employees without rights) down to third-world wages by getting them to compete with each other to be the lowest bidder.
Re:Don't speak for 'all of europe' (Score:4, Insightful)
That's capitalism 101. Drive out the competition by any means possible (or reach an agreement with the competition), jack prices to whatever you want. Buy politicians to legislate against new competitors. Profit!
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I think you have a fare waiting on line 6.
Re:Don't speak for 'all of europe' (Score:4, Insightful)
Here in America, [...] Once Uber has driven its competition out of business, they'll be able to raise prices for riders and drive their "contractors" (employees without rights) down to third-world wages by getting them to compete with each other to be the lowest bidder.
Once Uber has driven its competition out of business, anyone will be able to offer a service like Uber, because the barriers to entry will have been removed — at Uber's considerable legal expense. I fail to see how you fail to see that this is a win for everyone except entrenched taxi businesses enjoying a state-enforced monopoly. Taxi licensing may work in Germany, I can't speak to that, but Here in America, taxi licensing does absolutely none of the things it is supposed to do.
Re:Don't speak for 'all of europe' (Score:5, Insightful)
Once Uber has driven its competition out of business, anyone will be able to offer a service like Uber.
No, because this type of service is a natural monopoly, especially when operated by a large multi-national. Nobody wants to use a different app for every city. It would be just like trying to compete against eBay in the online auction market.
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No, because this type of service is a natural monopoly, especially when operated by a large multi-national.
How ironic, you're complaining about the danger of a natural "monopoly", which is not really a monopoly, when we're already dealing with the poor results of a state-sponsored monopoly, which really is. Indeed, if that monopoly were serving The People, Uber would not even exist for lack of interest.
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if that monopoly were serving The People, Uber would not even exist for lack of interest.
How ironic your point is given that the story title is "Uber In Retreat Across Europe". The taxi industry, which is not a state-sponsored monopoly in many places, would seem to be serving the people. Just because the government requires taxi drivers to be licensed doesn't make it a monopoly any more that ordinary drivers' licences make cars a government monopoly.
However ironic you may think my point is, the danger is real that Uber will achieve widespread dominance and then be in a position to abuse their
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Once Uber has driven its competition out of business, anyone will be able to offer a service like Uber.
No, because this type of service is a natural monopoly, especially when operated by a large multi-national. Nobody wants to use a different app for every city. It would be just like trying to compete against eBay in the online auction market.
Not really. eBay has a monopoly in that, if you're a buyer looking for something rare or unique at auction, eBay is where you're going to look first, and thus as a seller, eBay is where you're going to look at selling first. But it's not like a ride is anything unique, it's not like Uber's customers have brand loyalty, and AFAIK it's not like an Uber driver can't also work for a competitor (that's an interesting question actually). Plus, I'm guessing the majority of Uber users are only using Uber in their h
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Once Uber has driven its competition out of business, anyone will be able to offer a service like Uber, because the barriers to entry will have been removed — at Uber's considerable legal expense. I fail to see how you fail to see that this is a win for everyone except entrenched taxi businesses enjoying a state-enforced monopoly.
Wait, once Uber has driven all competition out of business, anyone will be able to compete? That seems contradictory.
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You're making a danger
Re:Don't speak for 'all of europe' (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the free market is not perfect, but there is probably nothing worse than a capitalist economy which is being prevented from receiving any negative market signals by government action.
A monopoly in an imperfect free market can be pretty bad and sometimes worse.
Americans don't realize this because it's been so long since we had a market that was really unregulated by the government. But you can look around the world for examples.
A year after "communism was destroyed" along with the Soviet Union, we had a handful of oligarchs with as much power and monopoly as the previous Soviet oligarchs and even less accountability.
Rather than running a cotton processing plant, they could make more profits by closing the plant, firing the workers, and selling the unprocessed cotton on the international market to cotton processors in India or China.
Or look at the unregulated Chinese pharmaceutical industry, which was the subject of a New York Times series a few years ago.
The Chinese chemical manufacturers would sell powdered milk for infant formulas, and add a toxic chemical that gave a false reading when the wholesale buyers analyzed it, and made it look like it had higher protein content and therefore commanded a higher price. But infants would get sick and die.
The Chinese chemical manufacturers sold a syrup for children's cough medicine, but substituted a cheaper toxic product for the more expensive pharmaceutical product. (I think they substituted ethylene glycol for glycerine.) On the order of 100 children died as a result.
Things like this were common in the U.S. in the 19th century and early 20th century, which is why we created the Food & Drug Administration and why we have government regulations. Once you remove the regulations, the same things happen again.
In Europe the free market gave us Thalidomide. Then they started regulating again.
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Chinese system is not a free market it is cronyism. Information regarding the tainted milk was suppressed and lawyers in china were pressured by officials not to get involved.
Re:Don't speak for 'all of europe' (Score:5, Interesting)
Same in France. Stupidly restrictive taxi regulation lead to a nonsense : taxi drivers are so powerful that they don't care about customers, there's not enough taxis (you can wait for an hour to get one), and the service is just poor and expensive. As a side effect, taxi license reselling has become an investment for newcomers and a life insurance for old drivers, which makes it impossible to get out of the system without getting all drivers mad (and in a bad situation).
But the fault is on the taxi lobby for pushed their monopoly too far. Some would say it is understandable, because it means better situation for them, so why not do it ?
My answer : because some day, it may backfire at you, and you'll deserve it.
If people are upset and someone tries to change the balance, you'll get no support from the population. I don't know how people feel in Germany, but in France, most people who use taxis frequently are quite happy with Uber trying to shake the coconut tree (as we say).
Re:Don't speak for 'all of europe' (Score:5, Informative)
Germany checking in: I've yet to be in a poor German taxi. The cars have been in excellent condition, the drivers knew what they were doing, the prices were transparent and offered value for money. No complaints so far!
Re:Don't speak for 'all of europe' (Score:4, Insightful)
uber isn't trying to shake the tree.
uber doesn't even want to change the tree.
uber wants to ignore the tree while everyone else is still forced to pay attention to it.
that is the entirety of their plan, and the source of their profitability.
if the tree actually got changed, and ubers advantage disappeared because the field was leveled, uber would be unhappy.
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I'm European, not a taxi driver and not police. I don't agree with your sentiments at all, no one I know of has used Uber and I doubt they would. Uber are an arrogant, race-to-the-bottom company. They only want to create their own monopoly, long term they won't save consumers any money over taxi services which will be squeezed out of the market (due to underpricing). Taxi services do need to start getting more internet and phone application friendly.
Re: Don't speak for 'all of europe' (Score:3, Informative)
Background, I'm from Finland and I have a close friend who is a taxi driver.
Here the availability and the waiting time of "real" taxis is usually not an issue. Not even sure if Uber exists in my city. I do however see that there is a huge disconnect between what taxis are (and are obliged to) and what the general public perceives and this is part of the reason why people might like Uber while complaining about taxi prices.
Here taxis are not one big company, even if all taxis are similar and identical prici
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Re:Nothing to do with American Tech Industry (Score:4, Informative)
Biassed much? This has jack shit to do with the "remorseless competition of the US tech industry and the locals' respect for tradition and deference to established interests".
It has to do by following the rules.
Actually it's probably less about that too. European cities are a lot more public transport/pedestrian friendly, so there is probably not as lucrative taxi industries to disrupt as say the US, where it's cars or nothing.
Re:Nothing to do with American Tech Industry (Score:5, Informative)
This. My wife and I were chatting to an Aussie couple in Copenhagen who were asking where they could get a taxi. I was about to suggest Uber as an option, but my wife pointed out to them, it's a 20 minute walk and the streets are pedestrianised the whole way. And if they don't want to walk, there's a bus every 5 minutes.
Not long ago getting public transport in a foreign location (even an English speaking one) could be a challenge. But with Google maps showing public transit it has become much more accessible.
They still went and got a taxi from a local hotel AFAIK.
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Back home I'm Uber'ing every week because I live in the the suburbs and it's the only way to get home after a few drinks.
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I live in Iceland, which has a crazy-low population density, yet still taxis are mainly only ever used by locals for getting home when out partying (aka drinking) when they live too far from downtown. You don't take taxis between cities or to the airport or anything like that.
Re:Nothing to do with American Tech Industry (Score:4, Insightful)
People like the cashless society
Perhaps, though Europeans still use a lot of cash. I think the bigger issue (and what makes Uber appeal to me) is knowing that the driver isn't going to be able to pull any number of tricks on you in an attempt to shake you down for more money. My most recent regular taxi experience was in Italy, where I waited at a taxi stand for 30 mins desperately trying to flag down numerous empty taxis. A local finally told me you had to ring and order one. I got a hotel to do this (they had to wait on hold for 10 mins), figuring all the taxi's I'd seen must have been on order, until I got in the one that arrived five minutes later and realised there was a EUR 7 'radio taxi' charge for ordering one.
It is these sorts of stupid tricks that really annoy people. I just want to be able to arrive somewhere, get a taxi, and not worry about the driver changing out my 50 note for a 5er, taking me the long way, or simply driving like an idiot and giving me no way to inform subsequent passengers that they are a dick.
The big value of uber is that it fixes these issues. If they ditched the stupid Ayn Rand techno-liberalism stuff then they could probably replace all the world's taxis just by fixing these endemic problems with getting into a vehicle with a stranger.
Re:Nothing to do with American Tech Industry (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the biggest thing for me.
I started travelling recently for business when I changed jobs in 2012. Since then, I spent two years hailing taxis ... every single one of them tried to cheat in one way or another. In Seattle, taxi drivers have a flat fee of $40 to take you from the airport to downtown; I never paid less than $45. In DC, taxis would say "Yes, I take cards" but when they get to your destination they refuse to take your card. In Texas they pretended their credit card machine was broken. When they give you a receipt (if they give you a receipt) the receipt is blank, and you're expected to write in whatever you feel like, so you can expense a different amount of money and pocket the change.
Now I ride Uber and the payments aren't an issue. I even like chitchatting with the drivers.
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You have it backwards. Uber drivers are conning you. They're invariably not covered with you in the car. They may not fiddle the cost, but if you're in an accident, you are utterly fucked insurance-wise. Ask to see their insurance before getting in, they'll drive off there and then.
You have a smart-phone, learn to use if you want a taxi. If so many are ignoring you, there's probably a good reason. You probably look like a yob or drunk, and they'd rather not bother.
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You don't need Uber for any of this shit.
Firstly, spending just one minute on Google to check the local taxi rules will help a lot.
Secondly, taxi Apps such as MyTaxi also allow you to rate the driver.
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On the way in we booked via the internet a taxi from the airport to the hotel. The driver was waiting for us with a sign with our name.
Distance about 45km/mins, price €50.-, and as typical a nice Merc.
At the hotel we received city maps and they also sold tickets for public transport.
€1.50 for a ticket and for 100 mins. from validating it at the station, this will get you anywhere into the city by train, subway, tram or bus.
The re
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Re: Nothing to do with American Tech Industry (Score:3, Informative)
People like the cashless society.
The state likes it because tax evasion is nearly impossible, and banks like it because it means more business for them, and they can rise prices and fees as they want, as there is no competition anymore (competiton between the banks? Nice joke).
But people liking cashless? I doubt that. A cashless state is a surveillance state. A cashless state is one where when a bank goes bankrupt, you can't pay with anything anymore. In a cashless state you pay so that you can pay money.
Re:Nothing to do with American Tech Industry (Score:5, Informative)
I think there is a fundamental difference between the way Europeans and USians think about companies. Europeans expect that they set the rules and companies operate within them, which is why they get upset at extreme tax avoidance that might technically be legal but goes against the intent of the law. USians seem to think that companies basically do what they want and there is little they can do about it, and good for them if they can get away with the kind of stuff Uber gets up to.
Just compare consumer rights and employment rights between Europe and the US. It's clear that the balance of power is tipped far further towards citizens in the EU.
Re:Nothing to do with American Tech Industry (Score:5, Interesting)
Uber is playing by the rules In London which, depending on who you ask, is part of Europe. That said, the city is considering bringing in new rules to prevent Uber from fairly competing with other types of taxi drivers.
I take about 30 or 40 Ubers a year, and every SINGLE Uber driver I have had has been a licensed minicab operator - in other words the same driver I would be getting if I called a phone number and asked for a cab. These guys are experienced and licensed, and prefer Uber because they earn 5-10% more per hour with Uber than they do with their traditional employer.Did I mention that Uber charge 20-30% less than the traditional minicab firms saving me a bunch of money?
So magically, Uber has chopped around 35% off the cost of private road transport in London that was previously going straight into the pockets of some already very wealthy people. Now the worker and the customer get that 35%. So I win, the driver wins, the only people who lose are the cab firm owners who have traditionally been raking the money in at our expense.
If you compare Uber to the Black Cabs in London, things look even better - Uber are around half the price and offer better service, routes and accountability.
Finally, people will moan about "Surge Pricing" - but that with Uber when surge pricing kicks in I can still GET an Uber, I just have to pay a bit more money for it. At the busier times of night, the times when Uber surge pricing kicks in, if I try ordering a regular cab I'm usually told I can't have one or that there is a wait of an hour or more. So Surge pricing gives me MORE options, even though I may decide not to use that option. With traditional providers, I'm walking the 7 miles home at 3am...
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Not my experience with Uber in London. Several times now I've pissed around outside Hammersmith Broadway and Turnham Green trying to get one home late in the evening before giving up and catching a bus or the Tube. Another time on the way to Heathrow in the middle of a weekday afternoon the Tube had some trouble and I was already running late... 35 quid from Boston Manor (~10 miles)? No thanks, and unbelievably Addison Lee is much cheaper than that and arrived in the same time frame! Maybe you've got mo
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There'll be a lot of out of work taxi drivers too - who will be desperate to drive, reducing the times / locations that surge pricing occurs in. Plus, if it's so important, someone can launch a competitor to Uber that doesn't have surge pricing, and anyone who wants to can use them. Finally, if it's a real issue, book one in advance (it's what you had to do before, the presence of Uber hasn't made anything worse in that reg
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1] Uber is playing by the rules in London
2] All or most of Ubers drivers are licensed minicab operators
3] Drivers make more money driving for Uber than they do driving for traditional minicab firms
4] Uber charge 20-30% less than minicabs (at normal operating times)
5] Ubers are cheaper than Black Cabs
6] Ubers provide better customer service than Black Cabs
7] Ubers Surge Pricing scheme means more cabs are available at peak times
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Evidence for 1-7 will suffice. If you can only back it up with your limited personal experience, concede the point like a rational person.
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Well, let me offer a different perspective:
When an American says "yarg, teh free markets" ... or some bullshit about how regulation is bad and the market will solve the problem ... or how unrestricted Capitalism will save us all ... the rest of the world thinks sod off you ignorant ass, we see what your bullshit theories do, and we dis
Re:Nothing to do with American Tech Industry (Score:4, Insightful)
The App is also a nice thing and I could see a role for Uber (or others) there. Set up a system where multiple companies can join so you can get a taxi easily. e.g. something like http://www.pizza.be/en/ [pizza.be] [pizza.be] where people can order from many different places in Belgium.
Do that on a European or even worldwide manner and you are golden.
This idea has been tried many times in the US (ever since the iPhone became popular)
In the US, these types of apps simply don't work reliably enough in highly populated areas and during peak hours. You'll order a taxi, but the taxi won't show up. That's because taxis don't have a strong enough incentive to honor their commitment. Since they're taxis, they can commit to picking someone up, but if they see someone else on the road halfway to their pickup, or if they hear of a more lucrative pick up on their radio, they'll go pick up that other person instead.
Many times, this doesn't even need to be a straight lie, the taxi drivers will just tell themselves, that other person can just wait a little bit more while I take care care of this other customer right now. Or they'll tell themselves, there is enough wiggle room for me to squeeze one more client, especially if I can find someone to pick up who needs to go to the location near where my other pick up will be. All this optimization is great for the taxi drivers, but it's not great for the customers.
Uber, on the other hand, doesn't work that way (except for UberPool where the customer explicitly chooses that option to be more flexible in exchange for an upfront discount). But with Uber, if you order a normal Uber ride (and not UberPool), the system is first-in and first-out (just like with just-in-time lean manufacturing, if you don't mind me using the analogy). Once a Uber driver accepts the offer of a customer, that driver can no longer see other potential pick ups he can make on the map (the map just won't show him that information). Also, that Uber driver doesn't have competing offers streaming in from a dispatch center over the radio, or via telephone or text, or just via driving (since Uber is not allowed to pick up people who flags down a driver from a sidewalk). In addition to that, the customer is even reassured that the Uber car is on its way (without even asking), since as soon a driver accepts his/her offer, the customer sees the Uber car moving in real-time towards the pick-up location he suggested.
In other words, Uber is offering a service that taxi services simply can not offer (without the taxi services giving up on some of the advantages they have of having multiples ways of getting customers, which will never happen). Also, the barrier to entry for Uber drivers is much lower. For most of them, they can just use their existing car and just start driving for Uber only for a few hours each month (just to see what it's like). That's a very attractive proposition for potential drivers. Many of those potential drivers may already have full time jobs, part time jobs, or other serious commitments like kids to take care when they're not in day care or in school.
I root for Uber in Bucharest (Score:2, Insightful)
I think they are not succeeding in countries with well established and (maybe) good quality taxi services. This is not the case for Bucharest. Here the taxi drivers are guys with no education that would not get a job otherwise. They always expect tip and can become violent if this is not provided (especially to women). They smoke even if you ask for a non smoking cab and some of their cars are pitiful (I don't expect leather but I want the heating to work). Uber imposes some rules on cars and you can rate d
Uber will be welcome in Germany... (Score:2)
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"Deutschland über alles" again?
It's Frankfurt, with a "u" and this isn't anti-US. (Score:5, Informative)
This is about Uber pissing all over labour and transport regulations and getting in serious trouble because of that. ... ... sort-of-dependable here in Düsseldorf. ... idiots.
And competing against dependable and solid public transport networks.
Well, OK, scratch that
If only Rheinbahn could sync their online, offline and station timetables, that would be a huge plus
There's also a cottage industry of ride-sharing going on in Germany for quite some time now (roughly a decade) with platforms such as mitfahrgelegenheit.de [mitfahrgelegenheit.de] or blahblahcar.de [blablacar.de] covering some interesting parts of the market that Uber tries to target. In terms of ride-sharing Uber is actually quite late in the game by German standards.
As for transportation and labour laws: I took a taxi just this moring because I'd've been late with the tram & bike combo I usually use. The ride took approx. 16 minutes and costed 22 euros, tip included. The car was a Mercedes (almost all Taxis are Mercedes in Germany), the drive has to have a special training and "Personentransport" (it's what you think it is) drivers licence, he gets paid - not very big but he can live - and is tied in to healthcare and all the other stuff every citizen enjoys in Germany.
Bottom line: With public transport and the occasional luxurious taxi ride when time is short I see not that much of a market for Uber. And as for them getting legal flak for not following regulations - that's a thing I'm quite OK with.
Which "interests" are being supported? (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder, is their retreat due to a genuine disinterest by the populations of those countries or simply by anti-competitive practices by those countries "established interests"/governments? It almost sounds like at least in UberPops case that the general public was happy to use the service but the taxi companies/drivers "dissatisfaction" resulted in blocking traffic, government lobbying, destroying Uber cars and attacking their drivers. No doubt that Uber is a company that is more than anything interested
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At least you're not ein Wiener.
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european perspective (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, poor "innovators".
Look, here is what really happened:
We have existing taxi services that are actually quite good and regulated to the advantage of customers (for example, by law a taxi cannot refuse to drive you just because it's close by and he would prefer to wait for a higher fare customer).
My hometown, Hamburg, is mentioned, and for all my life my experience with taxis there is that it is easy to get one, they are clean, drivers speak good german and know the roads, fares are transparent and fair and for years before Uber appeared, there were already Apps that allowed you to order a taxi to your current location with a few clicks.
I don't know the situation in the USA, but over here not many people even saw the need for something like Uber. If you "disrupt" something that works reasonably well, you are acting destructively.
Maybe Uber is cheaper, but it is not as transparent or fair with its various surcharges and basically auction system. I'd rather know I will spend 20â to get to the airport than leave it up to chance and maybe today I'm lucky and pay only 15 - or maybe 30, who knows? If you want cheap, most of Europe has pretty good public transport (from my house to the airport: just over 3â and only 10 minutes longer than by taxi).
And then Uber came in with arrogance and hubris and basically said "fuck you all" not just to the taxi companies but also to regulators, police and the law. Sorry, but we here don't share the american "all government is the evil spawn of Satan" attitude. Sure we bitch about tax laws and we think our politicians are corrupt, incompetent imbeciles, but we also value the rule of law and wouldn't want to live in the wild west. We don't think companies and people who break the rules are innovators, we think they are assholes.
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And fuck /. and it's UTF support. That âÂis, of course, a Euro symbol - €
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We are proud of our social accomplishments (Score:2)
We are proud of our social accomplishments and we do not like people who mess with it. Especially, when they think they do not need to work inside the law. It might be acceptable in the US to fuck the law and the people and make profit from it. Here, we do not like it. And frankly enough international companies are doing it. Therefore, we fight against that. Even though our governments are not really into it. Even though, they encouraged some companies to pay some taxes and accept the local laws.
Umm (Score:2)
......
There are two reasons for this (Score:2)
Cabs are not needed as often in European cities because of the lush public transit systems available, and are in general a convenience, rather than a necessity. You might take a cab to the airport because you have luggage, but the alternative is a five-minute walk on safe streets (before the "refugees" came, anyway) to a tram or Metro stop, rather than having to beseech some car-equipped friend for a ride.
Because taxis are a non-critical part of the city experience in Europe, they compete on service. No gri
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"Yes, they are refugees."
Isn't it odd how as a percentage there are so few women, children and old people along with these 20 something male "refugees". Now either the demographics are so screwed in their countries that most of the population is 20 something males, or they're cowards who fled and left their families behind, or just maybe they're not refugees at all but uneducated economic migrants who have nothing to give but plenty to take.
Driver compensation (Score:5, Interesting)
All the drivers I've spoken too are doing it for extra cash or barely scraping by.
This is my problem with Uber and the so-called sharing economy. The future looks like multiple part-time jobs and low pay to me.
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The future looks like multiple part-time jobs and low pay to me
No, the future is driverless cars and no jobs or pay for cab or Uber drivers. Uber only needs their contractors for a few more years until the technology is ready, then drivers will be free to retrain for better jobs in another industry.
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Many do in Uber Black, which was the original Uber service and is often a lot closer to "legal" than UberX.
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Genie and bottle (Score:2, Interesting)
Uber may ultimately fail, but that doesn't really matter - something else similar will take its place, and the only question is one of how long the process will take. There is a strong parallel between Uber and Napster. In both cases a disruptive technology was used to render existing scarcities obsolete. Those vested in the status quo fought back, but continue to lose ground - the market 'spoke' in the way it always does, but in these cases the incumbents didn't like what the market was saying.
Napster is d
Wiggeeee (Score:2)
Donald, is that you?
Re:Europe, land of the sheep and chickenshit (Score:4, Insightful)
A socialist pipedream in which college education is free.*
Good luck paying off your college loans, and your children's college loans, suckers.
____
*Free because college graduates pay back more in taxes to the government in 6 years than the cost of their education.
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*Free because college graduates pay back more in taxes to the government in 6 years than the cost of their education.
OK, I've heard of a lot of statements regarding our college graduates, but this bullshit takes the cake.
Why? Well because technically you need a fucking job in order to actually pay taxes on it.
Re:Europe, land of the sheep and chickenshit (Score:5, Informative)
*Free because college graduates pay back more in taxes to the government in 6 years than the cost of their education.
OK, I've heard of a lot of statements regarding our college graduates, but this bullshit takes the cake.
Why? Well because technically you need a fucking job in order to actually pay taxes on it.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi... [bbc.com]
How US students get a university degree for free in Germany
By Franz Strasser BBC News, Germany
3 June 2015
While the cost of college education in the US has reached record highs, Germany has abandoned tuition fees altogether for German and international students alike. An increasing number of Americans are taking advantage and saving tens of thousands of dollars to get their degrees.
More than 4,600 US students are fully enrolled at Germany universities, an increase of 20% over three years. At the same time, the total student debt in the US has reached $1.3 trillion (£850 billion).
(Hunter Bliss, South Carolina.)
Each semester, Hunter pays a fee of â111 ($120) to the Technical University of Munich (TUM), one of the most highly regarded universities in Europe, to get his degree in physics.
Included in that fee is a public transportation ticket that enables Hunter to travel freely around Munich.
Health insurance for students in Germany is â80 ($87) a month, much less than what Amy would have had to pay in the US to add him to her plan.
To cover rent, mandatory health insurance and other expenses, Hunter's mother sends him between $6,000-7,000 each year.
At his nearest school back home, the University of South Carolina, that amount would not have covered the tuition fees. Even with scholarships, that would have totalled about $10,000 a year. Housing, books and living expenses would make that number much higher.
Research shows that the system is working, says Sebastian Fohrbeck of DAAD, and that 50% of foreign students stay in Germany.
"Even if people don't pay tuition fees, if only 40% stay for five years and pay taxes we recover the cost for the tuition and for the study places so that works out well."
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Forcing people into dept so they can get an education. This is just another scheme by the rich to keep the poor down.
Re:Europe, land of the sheep and chickenshit (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that not everyone is in equal opportunity to invest. To some families/individuals, the cost of college in the US is trivial. To others, it's hugely prohibitive. This imparts a bias in which it's far easier for a certain segment of the population to pay for college than another (much larger) segment, which discourages the latter from attending college, which discourages a large portion of those who would actually be good at a particular career from getting the background and degree that they need to pursue it - leading to said positions being filled by less qualified individuals who simply came from personal (or more often, family) backgrounds with more money.
That's not to say that individuals from poor families can't reach success - far from it. But in this regard money is like the difficulty setting on a video game. Sure, someone who's really skilled may still beat it on the hardest setting, while someone who is lousy at the game may still lose on the easiest. But playing the game at a particular difficulty setting is going to skew the percentage of people who succeed at it. The "high scores" - the job market - is based around those who won the game without regard to what sort of difficulty setting they played at, and so naturally it's going to be skewed toward those who played at easier difficulty settings, rather than being an accurate list of who is really best at the game.
Beyond the base economic issues of wanting your nation's workers to be able to reach their maximum potential rather than having potentially brilliant scientists and engineers working retail, there's also the issue of happiness. Because people tend to work harder at jobs that they enjoy. But if someone gets locked into a particular career path that they don't enjoy or aren't good at, high costs of tuition (as well as a lack of a "safety net", such as universal healthcare) make a career change a hugely, often prohibitively costly endeavour. Where tuition is cheap and a safety net stronger, people who realize that they've headed down the wrong career path are much more likely to switch career paths and find one that they actually do enjoy and are good at, rather than being unhappy and unproductive for decades in the workforce.
Safety nets and universal tuition do have a cost, don't get me wrong. But having workers in the wrong career and not having people meet their potential has an even bigger cost.
Re:Europe, land of the sheep and chickenshit (Score:4, Funny)
Good job, Mallory. Keep it rolling. We have to convince the slaves that responsibility for workforce development is not on our backs, else there won't be a flood of college-trained workers for us to pick from. If people stop getting self-directed college education, we'll get a labor shortage, and you know what that means: we have to take up entrants, train them, send them to college, pay for it, and then give them fair salaries and good benefits so they don't leave for a better employer. That would be horrifying; they're supposed to be serfs, not human beings!
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You said the same as the parent.
Poor kids can get an education, but it's much harder for them than it is for rich kids.
About correlation between poverty and parents perceived value of education, well, I can't think clearly on a empty stomach, can you?
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Rich kids are guaranteed higher education, if they want it.
Poor kids have to work at it.
My only problem with this is that the Rich kids don't have to work for it.
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Nonsense. Tuition in the US is free for the poor: there are sufficient grants to cover poor students who earn a place in college by performing satisfactorily on entrance exams and by demonstrating solid work in their high school years. The actual problem is twofold: first, that many poor children, like their parents before them, are not sufficiently intelligent to pass those exams or not sufficiently diligent to perform well in school; and second, that the parents do not value education enough to encourage their children to go to college. The two problems are not unrelated.
Still blaming the poor for being poor, eh? The corollary would be that if everyone worked hard and was smart enough there would be no poor; everyone would be rich and successful. Is that your position? Under our economic system, do you think that's possible? Would McDonald's employees be driving Bentleys if they were smart and industrious enough? Or would there simply be no McDonald's employees? Or is your argument just rubbish?
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I disagree. You can compare across time, and so it is perfectly fair to say that the majority of people are filthy rich (compared to our ancestors 10,000 years ago).
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That's how Europe actually does it. We all invest in your education so you can provide the advanced services like medical that we all depend upon. We don't get money back, but affordable healthcare.
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So, assuredly, non-advanced services education are not provided for free, right?
Because it would discourage a potential doctor from studying medicine if they could also get free education for becoming an artist.
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You're holding humanity back as you've always been doing. The rest of the world is subsidizing your grandiose socialist pipedream.
Stop being a cry baby just because this shit is legal in the US doesn't mean it's legal in the rest of the world
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You're holding humanity back as you've always been doing. The rest of the world is subsidizing your grandiose socialist pipedream.
Stop being a cry baby just because this shit is legal in the US doesn't mean it's legal in the rest of the world
If that were true, and it's not quite established that it is, all that would mean is that you have more shitty laws than we do. You've had more time to create them. Legality has never been the same as morality or even common sense, and is often not aligned with the will or good of the people, so your argument ("the law says so") is stupid.
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If that were true, and it's not quite established that it is, all that would mean is that you have more shitty laws than we do. You've had more time to create them. Legality has never been the same as morality or even common sense, and is often not aligned with the will or good of the people, so your argument ("the law says so") is stupid.
Find me a law that isn't shitty they are all written from the point of view that in order to stop a minority of people doing something we have to make it illegal for everybody. As for laws in foreign countries being shittier than ours I'm sure that holds true from the point of view of citizens of most civilized countries where the police actually get prosecuted if they shoot dead an unarmed civilian who was trying to surrender. However, that's not true for my country ( https://www.google.co.uk/url?s... [google.co.uk] )
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Most of the natives that died as a result of Europeans arriving in Americas died because of infection. This does not make it good but it is not a killing you make it be.
As for US Americans and their corporations and political elites destroying all the their EU counterparts being better - I have serious doubts. Take Merkel for instance and you will find a ruthless bitch that destroys all that stands in her way (of staying at power). Morals are used here only as a means to that end. The only advantage Europe
Re: Europe, land of the sheep and chickenshit (Score:5, Insightful)
I think after two attempts they noticed that it doesn't work.
The US are still in the learning phase.
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It's at least three.
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So what did you want to say?
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This never would have happened if they had just kept an arm's length apart ;)
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His head is not in his arse - you might want to check yours. Leaping to conclusions (as you appear to want to do) is not a sign of a well-functioning brain.
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Maybe it's more that in Europe countries have not been taken over by commerce to the degree that has happened in the US.
If that were true, then your taxi companies would not have succeeded in purchasing your minds so effectively that you champion your own lack of freedom at every turn.
Indeed, when you want to do a business in a country, you obey simple rules,
Those laws are not only not simple in their effect, they are anticompetitive.
you obey simple rules, nothing more, apparently Uber has issues with that, and perhaps that attitude is typically American, who knows.
Perhaps it is. [wikipedia.org] Don't be too proud of your willingness to follow the party line and maintain the status quo. We've seen what that looks like in Europe, and it is not pretty. There are flags, and marching, and jackboots.
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You seem to be thinking the state of taxis in western Europe is similar to that in the US. In great swathes of Europe there are countries being targeted by Uber, which have great taxi services. People like the taxis - they are prompt, cheap, well maintained, and driven by trained professionals. Uber comes along and starts ignoring the rules, claiming "oh we do ride sharing, not taxis!" seemingly unaware of the massive popularity of ride sharing across Europe, and that said popularity means no-one believe
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>
I walk to a street corner, flag a taxi, pay with cash - there's no record in anyone's computer systems about where I went or when.
You may be trolling, but I'll bite anyway. Do you also wear a mask and elevator shoes, and alter your gait, so the images from all those video cameras you passed on the way can't be quite as easily identified? Also, did you leave your phone behind, or at least pull the battery?
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"they're in blatant violation of taxi laws in the u.s. too and just hide behind semantics..."
In the US this is a selling point for Uber, because here everyone hates the taxi-monopoly laws except the cab companies. Even our cabdrivers hate the fact that, unlike Uber drivers, the company has no connection with the customer and it's murder roulette every time they pick up a fare.
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In the US our pharma monopoly, which is government-enforced by a long series of laws passed by the best paid lobbyists in the history of the world, is a much bigger problem than municipal taxi monopolies.
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