As much as you guys love to hate on Uber, do you honestly want to go back to a world without it?
Just in case it isn't clear, Uber is just the easy whipping boy because of bad PR -- the legal hurdles Uber is going through will crush Lyft just as quickly (probably faster because they have a smaller legal team).
Taxi unions aren't going to say "oh, but Lyft doesn't have as much sexual harassment in the workplace, we'll let them slide."
This is a reactionary kick by a protected industry, but if the legal framework ends up crushing hail-to-ride companies, those laws aren't going anywhere for a long, long time.
The change will only happen if it's not-explicitly-illegal and people are able to use the service to see the value; if one of those stops, we're going back to unavailable, dirty, unsafe, cabs with perpetually broken credit card readers.
> As much as you guys love to hate on Uber, do you honestly want to go back to a world without it?
As an European? Yes.
Things were evolving fine in Europe; from our POV, Uber isn't doing anything innovative - they're just a personal transportation company (we have those) with a cute app (we have those) that tries to outcompete everyone by unilaterally deciding that laws don't apply to them.
> Taxi unions aren't going to say "oh, but Lyft doesn't have as much sexual harassment in the workplace, we'll let them slide."
I wish this would stop; I get that sexual harassment is what media loves to write about, but this was not remotely the biggest or most wrong thing Uber has done. Their whole business model is antisocial.
As an european, I disagree strongly. Uber has improved my standard of living significantly. However has to be noted that taxi regulation varies greatly from country to country.
Obviously opinions about Uber and usage frequency vary, but it's a matter of fact that the quality of Taxi service in most European countries is better than in the U.S., and the ubiquity and affordability of public transport means that there is little actual need for Uber for most people in urban areas BEYOND convenience and luxury needs. And while those of course are total legit, they (in my eyes) shouldn't be the main driver in shaping legislation which will affect everyone.
My experience as an European taking our local taxis:
- Getting scammed by the typical "longer ride"
- Aggressive driving, crossing red lights, etc
- Unpleasant drivers: either passive-aggressive who won't reply to your "good morning", or permanently complaining about everything, including the current trip (too cheap!)
- Apps? Ha! They don't even have GPS, and no, they don't know "the whole city", good luck getting to a smaller street just by the address.
- Your trip goes a bit outside the city limits? Here's a surcharge for the remainder of the trip plus a fee for the trip back (even after your left the cab).
Plus one can't even point to Uber's corruption and lack of respect for law: our association of taxis and its president are no better, just smaller.
Uber's are not particularly cheaper around here, yet I'd choose it or one of their competitors over taxis any day even if they were 50% more expensive.
No question there, these are problems (although in the countries I know about such as Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, the taxi organizations have apps, and in addition there is MyTaxi).
But if you are a person who is willing to pay 50 % more just to get the Uber experience, then it is rather likely that you are part of a minority. Which, I think, proves my point of the group that Uber mostly caters to: convenience-focused people with enough money not having to worry about (frequently?) pay for ridesharing.
Someone like you is already able to take Uber Black, so everything is fine, isn't it?
And I disagree that it's just convenience. Crossing red lights and similar behavior that I've seen make it a safety issue as well.
By the way, I'm not willing to pay more because I'm flush with cash, but because I drive it rarely enough that it wouldn't mean much at the end of the year.
The claim that taxi dribers cross red lights (and Uber drivers don't) is the weirdest argument in support of Uber I have heard about so far.
Uber Black is giving you what you want: An enhanced experience over taxi while simoultaneosuly following the legal requirements.
But what you want in addition: it should be cheaper than taxi. Better overall experience, but cheaper. Makes sense, everyone wants that. But this comes with larger costs for the society (especially long-term) which frustratingly, the biggest Uber advocates always choose to ignore.
Having said that, I really do understand the frustration about the regular imperfections and inefficiencies of hailing a cab. The problem I see that the proposed answer - Uber - the very company - is in the end a very bad solution from a big picture view (even if it elevates the rider experience).
> The claim that taxi dribers cross red lights (and Uber drivers don't) is the weirdest argument in support of Uber I have heard about so far.
It's my experience, atypical or not.
> Uber Black is giving you what you want: An enhanced experience over taxi while simoultaneosuly following the legal requirements.
Incorrect. There's no legal difference between the two in my jurisdiction.
Maybe you're confused by Uber's names? Around here, like in other (all?) countries in Europe, UberX only uses drivers with professional licenses to drive passengers. The "free-for-all" model is UberPOP (which was never introduced in my country).
By the way, please don't tell others what they want. Obviously all other things equal I prefer to pay less, but I was very explicit in that I don't mind if they're somewhat more expensive, I'd still use it over taxis.
Having said that, while I like that Uber gave a kick in the pants in a complacent and frankly arrogant professional class, now that the market has been opened up I don't care if Uber itself sticks around.
No problem, for a while I was confused as well. Seems kind of silly of Uber to conflate the two; one would think it's in their best interest to avoid it.
"- Apps? Ha! They don't even have GPS, and no, they don't know "the whole city", good luck getting to a smaller street just by the address."
I usually use night tram (living in northern part of Poznań is quite nice) when I drink, but when I use taxi they usually have GPS. At least for a few years.
Maybe public transit only runs certain hours or that high quality taxi is too expensive. The billions of trips on Uber and similar platforms indicate that this is often the case.
If in fact there is "little actual need" for Uber, then nobody will use it. That's the beauty of allowing consumers the choice. It uncovers whether assumptions like this are actually true. It is like constantly running an experiment.
> The billions of trips on Uber and similar platforms indicate that this is often the case.
> That's the beauty of allowing consumers the choice. It uncovers whether assumptions like this are actually true. It is like constantly running an experiment.
From hundreds of years of running market economies in the world we already have a clear experimental result: consumers prefer cheaper goods/services to more expensive ones of equivalent quality.
If you can make your service cheaper by subsidizing it with VC money and then even more by ignoring regulation, then there's no surprise consumers will use it - even if long term, the service is unsustainable and socially destructive.
Why wouldn't I prefer Uber to Taxis even if the price was the same? I've ridden in tons of Ubers and taxis and the quality of the Uber ride has always been better: cleaner car, a non-monetary rating system that enforces good behavior (I think it's clear that tipping does nothing), working GPS and credit card usage, drivers always know where to go, etc.
I've never had to tell an Uber driver where to go or approximately where my destination is, so it's really frustrating when I can remember a few times where I would get into a taxi and have the taxi guy be frustrated at ME, the paying customer, for not knowing what region of the city my destination was.
Well, I explicitly wrote "BEYOND convenience and luxury needs"
Of course some people take Uber. For almost any kind of service there will be customers. But that's not the point. At least not my point. My point is that the large majority of people in Europe do not need Uber for their mobility needs. And therefore, Uber should - in my point of view - not get outsize influence over transportation policy.
Because Uber is not just a startup that wants equal terms. It is a predatory (I really rarely use this word, but for Uber, I do) giant that has zero consideration for social responsibility and very deep pockets for lobbyism. Once they have a foot in the door, they'll push it wide open. Which is why cautiousness in this case is really necessary, in my eyes.
It seems like the key argument hinges on whether or not venture capital is significantly subsidizing these rides. If Uber ever turns a profit (not a financially engineered one), that might change the discussion a bit.
I'm European and I couldn't disagree more with you.
Why didn't the EU block companies like Expedia taking over the traditional travel agent business, why didn't they stop Amazon and others from selling books online and stoped hundreds of traditional bookstores from closing, why didn't they stop VoIP and chat companies from closing, etc.
I'm not a fan of Uber as a company/culture, but the value they provide to me is huge. The traditional taxi driver isn't willing to change, admit that their license/medallion is a barrier to entry designed and speculated by them. If they don't want to change others will come and provide a better service/product.
To me, Uber is a necessary evil. I will continue to use them night and day... until a better service pops-up.
I draw the line at following the law. As far as I know, neither Expedia nor Amazon operate in blatant violation of law anywhere in Europe.
And even if it was just bending or breaking some rules unfairly lobbied in by the taxi mafia, I'd cut Uber some slack. But over the years, they've shown time and again, and again, that it's not about some greater social goal (in spite of their marketing copy), it's not surgical lawbreaking to make things better. They just play dirty and don't care; hell, the management was always pretty smug about it.
Because you don't need a license to sell books or vacations but you need one to drive a taxi? Don't worry, the taxi business will definitely change after this.
In the US, we've had black car services for years. The difference here was always that only taxi's could take road-side hails (that's it). Now, any commercial vehicle on the road in the US needs to comply with their state Public Utility Commission (PUC). If they cross state lines like truckers, there is a set of federal licensing (in addition to state regulations). Most Uber drivers are compliant with their state PUCs because it's pretty easy: <7 yr old vehicle, commercial insurance, valid drivers license. Digital hailing is an obvious efficiency gain that some people refuse to acknowledge (seemingly because of an emotional reaction >80%).
Sure, but, for example, Uber in London is not in the taxi business, but that of the minicabs. Minicabs don't need the taxi license. However, Uber does need to comply with TfL rules.
The really disrupting thing here is the ability in ordering the car from the mobile phone, and the frictionless experience. This is what is making the taxi obsolete. Now that black cab drivers have realised of the threat, they want to consider all others equals, when before they where happy living with Addison Lee, et al.
PS: travel agents do need licenses to sell airplane tickets, and have bank guarantees, etc., just to gain a fee. Pass through websites which earn a fee, like the travel agents, don't.
As a German: Most of my experiences with traditional cabs have been horrible. There were some nice exceptions but on the whole I really try to avoid taking a cab.
More-less the same as "an American", the two places are comparable. Situation may differ from city to city, but since the article is saying "Europe", I want to point out that many places in Europe had figured out all the legal Uber "innovations" long before Uber itself showed up on the continent. So we would be totally fine without an actor that doesn't play by the rules.
It's not really the same thing as saying as "an American". America is much more homogeneous than Europe.
Even though US states have laws that differ they operate using same legal system, culturally they are very similar and the majority of people speak english.
This is not the case within the European Union, for example German and Italian law uses a different legal system to Ireland. Their is no common European language and culturally their are massive differences from place to place.
I've had awful taxi experiences in many European countries (Italy, France, Belgium to name a few) in the years before Uber. Maybe I'm missing something, could you provide some examples of European countries where getting a taxi was a pleasant experience prior to Uber?
A fair point about the homogeneity, though existence of EU slowly improves things here.
> could you provide some examples of European countries where getting a taxi was a pleasant experience prior to Uber?
Probably everywhere. The problem is still lack of consistency.
Just look at this whole thread. I never had a bad experience with taxis in Poland, pre- or post-Uber - but I have a friend who had, and he hates taxi companies because of it. 'yoodenvranx doesn't like taxis in Germany, but 'burgreblast presumably doesn't mind. 'user15672 and 'phillc73 are ok with taxis in London, but hating on London taxis is so common I don't even need to look for examples.
So taxis in Europe aren't uniformly bad or uniformly good; they seem to be a mixed bag, with a lot depending on city, company or even the driver you get. Something that definitely could be improved, but then again, people report bad rides with Uber too, and all of that doesn't free Uber from the requirement of following local laws.
Can you expand on this please, because as noted by other comments, many other Europeans are disagreeing with you.
1. When you say "evolving fine in Europe," can you clarify what portions of Europe, perhaps specifically countries or cities? Or can you expressly state that you mean the entirety of Europe?
2. Can you name the personal transportation companies with cute apps that make Uber unnecessary for the regions indicated by (1) ?
1) Varies per city and per country, but over the years in Uber threads I've seen enough people on HN from various parts of Europe who told wrote about their local systems to be convinced that pretty much every country in Europe has such a business. So I believe I can generalize safely over at least the whole EU.
2) Where I live - Kraków, Poland - we had iCar for years (they've expanded to several cities in the region now). Their app could use a facelift, true, but otherwise works fine, and in pre-app times, their phone dispatch worked well too.
I remember them first showing up when I was a teenager, 10 or so years ago. They had a conflict with regular taxi companies over their business model - a conflict which over the years got resolved in courts, and regulations were appropriately adjusted. I can point to that as an example of how to handle the issue in a civilized way.
There are also at least two companies that attempt to bridge different services in different cities under one app - Taxi.eu and myTaxi. They also work together with the regular taxi services (the evil "taxi mafias") too.
I remember them first showing up when I was a teenager, 10 or so years ago. They had a conflict with regular taxi companies over their business model - a conflict which over the years got resolved in courts, and regulations were appropriately adjusted. I can point to that as an example of how to handle the issue in a civilized way.
So they started operating before the regulations were changed to accommodate their model. How exactly is this different from Uber?
They didn't act illegally, they found a workaround that was technically legal (taxis used a license-per-driver model, they figured out how to make it work with company-wide license) and lowered their costs (no need for expensive training and exams, they offset that by relying on GPS, and it was in fact the very reason I preferred them).
Regular taxi companies obviously got angry at the new competition, there was some tire slashing, and eventually courts clarified the regulations in a way that didn't turn out bad for either party, and now they peacefully coexist. Regular taxis adopted some of the new ideas, too, and the overall quality of service improved for every company.
I don't believe so. As far as I know, unlike Uber, iCar never:
- actually broke any local law
- pulled any shenanigans with taxes or employment laws
- allowed nor encouraged drivers to operate with improper insurance
- messed with journalists
- used investor money to subsidize rides to the point no one could compete with their prices
Their one innovation was using GPS, which allowed them to avoid the need for training drivers in city kowlege (and the legal workaround they found thus let them operate under one company-wide transportation license), and to bill by distance instead of by time. The latter was actually a huge value for consumers, because it removed the price variation caused by congestion, as well as allowed the company to state the whole price up front, which made people trust them more.
Prague has Liftago [0] (from English "lift" and Czech "tágo", colloquial for taxi). It basically unites licensed taxi drivers. Payments are processes by Liftago. Works very nicely.
I don't see a reason why a licensed taxi company couldn't work as Uber on the outside. (Liftago does.)
Without Uber, I can take a taxi (or a more Uber-like pseudo-taxi rental car with driver) anonymously, instead of being molested by a hostile company through a hostile app. So, apart from illegal pricing, they cannot even compete on quality of service.
I am currently vacationing in Rome, and loving it, except for two things: tourist-oriented restaurants; and taxis. Those are seriously horrible. 16 euros for a 5 minute ride? Not a problem for out budget, but this is racket, pure and simple, and I hate being fleeced. We're hating it enough that we'll try to avoid countries without Uber in the future.
That is one benefit of Uber (and trans-national apps like MyTaxi or Taxi.eu) compared to local taxis. My guess is you're being ripped off because you're tourists.
I remember that as a kid, my mother and grandmother would teach me to never take a taxi that's parking in front of the train station, because those are the scammers that prey on tourists. Instead one should order a taxi from a known company using a phone.
>My guess is you're being ripped off because you're tourists.
This does not make it OK. If Uber solves this problem alone it will help lift the local economy.
I'm enough of HN comment reader to know you mean well, but I honestly don't think you are thinking this through clearly because of your personal experience. Keep in mind, I live in a small town in fly-over-country-USA, so I have no use for Uber.
Not sure what you're referring to. I'm definitely not defending the practice of ripping off tourists, and in fact I admit that Uber, being a multinational service, gives a real value for consumers in this aspect.
> Things were evolving fine in Europe; from our POV, Uber isn't doing anything innovative - they're just a personal transportation company (we have those) with a cute app (we have those) that tries to outcompete everyone by unilaterally deciding that laws don't apply to them.
I think the major innovation that's overlooked (because they haven't rolled it out in many markets) is UberPool/Lyft Line. Being able to match strangers with departures/destinations on the same route leads to significant savings for the customers and better car efficiency (one car for two trips, instead of two cars).
I'd say no. Blablacar is more of a market place matching empty seats and riders with a driver to a common(ish) destination. UberPool is more like a smart/dynamically routed minibus that constantly picks up and drops off passengers. What they have in common is that they try to minimize empty seats in cars.
I don't know how UberPool or Lyft Line work exactly, but it sounds like the shared taxi initiatives (mostly operated by the railways) we've had in the Netherlands for decades.
> As an European? Yes.
> Things were evolving fine in Europe; from our POV, Uber isn't doing anything innovative - they're just a personal transportation company (we have those) with a cute app (we have those) that tries to outcompete everyone by unilaterally deciding that laws don't apply to them.
If you believe that taxis are getting better in Europe, see the following video:
So why did uber become popular if you already have equivalents? Unless Europe is populated by an abnormally large number of masochists, it must have been cheaper, more convenient, or higher quality.
If it was able to achieve one or more of the above benefits because it broke laws, I'm curious as to the benefits of those laws and do they outweigh the benefits uber apparently provided?
As an American, I am unfamiliar with taxi regulations in Europe, but I would be hard presssed to find any benefits of the taxi regulations in US cities in which I have lived.
On the other hand, in Japan where I live now, there are very few taxi regulations (no medallion system). Unlike the US, taxis are cheap, convenient, and high quality. As a result, uber is almost non existent. My intuition is if Europe had a well functioning taxi system like Japan, uber would not have become popular.
"Uber being popular" is probably just an American thing.
I can imagine mild popularity in Berlin, but I (living in a smallish town near a middle-to-big city) don't think I know anybody who has ever taken an Uber.
Not because of how scummy Uber is, but because it's nearly irrelevant.
It's only notoriety and relevance stems from it's legal troubles.
It was a great improvement in Budapest over the scumbag taxis.
Now of course the taxi lobby got it banned, but there's something called taxify instead, of course it's the homegrown version by some blessed local firm.
Uber is an amazing example of the Silicon Valley bubble trying to solve a problem that exists for them but not others. Just because taxi service was abhorrently bad in San Francisco doesn't mean it's that bad everywhere. VCs didn't really seem to know that and threw billions at them, they failed to live up to the promised growth because they ran into local competition that they didn't anticipate, so they pivoted to a margin play and are now spinning tales of how close they are to being able to fire all of their (already underpaid) contractors.
Can't wait to see them crash and burn and be replaced by commodity ride-share services that have a better connection to their service area.
Uber's MVP product improves upon all taxi services. Hailing a cab with an app is much better than making a call and hoping they show up.
But all the extra work getting people to drive in the spare time doesn't really add much value. It's only viable because they are dumping money in the market to subsidize it.
Uber could co-exist with taxis. In many cities you can hail a regulated cab with the app.
<quote>You know the rest of the world isn't as racist as the USA</quote>
Unless perhaps, you are a Turk in Germany or a Roma just about anywhere in Europe.
A reasonable point. I'd say the US is worse in absolute terms (simply on account of a much larger number of number of fatal shootings and the like), but whether that means it's more racist or similarly so and just more violent in general is tricky to analyze. It's unfortunate that we find ourselves having to make such comparisons at all :-(
Everywhere in the 60s or everywhere in pre-Uber XXI century? Honest question; I was under the impression that most of the racism problems in the US have been solved before I was born.
Racism in the US is not currently solved, so your impression is incorrect. Slavery is gone, and legal segregation is gone, but racism is still alive and well.
While the other comment is particularly snarky, and while modern day racism is less overt than activities like lynching, it still exists.
As an easy example from recent news, a Texas judge posting on facebook that it was "time for a tree and a rope" (which is an implied lynching)[0].
I love this, because it obliterates the "but why should I have to do anything for other people?!" argument of my conservatives friends here in the USA.
They always dance this weird line between "the deep state run by the rich are destroying this country for their profit" and "people should be allowed to make money however they want, and do whatever they want with that money."
This is very interesting. What are the limits on this?
The prior sentence refers to inheritance, so it's clearly about personal property also (if not exclusively). But if someone inherits a Porsche, in what way is it supposed to serve the public good?
Also, the following sentence discusses expropriation (which appears to be what is known in the US as eminent domain). And the title of the section is "Property — Inheritance — Expropriation".
I wonder if this means this section (including the intriguing sentence you quoted) is just talking about rules for inheriting and expropriating property. That is, perhaps it's not a general rule for property to serve the public good (just that it may be called to do so in cases of expropriation).
I would be very interested to know how other people interpret this sentence and the section in which it's found.
The article is number 14, so it's a basic right – articles 1 through 19 – we open our constitution with our rights, we don't add them as an afterthought in some amendments. ;-)
So paragraph 1 guarantees property and inheritance. And makes both subject to limitations, set out by law (freedom of art, for example, is not limited by laws, at least not literally in the text of the constitution).
Paragraph 2 lays out one such limitation: social benefit.
Paragraph 3 lays out a means to achieve that: expropriation (exceedingly rare, I think it is sometimes used for huge infrastructure projects like Autobahnen or railroad tracks, but only after years of negotiations).
So it is indeed a general rule, not a detail to expropriation.
To your question about the limits on paragraph 2 let me just throw in a bit from the German Wikipedia, without having checked it:
* Not all property is subject to this limit to the basic right to property, but only such property that has "social relevance"
I would interpret it so that apartments and housing are clearly having social relevance, but your Porsche probably hasn't.
Furthermore:
* Those limitations to the basic right to property must be rooted in fomal law, not just regulations or jurisprudence.
I'm not German, and obviously not familiar with German law, but it sounds to me like this sentence is not itself enumerating any particular limits, but rather serving as a reminder of the kind of philosophy they want the law to obey: that property is not a fundamental and absolute right like the right to life (as it is in the Lockean conception which influenced British and American law), but rather a conditional one, whose precise definition should be tuned to whatever is best for society as a whole.
What I mean is, I think history has shown that the "best" definition of property (as in, which one has the best outcomes for society) is one that's "mostly private". Full Communism clearly doesn't work very well, but an absolutely inviolate right to private property carries all kinds of problems too, so instead most countries have settled on a flexible definition where there is private property with an enumerated set of restrictions and limitations (which a hardcore Lockean can't do, because to them property is absolute). The sentence in the constitution seems like a reminder of this when it comes time for a constitutional judge to evaluate a particular law, which I think is right - a constitution can't cover every possible situation, it should be a set of guidelines for entering unfamiliar territory.
Right, on that level many things are basically abstract formulations of intent over which people can debate a long time. :-)
There is also Article 20, saying in part:
"The Federal Republic of Germany is a democratic and social federal state.
So the social obligation of property isn't a fluke, but more a consequence of this provision.
The "social" is really important here and it is being interpreted as a real duty of the state to achieve social welfare. And it is so central to our constitution that it is protected by the "eternity clause" in Article 79:
"Amendments to this Basic Law affecting the division of the Federation into Länder, their participation on principle in the legislative process, or the principles laid down in Articles 1 and 20 shall be inadmissible."
It's probably been thought of and accounted for already, but I have to ask: could the government first amend the constitution to remove Article 79, and then start messing with the parts it protected? :).
From what I know, the current legal consensus is that this is not possible (despite not being explicitly mentioned, which really seems like a strange oversight, but it's seen as being obviously the intent of article 79) – the only way to get rid of it would be to replace the Grundgesetz with a new constitution. (Some argue that since the institutions that could replace it are bound by the Grundgesetz, them enacting a constitution that doesn't provide the protections of article 1-20 would not be legal, but that's further in the realm of untested theories)
And of course, changes like this would be likely to happen in political environments that don't care about these things.
Article 79 does not overtly protect itself in the literal text, but constitutional scholars are pretty much unanimous in their assessment that Article 79 is indeed included, because any other interpretation would render Article 79 pretty much useless.
Modern economics started with Adam Smith saying , and I'm paraphrasing, enlightened self-interest for organizations can lead to the social and economic good for all
> As much as you guys love to hate on Uber, do you honestly want to go back to a world without it?
No. No one is asking for Uber to go away. I just want Uber to follow the rule of law and operate lawfully, just like most of their competitors.
If there are unfair taxi medallion restrictions in cities, remove the unfair restrictions. Uber should never get to just ignore laws they don't like, for the same reason you and I don't get to do so.
Uber losing out doesn't mean a complete reversion to "the way things was". Look at Austin - Uber left, and new players entered the arena. The rest of the world has already adjusted to Uber's business model by basically just copying it, without the non-sense that comes with Uber.
Uber isn't the single pillar carrying the transportation world forward - they forced a change, yes, but inertia will keep such competition going. There is no need for Uber and all the baggage that comes with it. It has been shown clearly that others can and will fill any hole Uber leaves.
Yes, I very much do want to go back to a world without Uber.
They're part of a huge step backwards for employee's rights. They might have a good app, but from all the people I know who've used Uber, they use them primarily because they're cheap. They're cheap because their drivers aren't paid well enough and because they evade taxes. Their appropriation of the phrase "sharing economy" is in my opinion spin to avoid the responsibility any employer has towards their employees.
The worst features of Uber are more of a testament to the lack of labor protection in the US than anything wrong with Uber per se. If we had single payer health care, automatic employee protections without ridiculous loopholes, and so forth, then Uber would be fine. Amazon, Walmart, etc. are all built on the ability of US companies to avoid paying people a living wage.
I don't understand this -- what's to prevent an Uber driver from just quitting if he's underpaid? Do you also avoid stores that pay their employees minimum wage?
Do Uber drivers even have an expectation to earn a minimum wage? But to answer your question, yes, I do avoid stores and businesses that are known to treat their employees poorly and e.g. block unionization.
As for "Uber drivers can just quit", I think that's a very simplistic argument. Uber are pricing competitors out of the market (using venture capital!), turning what used to be a fairly decent job into something that's barely enough to scrape by on. The people likely to driver for Uber likely don't have as many options, and probably fewer by the day as jobs that don't require are lot of skills are increasingly being turned into temporary jobs and platform gigs. I'm from Scandinavia, which has a very high degree of social cohesion and low economic inequality, and I see it very mch as a regression and a danger to society.
> turning what used to be a fairly decent job into something that's barely enough to scrape by on
That hasn't been true in the US. In NYC Uber drivers make $30/hr and don't have to work under the existing exploitative Taxi system where they could actually lose money on an unprofitable day. Also, Uber has brought car service to smaller cities (e.g. Mountain View) where there used to be no Taxi system at all (in fact airport taxis would price gouge you for going SFO -> South Bay). Maybe Europe is different but I don't think you can make blanket statements like that.
Well nothing prevents it. [1] In fact they do. The churn rate for Uber is insane. They sign people up and wait for them to realize that after hidden costs (like depreciation and repair) they aren't making much money at all. They are mostly monetizing people's inability to account for expenses.
[1] well some of their car lease deals seem sorta like locking people people in. But I don't know enough about them.
One of the things preventing an Uber driver from just quitting is that Uber drives down price expecations across the board, and so makes it harder for others to pay their drivers a reasonable wage.
You might think that's ok, but in societies where we have agreed that having people go without healthcare or housing, or letting people starve is unacceptable, predatory employers end up in effect subsidised by the state, and those subsidies hurt both tax payers and more ethically run competitors.
> When Brunelle got home, he realized he had signed a loan with a 22.75 percent interest rate. That means he will end up paying around $49,000 on a Kia Optima that normally retails for about $25,000.
Perhaps those people are unemployed, and all they need to be an Uber driver is a driver's license and a car?
Another likely possibility is that people often think their cost to drive someone is just gas ignoring cost of of car registration, insurance, car maintenance etc. Ignoring other costs the Uber's pay seem attractive.
> As much as you guys love to hate on Uber, do you honestly want to go back to a world without it?
Why is the choice about going back? I want to move forward into a world with driver-owned Ubers (aka platform cooperatives). I like ride hailing apps, I don't like how Uber is a vehicle for VCs to extract rent from drivers.
I have a lot more personal data points (anecdotes) with taxis than with Uber, so that's not really a fair comparison.
But, some of my recent experiences with taxi have been (both in New York):
- Asking at the airport for a Taxi where we could pay with card, since we had no cash. Finding out at the hotel that the driver had it disconnected and refusing to put it on since "it wasn't working". It ended up with him driving me to an ATM to get cash to pay him.
- Going from the center to LaGuardia, checking the route on Google Maps it's clear that the driving is taking us for a ride. When confronted he asks us cheekily if we are from around there (no, but we can read a map).
Note that both occurrences cannot possibly happen with Uber (since you are given the fee at the start and payment is transparent).
It's possible I'll have bad experiences with Uber/Lyft, but no, I wouldn't go back to a world without it, I wish they would be given fair legal status, and made to follow these laws like other services.
> do you honestly want to go back to a world without it?
Yeah, totally. I want a world in which taxi drivers can actually earn a living rather than scraping by with double shifts for Uber, Lyft and every other gig-economy vampire to come out of Silicon Valley.
Because, you know, chronic job insecurity and ever-sliding standards of living fucking suck.
Forcing drivers to obtain taxi licenses, pass tests, or be screened only affects the price point for the service. Given that Uber is bankrolled by obscene amounts of investment, their price points are artificial anyway. So, to allow them to bypass commonsense laws out of sympathy is evil.
> ...if one of those stops, we're going back to unavailable, dirty, unsafe, cabs with perpetually broken credit card readers.
I think it's disingenuous to suggest that there's no middleground to between complying with regulations and providing poor service.
There's definitely an argument to be made that the laws should be rewritten to be more conducive to competition while maintaining consumer protections, but let's not pretend that Uber isn't a taxi service and doesn't deserve to be treated as such.
but in reality there isn't. In Athens, Greece, a 15 minute ride to the airport in 45 euros, in an old crappy cab reeking of tobacco smoke and driver not speaking English. Average salary there is 1100 euro/month. This racket is immoral and should be broken without any hesitation, no matter how loudly cab drivers complain about lost wages.
> In Athens, Greece, a 15 minute ride to the airport in 45 euros
This seems very different from my experience in Athens two weeks ago. According to Google maps, getting from the city to the airport by car takes around 40 minutes by car and the alternative of taking the train costs 10 euros per person for the same amount of time. Paying around 40 euros seems reasonable for such a long trip if you have more than one person.
It depends on your driver. I got conned in Athens too - the driver had a little button beside his gear stick that would add 1 Euro everytime he hit it. He pressed that button a lot, and the fare was around 40 Euros. I have him a 50, and he did a trick with his hand to produce a 5 Euro note that he said I have him, trying to get yet more money out of me.
Honestly, as a tourist I absolutely fucking hate taking taxis :-/
What incentive do taxi companies have under existing regulations to make the lives of passengers any better? They have been granted A monopoly by the government and passengers will have to take them however bad they are because no competition is allowed.
I don't know about where you live, but where I live (London) the black cabs face competition from dozens of minicab companies everywhere, and most of them have apps, and there are aggregatd services. The only thing the black cabs have a monopoly on is picking up people off the street without a booking or from taxi stands; but given that in most cities here a minicab company is a few minutes walk away, and usually having one come to you will take minutes, I use minicabs more often than I use black cabs.
That said, the service I get from black taxis is routinely better.
As for other incentives: They get dictated improvements and failing to make the required changes will cost them their license.
We shouldn't have to choose between evil, incompetent taxi companies and evil, competent Uber. And I don't think we do have to choose. If we bring Uber to heel, we don't have to go back to the old way.
Uber is Taxi. If taxi works as it should there are 100+ taxi companies in a city and good regulation when it comes to insurance, pay - but no medallion systems or similar.
This is how it works in a lot of places and there Uber is just one company among others - and I don't see how they are revolutionary. The other taxi companies also have prepay, books and tracks with an app etc.
> As much as you guys love to hate on Uber, do you honestly want to go back to a world without it?
I work in London, so Uber is not really much use to me. I live on the outskirts of London (technically London but a few miles out and TfL cease to exist. It's bordering on rural) and the local cab companies/public transport work just fine for everything I need. I grew up in a not small, but not giant town and Uber is no more useful or cost efficient than the local taxis (public transport os horrible though).
So sure. If Uber vanish tomorrow it'll make zero impact on my life beyond not having that particular train crash to watch in the media. In fact, I'd prefer Uber die unless they start being lawful/stop being asshats and stop this crappy "but the rules are in our waaaaay!" attitude.
What's so bad about taxi unions? The drivers make a decent wage and the profits are kept locally among numerous small businesses. Is it really better to make the system more efficient, just to have to gains shipped off to billionaires in California?
Your argument can be applied to any industry. So yes, it's better to make the system more efficient so millions of people can enjoy safe and effective transportation
The more I think about it, the more I see economic efficiency as a double-edged sword. Too little of it, and you have bad services and lots of waste. Too much of it, and people involved in delivering goods and services spend most of their lives working and yet can barely get by.
As long as it's people who work in businesses, we need to keep in mind that they want to live a happy life too.
If trying to avoid excessive abuse and exploitation of other people qualifies as bordering on Marxism-Communism these days, then I guess it's time for me to start wearing red...
We won't need to go to a world before Uber since the business model is out there now. The core concept is great (and in fact it already pretty much existed in places with well-regulated taxi industries) and doesn't need a giant market cap or billions of dollars to operate, that's only needed for hubristic plans to reinvent transport that also don't need Uber to happen.
It's a bit like Tesla. Tesla has turned electric cars into something cool and edgy, but if it were to go under tomorrow it wouldn't even slow the pace of electric car adoption.
> As much as you guys love to hate on Uber, do you honestly want to go back to a world without it?
Yes. I would be fine with that. I lived in London for 13 years and never used Uber. Black cabs provide an excellent, if somewhat expensive, service. Minicabs, effectively licensed private car carriage, filled any gaps at an excellent price point for pre-booked rides.
I now live in a medium sized continental European city with no Uber service.
> As much as you guys love to hate on Uber, do you honestly want to go back to a world without it?
For sure, honestly the sooner it is gone the better. I would not mind a similar service existing but done right, not tricking driver into the service through unsustainable subsidy while pushing employee to suicide and denying claim to the family, spying on users to overcharge, going rogue and illegal to avoid law enforcement, the list goes on and on.
It can be done in a human and respectful way but uber seem to have other priorities.
I use it twice a day for commute and we're planning to sell the second car in the family. Pickup times are 1-2 minutes, no need to heat up the car during winder months. No, I don't want to go back.
I think it's a false dichotomy to assume that we cannot have a level playing field and respect employment laws without having absurdly onerous taxi regulation.
Uber drivers are clearly not contractors by any useful definition. All taxi companies should be regulated the same. We don't want regulatory arbitrage to be the main competitive advantage of new companies just because they call themselves tech companies.
Surely, that doesn't mean we have to defend the sort of ridiculous protectionism that taxi companies enjoy in some cities.
What I want is a company with a business model like Red Hat working on ride sharing. Open source and free to use, or you can pay them to host it. Cities can choose to set the rates as high as they want and keep the income, or even subsidize it for rides in certain areas (or for vulnerable populations). Once self driving cars are reliable, a city could purchase its own fleet of vehicles and add them to the app. This way everyone benefits, more money stays in local economies, and drivers make more.
Why use Uber in Germany? I can call a Taxi on an app. That was the "big" invention by Uber, and now it's commoditized.
The idea that anyone can be an uber driver doesn't help me the passenger much, as long as I can get a ride.
OK, I get that in the US taxis are notoriously bad and generally older cars (and no Mercedes). But UberX just substitutes beat down American cars for a beat-down Prius, Kia and smaller cars. How great is that win?
I don't think the haughty arrogant attitude of Uber is good for any society.
I would rather go without it than having it cheat people who are "contractors" for the service . Now that I know how the sausage is made makes me not want it as badly .
>> This is a reactionary kick by a protected industry, but if the legal framework ends up crushing hail-to-ride companies, those laws aren't going anywhere for a long, long time.
If companies can't provide their service without flouting employment law they shouldn't exist. It might make my life a bit more inconvenient but I'd rather that than a lot of people getting exploited. Employment laws exist for a reason - to protect people.
Uber didn't invent ride-hailing apps and they don't offer any meaningful difference from Lyft or Didi Chuxing.
They brought this negative focus on themselves by not respecting local laws and ordinances. It's unfortunate, but after Uber takes on the brunt of the backlash, another ride-hailing company will swoop in, respect the laws, and reap the rewards.
That's the risk you run when your philosophy is move fast, break stuff, and ignore all the rules.
I want Uber to operate within and respect the laws as a business policy and practice. While we all, I think, recognize that in many US cities the taxi and transit services were simply terrible, and many things need to be changed, we also need to demand that companies operate lawfully, barring grotesque violations of human rights entailed by the law.
the real question is why are you advocating for some tech company (companies) backed by millions of dollars of VC money be able to pick and choose which laws to break?
How about Uber for drug dealers? Or Uber for prostitution? Why stop at illegal taxis/ride sharing?
While you are enjoying the rides and Uber the real profits: have you ever stopped to think about drivers who are being fined $1,000's/ even arrested for nothing more than being an Uber driver? Or the fact that Uber turns around and fires these drivers for not effectively evading the law?
That's right you car isn't actually just an under leveraged asset that can double as a ride for hire/taxi...it's actually under leveraged nuclear waste disposal business.
And your kids underleveraged child labor to be exploited in the sharing economy...hey you're just a tech company nothing to see here.
Drivers are adults. They can stop driving for Uber any moment that wish. Or do you think that adults don't know whats good for themselves and government needs to tell them what to do?
I think Uber entices people to break the law when drivers would have not otherwise have engaged or even considered engaging in that activity.
And no I don't think drivers are always aware and no i don't expect them to do legal research on a city, county and national level to determine whether being an Uber driver is unlawful. As a mater of fact I don't expect any employee/contractor to have the burden of performing legal research if their job duties are lawful because it is unlawful for any employer(Uber) to enter into contracts with employees/contractors (drivers) to perform illegal acts. So in short no I don't drivers know what's best for themselves when they break the law to work for Uber for a few bucks per legal violation, much less the real cost of getting a criminal record and losing their Uber job.
And yes I think governments are needed to pass laws that carry penalties, generally I think that's called civilized society, how long do you think you would last in a world without laws.
Even adults are not omniscient, nor without pressures that come from having to feed and house themselves and their families. All of those constraints are exploited by various businesses in a systemic way. Employment is very often not a fully voluntary trade.
Uber? yes. Other ride hailing companies that aren't run by sociopathic technolibertarians that think the laws don't apply to them can go ahead and pick up the slack.
We can have enjoyable ride-hailing without it coming from a company that treats THE LAW like toilet paper. If Uber's countless poor decisions land it in this hot water, then it got what it deserved.
Blaming it on the entrenched taxi interests is a lazy and narrow narrative.
Just in case it isn't clear, Uber is just the easy whipping boy because of bad PR -- the legal hurdles Uber is going through will crush Lyft just as quickly (probably faster because they have a smaller legal team).
Taxi unions aren't going to say "oh, but Lyft doesn't have as much sexual harassment in the workplace, we'll let them slide."
This is a reactionary kick by a protected industry, but if the legal framework ends up crushing hail-to-ride companies, those laws aren't going anywhere for a long, long time.
The change will only happen if it's not-explicitly-illegal and people are able to use the service to see the value; if one of those stops, we're going back to unavailable, dirty, unsafe, cabs with perpetually broken credit card readers.