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Court Orders Uber To Shut Down In Spain
An anonymous reader writes with word that a Spanish judge, after complaints from taxi associations that the competition Uber brings to the transportation market is unfair to existing firms' drivers, has ordered the company to cease operations in the country. From the BBC article:
In his ruling on the temporary ban, the judge said Uber drivers didn't have official authorisation to drive their cars and was "unfair competition." The move follows a complaint by the Madrid Taxi Association. The Spanish ban comes just a day after Uber was blacklisted in the Indian capital Delhi. Drivers "lack the administrative authorisation to carry out the job, and the activity they carry out constitutes unfair competition," the Spanish court services said in a statement after the ruling. In Thailand, too. And stateside, the government of Portland, Oregon thinks Uber's a big enough threat to justify a sting operation. Business Insider's keeping score.
Ultimately Uber is a broker for unlicensed taxi. There should be a restriction on unlicensed taxi on the roads. In other words, I'm surprised they exist anywhere. They really shouldn't, there are very good common sense reasons for insisting on licensed taxi.
I honestly don't know where this idiotic sentiment comes from.
Where I live, the cabs are regulated. In my memory, additional regulations have been imposed on them. They protested, but ultimately got told "too damned bad".
Yes, it's a very lucrative thing, and people pay huge amounts of money for the taxi plate.
But they're not some all powerful taxi cartel which secretly calls the shots. The taxi industry is not the fucking illuminati.
I think the entire premise (which as far as I can tell comes from Uber) of this stupid narrative of Uber being the underdogs fighting the big entrenched players is a crock of shit.
This is about a company who has decided they have an app and a business model which allows them to bypass existing regulations which are applied to all in that industry. They quite publicly are just a scheduling service for unlicensed cabs. That's it. They're not some noble entity fighting the good fight.
They're a company who has decide that magical elves and unicorn dust means they can pretend that laws don't apply to them. Based on what, I have yet to understand -- I've heard their spokespeople saying "well, we're not a taxi company, we're just a technology company, so the law doesn't apply". Really? How's that?
So, whatever this romanticized notion of Uber is, it seems like garbage to me. If you want to be a cab company, you are covered under the regulations of a cab company.
But if you think some sophistry and misdirection makes you not a cab company, you're either delusional, or just hoping to hoodwink enough people to sway public opinion.
So blah blah blah Uber and the evil all powerful taxi cab cartel.
Sorry, you're a commercial vehicle for hire, and covered under all applicable laws and regulations, whether you like it or not.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Whatever you call the generation of people between 25 and 35 learned the Napster vs Bittorrent lesson very well.
Uber and Lyft may die, but they'll just be replaced with entirely P2P systems.
Sting operations give us both an incentive and the opportunity to develop trust network that optimize for protecting sellers from malicious customers. Once developer, the applications for such trust networks will be quite broad.
The era in which one group of people will be able to control the commercial activities of third parties is coming to a close. Deal with it.
Easy enough. The question to ask is what does more good for more people? The government is a tool, nothing more or less. And like any tool, it's suitable for some purposes, and unsuitable for others.
The legacy taxis are just utterly terrible services on so many levels. About the only thing they're useful is for trips between the downtown hotels and the airport. That's fine for tourists; but if you actually live here, taxi's are all but useless. Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar show up on time where you need them, don't bitch about trips to or from the avenues, don't play the "the credit card machine is broken, cash only" game, and don't stink of smoke, pee, or vomit. None of that is true of taxis. So breaking the government supports for the legacy taxis is good.
Internet monopolies harm the consumer and stifle the economic development of new and innovative businesses. Obvious and iconic example is the extortion of Netflix by Comcast and Verizon, resulting at first in crippled performance of the service and eventually an increase in the price. That's direct and measurable harm to millions of consumers and an innovative and useful startup business, and hardly the only case of consumers or new businesses bering harmed. The bandwidth monopolies are causing harm and need to be broken. And if government action is what it takes, then so be it.
And on the cops thing, I think what people want is accountability. "Evil and racist pigs" do make it through whatever screening processes the police have for their recruits. When discovered, they need to be punished: thrown off the force and locked away. And when the "good cops" cover for the "evil and racist pigs", refuse to remove the bad ones from the force, and make sure that they are not punished for their crimes and abuse, the "good cops" cease to be good. "One bad apple spoils the whole barrel", as the proverb goes. The bad apples need to be purged before they are able to spoil that barrel.
Imagine all the people...
OK, so how about, instead of regulating Uber as the commercial transport service it is, we deregulate commercial transport services so they can be on a level playing field? You know, no more government mandated licensing and insurance, no special recourse for customers who are cheated\robbed\otherwise harmed by a driver, etc.
Or is that a phenomenally stupid idea for some glaringly obvious reasons?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
1. People put out a product in a market that is completely free.
2. A couple of assholes abuse it and hurt or kill people.
3. People demand regulation.
4. Business fight tooth and nail against and come up with plenty of BS reasons.
5. Businesses eventually get regulated.
6. Businesses finally figure out that regulation creates barriers to entry of new firms and inflated profits. They (mostly) enjoy regulations behind close doors but in public, rail against them and cry how it makes business so difficult.
7. A disruptive technology or service arrives and BINGO - regulations to the rescue.
My question is how insurance companies are dealing with it. I am pretty sure if I was a driver and got in an accident they would pretty much drop me like a hot potato. Unless your insurance policy includes driving as part of working there is no bloody way I would even think of taking this on.
This isn't even taking into account being sued by your passenger and what that could entail
Recently, in August 2014 in the Spanish city Oviedo some taxi drivers went to the streets, blocked public autobuses for half an hour and appeared in the newspapers.
Oviedo's taxi driver's cause: The enhanced local public bus plan jeopardises taxi driver jobs!
Yeah, actively protesting against better public transportation!
I was there at that time. The roll-out of the new bus plan in delay at that time. Locals were shaking their heads.
http://www.elcomercio.es/oviedo/201408/14/colectivos-taxistas-oviedo-asturias-20140814143441.html
http://www.lne.es/oviedo/2014/07/08/taxis-bloquean-estacion-protesta-entrada/1611558.html
The American Taliban, who will prosecute women for miscarriages between conception and birth, after which the newborn can go fuck herself. And during the pregnancy, the mother and the fetus can go fuck themselves as well if they need health care.
Because we do not look only at the libtard "gun violence" statistics, but the broader "violence" in general. The worst is that a thug shot by a home owner while breaking in will actually be accounted as "gun violence", where it is truly defensive use of a gun. [and YES, I do support shooting petty home breaking thugs if they do not comply with my orders to leave my dwelling on the spot.]