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After a period of consideration, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has decided that Uber is a transport service, just like any other taxi company. There is lot to say about Uber's use of untrained, non-professional drivers and other abusive practices.
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The European Court of Justice (ECJ) Declares Uber a Transport Service
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Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored.
-- George Saunders' dying words
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Wednesday December 20 2017, @06:04PM (22 children)
There are existing laws throughout Europe that applicable to transport services, particularly regarding safety and licensing. Uber, Lyft et al have claimed that they were not bound by such laws but the EU Court's decision makes it clear that they are, and henceforth they will have to comply with the appropriate legislation.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday December 20 2017, @06:33PM (1 child)
The upside for Uber is that unpleasant behavior and harassment are expected, and probably legally grandfathered as tradition, for major metropolis and South Europe taxi drivers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:49PM
Wrong. With Uber, the unpleasant behavior is supposed to be confined to the ranks of the executives. They don't want the drivers harassing people, because that's bad for business. But if the executives harass female employees, that's OK (at least until it makes news headlines...).
My solution: use Lyft instead. All the features and convenience of Uber, without all the bad press.
I'm not sure whether Uber or Lyft is to be credited here, but I do have to thank them for the idea of being able to rate drivers. Taxes have always been really dangerous this way, as you never know what driver you'll get, and if he'll be an asshole or a creep. The rating system puts power back into the hands of the customers, where it belongs, so that bad drivers can be forced out by bad reviews. This is something the traditional taxi companies absolutely refused to do (after all, having shitty creep drivers helps keep their labor costs low).
I for one will be happy to see the taxi companies die. Uber certainly has its own problems too, but we do have Lyft, and there's other similar (usually more local) companies coming up too, since it really isn't that hard to make a smartphone app to dispatch and track drivers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:26PM (19 children)
Do you think this ruling is limited to just Uber/Lyft-type of services, or does it have much broader significance for the "we're just middlemen bring people together" type of "new economy" business model?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:50PM (18 children)
Under the court ruling just given, it is only applicable to companies such as Lyft and Uber. But conceivably, anyone trying to skirt around existing legislation by claiming to be a 'technology company' when it is obvious to everyone that their profit does not come from the technology itself but from those paying for transport, will have to face the equivalent laws. If Uber and Lyft merely sold their software then perhaps their claim of being a technology company would be accepted, but that is clearly not the case in this instance.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:58PM (16 children)
Uber's model wouldn't be viable without extensive automation. Just look at the New York City case. They can have many thousands of drivers on the road at the same time. Their technology allows a computer to match passengers to nearby drivers in real time without requiring a huge human-based system. That makes it a technology company. And what equivalent laws are there? The protectionist schemes for tax companies?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:16PM (11 children)
Nope. They get paid by the people they custom-carry around.
The fact that robot Marvin is better at getting you matched to a ride than human Greta is not relevant. They don't sell that algorithm to other companies, they sell transportation to people.
Taxi companies didn't become tech companies when they started taking calls or using a spreadsheet to schedule their drivers' shifts.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:18PM (10 children)
The fact that robot Marvin is required in order for the model to pull a profit is relevant.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:28PM (2 children)
> The fact that robot Marvin is required in order for the model to pull a profit is relevant.
Not. at. all.
If Greta got all the street intersections of customers and got them all a ride, or if Marvin was completely incompetent and people cancelled in droves, causing the company to lose even more billions than they currently do ... the income would still be 100% coming from customers paying for custom transportation.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 21 2017, @01:06AM (1 child)
No, there wouldn't be a company to lose so many billions.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday December 21 2017, @01:13AM
Yup, they'd be a dead transportation company, with a useless an irrelevant app.
Sadly, the assets would still be worth billions, because of all the personal data they've been siphoning off their user's phones and usage patterns.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 21 2017, @01:09AM (6 children)
No, the fact that the drivers make us of internal combustion engines makes it a tech company.
Actually, the fact that they use round wheels on their vehicles makes it a tech company.
No, no - speech. The ability to communicate makes it a tech company.
You say, "Argumentum absurdium" or something like that. I say, a taxi service is not a tech company. Tech companies tend to create new technology, and find new ways to use technology. Uber and Lyft are just taxi services. They aren't creating or selling technology, they are merely USING technology. Just like every other taxi company in the world.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday December 21 2017, @01:22AM
I know this because most coders write In-House apps.
For example a friend of mine once wrote COBOL for Chase Manhattan. His department employed a great many coders.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 21 2017, @01:51AM (4 children)
We are done here. That's what Uber just did. So it fits your definition of a technology company.
Uber is not a taxi service. You are missing a huge part of what it does with that mistaken observation. Uber drivers have no obligation to drive until they accept passengers.
You already established that novel technology use qualified.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 21 2017, @10:50AM (3 children)
1. Uber has merely improved on an ages old dispatching system
2. Limo of taxi company, either way, they are performing an ages old service - moving customers from point A to point B, for a fee. Also, the concept of casual labor is as old as the hills - Uber's drivers are doing nothing new, or different.
3. Nothing novel about a central dispatch system. A patent identical to an existing patent with "on a computer" is an invalid patent. Uber is mildly innovative, I'll grant that. But, as a carpenter, If I should find some innovative way of cutting my rafters to fit the top plate on top of the walls that makes the finished structure a little bit stronger, would that make me a "tech company"? Not only no, but HELL NO!
Better example for carpentry. Oklahoma has had some devastating tornadoes in recent years. The state did a study. They observed that many homes had simply been blown away, leaving nothing but the concrete slab behind. They wanted to know why one home was sheared off flush with the slab, and others had not. The simple fact that many homes had the top and bottom plates TOE-nailed into the studs made the difference. Nailing the plates straight into the studs allowed each individual nail to be pulled with a minimal force. Toe nailing two nails in opposite directions increased the force necessary to pull those nails back out by some huge factor. Multiply that force by however many dozens of studs are in the walls enabled many homes to remain in place, while their neighbors blew away.
Are those construction companies that used toe nailing "technology" companies?
Google is a technology company. As much as I hate to say it, Microsoft is a tech company. Uber, not so much. They only exploit technology that real tech companies create.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 21 2017, @02:44PM (2 children)
Novel application of technology, check.
So is any application of technology. Ignore what is actually done, then it doesn't actually do that much.
When again was toe-nailing developed? Why do you consider it novel technology now? Wikipedia says [wikipedia.org] nails go back to ancient Egypt (3400 BC). And you could do toe-nailing from then to now.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 21 2017, @03:11PM (1 child)
So, you're hung on that term, "novel". Tell me - if Uber's dipatch system is so novel, then how does the competition compete? Oh - maybe it's not so very novel, ehhh?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 21 2017, @03:19PM
With their own novel systems. There's a number of systems out there (including several in Europe). Lyft isn't the only competitor with some interesting new tricks.
(Score: 1) by nnet on Thursday December 21 2017, @05:29AM (1 child)
New York isn't in Europe.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 21 2017, @08:19AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @05:44AM (1 child)
Ford's model wouldn't be viable without extensive automation. Just look at their factories. They can have many thousands of cars on the assembly line at the same time. Their technology allows a computer to match robotic arms to nearby car parts in real time without requiring a huge human-based system. That makes it a technology company. And what equivalent laws are there? The protectionist schemes for horse chariot companies?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 21 2017, @08:02AM
Indeed. I'm not sure why you were trying for sarcasm there.
There are many such laws. For example, the laws on labor unions throughout most of the developed world that give them an undue negotiation advantage once they become established in a business. Or the laws and high liability that follow from a product which is so natural dangerous. Some are helpful, some merely help create the current oligopoly situation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @02:18AM
Uber isn't making a profit. Uber subsidizes most trips.
Uber smells more like a legalized pyramid scheme. The "profit" comes from investor money. The earlier investors make money from Uber by selling their shares to later investors. The whole thing looks great only as long as more investors keep pumping in money.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/uber-leaked-finances-accounts-revenues-profits-2017-2/?IR=T [businessinsider.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by drussell on Wednesday December 20 2017, @06:35PM (24 children)
Of course they are essentially a taxi / limo for hire company.
They've just been trying to circumvent existing rules and regulations in the latest round of "But, but, but... On a COMPUTER!!!"
:facepalm:
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:33PM (3 children)
Right, the whole reason uber (etc) exist is because of laws set up long ago to force central dispatch of cabs. And doing it On A Computer was specifically outlawed in many places.
Had the cab companies jumped up and adopted computerized dispatch with all the features (rejecting some drivers, rejecting some passengers, driver/passenger pictures, payments and tipping, - all the things uber and lyft apps offer) there would never have been Uber or Lyft.
Instead taxi companies actively lobbied against those things, got them prohibited in regulations. (And hoped to protect their fiefdom and high fares in the process).
Cities were interested in building in artificial scarcity, so they could charge a lot for a medallion, collect taxes, etc, and protection of citizens was way way down on the list.
Cab companies were interested in making sure they own the business, keep drivers working on near starvation wages, and limiting competition.
As a result the single best thing to come along in the history of the Taxi industry ended up being a lightning rod.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:13PM
Citation needed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @05:32AM (1 child)
No. Circumventing existing laws does not grant them immunity. Quit trying to apply your american point of view to european point of view.
(Score: 3, Informative) by kazzie on Thursday December 21 2017, @12:32PM
Following up on that, in the UK, there are two legal categories for "taxis". Cars that can park in taxi ranks to wait for passing custom, or be flagged down by anyone on the street, are officially known as Taxicabs or Hackney Carriages. Another variety is the Minicab or Private Hire Vehicle, which has to be pre-booked (this could be in the form of a phone call to the firm's booking office, or even the driver's mobile phone). Both categories are licensed by the local authorities (county councils).
Uber's activities in the UK are closer to Private Hire than Hackney Carriages, but they've generally claimed that they were neither.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:41PM (15 children)
No, they're *not* a taxi company. But "limo for hire", yes, that describes them pretty closely: limo for hire using a smartphone app.
The distinction is important, because at least in some jurisdictions, the laws for the two are very different. Uber (and Lyft) gets flak because they don't obey laws for taxi companies, but they are not a taxi company: they do not have a taximeter, and they do not pick up people who hail from the sidewalk. In NYC, for instance, the laws for taxis are different than the laws for limos ("black cars" etc.).
It may seem silly, but that's the way the laws are. Don't like it? Update the laws, which obviously were never written with the idea of smartphone apps in mind.
As long as they adhere to the law for limos-for-hire, there really isn't a problem. They're just like any other limo company, except instead of calling them on the phone like in the old days, you use a smartphone app to hire them. And of course the cars aren't really limos, but that's been true of the other limo companies for a long time too, you could get all kinds of other cars, the idea was that you were paying a prenegotiated fee for the ride.
Obviously, the laws are archaic, because they treated "limos" differently (and more laxly), but that's not Uber's fault, it's the regulators' (and those regulators have had more than enough time to update their laws to account for these newfangled "smartphones"). If Uber followed the taxi laws, they'd have to put an old-style taximeter in the car just like any other cab, and accept hails from the curb; it'd be ridiculous. It's simple: they aren't taxis, so stop thinking of them that way. Think of them as limos for hire.
So yes, they are a "transport service". No, they are not a "taxi company", just like Amtrak is not a taxi company, nor is Megabus. Yes, they should be regulated as a "transport service". No, they should not be regulated as a "taxi company", just like Megabus and Greyhound should not.
The simple fact that Uber/Lyft are exposing, that seems to have a lot of people really upset, is that taxi companies are simply obsolete, just like companies that used to deliver milk to your doorstep every morning, or companies that delivered blocks of ice every morning for your cooler. Regulate them as modern, 21st-century car-for-hire-by-smartphone companies, rather than early-20th-century taxicab companies, and we don't need to have this stupid debate.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:52PM (9 children)
Milk deliver is still a thing in some places. Especially if you have a house full of kids.
But Taxi Companies have made themselves obsolete by refusing to adopt App based hailing.
Cities haven't helped by propping up old tech and old rules in the interest of taxing and licensing fees.
There is still a place for the taxi companies if they would just get on board with the technology.
There is probably still a case for a slight artificial scarcity in rides, so that people can make a living at it slightly better than a seasonal crop picker.
I'm waiting for the city that kicks taxi companies to the curb and gives Uber/Lyft a charter with mandated levels of availability, minimum wages, driver background checks, and vehicle inspection, but in most other aspects, just keeps hands off.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:04PM (7 children)
Sorry, sabotaging important parts of our economies so that a few people can make slightly more, is a terrible idea. The desperation of people willing to work for slightly better than a seasonal crop picker is not improved by destroying the jobs that they seek. And transportation is very important to our economies. We're making everything else in that city worse by making transportation more scarce.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:20PM (6 children)
Many cities are restricting cab numbers as an incentive to push people to public transport, have less cars adding traffic around hot spots all day long, and to avoid cabs literally fighting each other over the customers.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:28PM (4 children)
> Many cities are restricting cab numbers as an incentive to push people to public transport
Um, taxis _are_ public transport.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:39PM (3 children)
Nitpicking. Chosen to ignore "have less cars adding traffic", haven't you?
Let me put forward the "mass transit" substitute for "public transport", a substitute which encompasses "less traffic".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Thursday December 21 2017, @01:04AM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday December 21 2017, @01:29AM (1 child)
True.
Not very much of an advantage in Europe, believe me. You'd be hardly pressed to find "middle of nowhere" places there.
The metropolitan areas are packed with mass transit (and murder at rush hours), the "rural areas" are very much like the suburbs I'm seeing in Australian "greater city" areas (except for the mountains): average distance between two neighborhooding villages in the 10-15km range. With at least hourly buses or microbuses between them.
You simply don't go shopping using your car: take a stroll for your daily groceries (if you don't grab them on your way from office), 20 mins walk max, 2-5 kilos at max - why buy more if the shops are nearby and you buy everything you need fresh?
You need to be quite pressed to use a car to solve your problems, even more so that the population density favor good communication (internet) infrastructure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 21 2017, @01:59AM
Most auto transportation in the US is not to and from middle of nowhere. Not every pair of places in Europe have mass transit routes running directly between arbitrary locations. The problem is that it's easy for a massive number of cars to overload a road. When that doesn't happen, cars work fine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @08:38AM
Maybe in the US.
Over here in Denmark, taxis are for the rich, the rest of us get to buy our own cars (with 180% taxes). When Uber arrived, we finally had an alternative to drunk driving, but that didn't last long, everyone - taxi companies, politicians, etc - were fighting to have them prosecuted before the Christmas party season. I suspect drunk driving fines is an important source of income on top of the 180% taxes on cars.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:53PM
Agreed. I'll also add that cities need to do better in building and operating mass transit. More people should be in trains rather than cars, but that also requires the city to do a good job of planning, building, and operating the train systems, something most of them in this country seem to do poorly at. (By contrast, in Japan, they do a fantastic job of it. No one dies there because a train went 80mph around a turn with a 30mph speed limit.)
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:52PM (1 child)
Your attempt at semantics fails because you equate taxi with hackney carriage, but that is only one use of the word. Private hire vehicles are also taxis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab [wikipedia.org]
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:56PM
Your attempt at semantics fails because you equate taxi with hackney carriage, but that is only one use of the word. Private hire vehicles are also taxis.
No, that depends on the jurisdiction. Wikipedia is not the arbiter for legal definitions that can be particular to a certain city. Those definitions can vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
It's totally common for private-hire vehicles to have different regulations than taxicabs.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday December 20 2017, @10:27PM (1 child)
"hailing" a taxi
vs
"Pre-booking" a limo.
Taxis have moved into pre-booking, but you never know if they are going to show up, or even which company will turn up.
Basically, in most juristictions, limo drivers can't tout for business, or pick-up passengers from the kerb.
Uber and lyft *are*, by definition, all pre-booked, but, in some cases, only minutes before the trip.
So, it all comes down to semantics, which is what happens with most legal arguments.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 20 2017, @10:48PM
Uber and lyft *are*, by definition, all pre-booked, but, in some cases, only minutes before the trip.
So, it all comes down to semantics, which is what happens with most legal arguments.
That's correct: you can pre-book a ride hours or days ahead of time (good idea if you're traveling and need a ride from the airport), or you can look for a ride right now while you wait. It is an issue with semantics, but the law is the law: if the law wasn't written with the idea of a smartphone, and doesn't say anything about how long you have to book ahead of time to be "pre-booked", then the law is on the side of Uber/Lyft.
The whole thing again just shows that the laws and regulations are badly outdated, and the traditional taxi company business model is totally obsolete. Propping it up with attempts at legislating against Uber/Lyft, or trying to somehow force them to obey laws intended for a very different industry, are not the answer. Regulations aimed at protecting consumers from dangerous drivers, dangerous vehicles, monopolies, etc., are all great and should be done, but too often it seems like regulations are only aimed at protecting incumbent businesses, which is simply corruption.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @05:34AM
thats nice. and americentric. this is europe. next.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:51PM (2 children)
You are neglecting the drivers. No regular employer can handle workers just showing up when they feel like it, including taking unannounced vacations that could last months or years, but Uber handles that sort of chaos automatically - which incidentally is a strong indication that Uber drivers aren't employees by the legal definitions since they don't have to show up for work to stay Uber drivers. This is a huge departure from the taxi/limo for hire models you mention.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 20 2017, @09:01PM
That depends on the definition of "employee" in that particular jurisdiction. There's other industries where workers just show up "when they feel like it", that's nothing new. Uber/Lyft do handle that more gracefully and automatically than older industries (where they might not be given a job that day if too many other people showed up), but not all employers have employees who show up consistently. People who hire day-laborers are a good example here. But this probably doesn't disagree with you: those people who hire day-laborers aren't hiring W-2 employees, having to file IRS forms for them, having to pay FICA taxes for them, etc. (And this is all assuming you're in the US, laws in EU are different of course.)
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday December 21 2017, @12:19AM
Most minicab firms round where I live are owner operators. They pay a "radio" fee, and get to keep most of the fares. They don't want to drive, not a problem (although they may have to give their radio back).
Uber is no different
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Thursday December 21 2017, @04:41PM
My own take on Uber is that is not as much a transportation service though I agree fully with the ECJ assesment of it being one. I see it instead as a rather brazen attempt to knock the bottom out of a market, one chosen not quite at random. Uber's riders only pay 41 percent of the full cost of each ride, with investors footing the remaining 59 percent [vice.com]. In other words, without the price dumping, Uber trips would cost more than double [reuters.com] what they do now. They have a time limit. If they can destroy the taxi market before the venture capital runs out, then they win more or less a monopoly. If the real taxis can hang on until the venture capital runs out, then Uber goes away, hopefully taking wannabees with them.
Anyway in some countries, driving a cab is a respectable profession and pays at least a livable wage. In other countries, neither. Uber brings down both.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:01PM (5 children)
I can see a hypothetical taxi service that fulfills the dream of Uber. It would be the app sold as a service in a competitive marketplace. Independent operators, who would contend with local regulation on their own, would buy into the app as a way to get customers.
Then the app could sell additional services - like background checks - directly to customers. Want a choice of more than one cabbie? Pay a fee. Want to see aggregated customer reviews for your cabbie? Pay a fee.
Not that the existing taxi companies would be very happy about this. In a way, Uber's business model has evolved to fit into the narrow space where they can say "fuck you" to municipal regulators.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:41PM (1 child)
There are apps like that - sometimes very localized. http://instantcab.com/ [instantcab.com]
But I have to ask,
How were cabs dispatched before radio?
Before telephones?
They roamed the the streets waiting to be hailed. You sent your butler out to hail one.
And if they didn't roam your neighborhood, you probably couldn't afford them anyway.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:10PM
Only in the big cities. In smaller locations, there isn't enough demand to have any kind of consistent cab presence anywhere. A few cabs will serve a small city or suburb, relying on poorly-advertised phone numbers or other local ride-hailing services.
In the world of Uber and Lyft, most of these smaller players have moved their business into one of the apps instead. They benefit from national brand recognition much like the local Dairy Queen does.
Maybe the solution then is for ride-hailing apps to act as franchisers, enforcing certain brand requirements in exchange for the platform. Presumably there already exists a good-enough legal framework to prevent the McDonalds's of the world from making their franchise agreements as exploitative as Uber's.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:20PM (1 child)
Not gonna happen. What you propose is akin several taxi companies using the same dispatch service.
They are competitors, a common dispatch is undesirable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Thursday December 21 2017, @03:12PM
That's like saying that tech companies are competitors, so common open source software is undesirable. And yet virtually everybody benefits from Linux. Most companies that do even contribute in some way to the common system's value, if not by direct development contributions then by creating additional projects like Docker and selling services that make it easier to get value out of the open source ecosystem.
Keeping your own closed-source dispatch system is only undesirable as long as nobody else opens up theirs. But software has proven that it's possible to break down that localized incentive and convince even corporations like Microsoft to be part of the open collaborative system and stop wasting time building and running their own version of the same thing everyone else is doing.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @02:27AM
The taxi drivers in my country were using MyTeksi before the company kind of backstabbed them by doing an Uber and letting non-taxi drivers sign up too: https://www.grab.com/ [grab.com]
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:42PM (7 children)
The key thing to say is that such deregulated, ride hailing services are what a huge portion of customers and drivers want. Is the EU supposed to be a democracy or not?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:00PM (6 children)
The 'huge proportion' that you talk about is only a small fraction of those using road transport facilities. All of the other facilities are regulated particularly with regards to passenger safety and fair practices for both drivers and passengers - which are also things that people here want. If there had been a vote in Europe in which the majority had voted to permit Uber or Lyft to operate outside of these regulations then you might have a point in challenging the democracy that exists in Europe. But you haven't provided any evidence - other than your claim that a 'huge proportion' want what you believe to be the case - that people in Europe want unregulated transport.
And if you just want to snipe at Europe then best you check that all is squeaky clean in your own neighbourhood first - we think that we are doing OK in comparison, but that discussion if obviously off-topic here.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:17PM (5 children)
A small fraction [statista.com] appears to be 42 million Europeans win 2017, and expected to go up to 62 million in 2022. That's a lot of people to screw over.
(Score: 4, Touché) by c0lo on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:25PM (3 children)
Europe total population: 743.1 million.
62/743=8.3% Nope, not enough to impose on the rest of 90+% the (lack of passenger safety) rules the rest of 8.3% are Ok with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 21 2017, @01:45AM (2 children)
That number is growing rapidly at 2-3% increase in the total population over five years. Also most people don't use taxis either. I can't get ridership numbers for taxis in Europe, but in the US, the ride sharing/hailing sector has taken more than a third [businessofapps.com] of the overall US market (including Uber at 29%, but not including its competitors which are almost a third more share) for supplying rides or vehicles (including taxis and rental cars). Taxis meanwhile are about the same, meaning that ride hailing and sharing services like Uber have about half the overall market. There's no reason to expect that Europe will turn out much differently on the road. They still have the same travel needs and the same competition issues.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday December 21 2017, @09:37AM (1 child)
At 3% / 5 year grow rate, to get to the 42mils now to 350mils required for parity, it will be something like 80+
years. I promise you I'll worry then, if I still can. Until then, not much to fuss about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 21 2017, @02:33PM
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday December 21 2017, @12:14AM
Im one of that 42m, and I want Uber to continue to be regulated. In the Uk it is. Vehicles are held to higher standards, drivers have to pass criminal record checks, they are limited to the number of bourse. Uber is far safer than your typical minicab firm, and it proves out - the figures show that Uber drivers are responsible for less crime per passenger than minicab drivers as a whole (I don't recall hackney carriage ones)
There are some obsolete regulations that should be removed - minivans can't pick up in other councils, taxi drivers in London have to pass these aincent tests from before the days of maps, and drivers who spend too long behind the wheel aren't penalised properly, but ultimately the system works just fine.