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Uber Office Raided By Police In China, Accused of Running 'Illegal' Car Business

albert555 writes: Uber's curse keeps on striking after Uber's office in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou was raided by authorities on the 30th of April 2015. Uber is accused of running an 'illegal' transport service, according to the Guangzhou Daily. Uber has been implanted in China since August 2013 and is suspected of not having the proper qualifications to run a private car business in the city. Following the recent German court ban two weeks ago, who will win the fight for private transportation? Long-term, established transportation companies with powerful lobbying arms or the newcomer making use of disruptive technology? Does Schumpeter's creative destruction also apply to the transportation sector?

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  1. Who will win? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    >Following the recent German court ban two weeks ago, who will win the fight for private transportation? Long-term, established transportation companies with powerful lobbying arms or the newcomer making use of disruptive technology?

    Timothy, have you gone full retard? The whole uber issue is that they break the law all over the world are un/under insured, time after time after time. This has nothing to do with "Long-term, established transportation companies with powerful lobbying arms". And neither do uber make use of disruptive technology, their system is the same or similar to many other systems, its just they have raised more VC than anyone else and spend a lot more money on advertising.

  2. Unbiased article? by houghi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Was this written by Fox? It could easily been written as "Commie evil people block Fredom fighters of the USA".

    They did not follow the rules, they get caught. If you do not like the rules of a country, don't do business there.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  3. Skewed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The established transportation service does *not* have to lobby. The relevant laws where established a long long time ago.

    It is uber who must lobby, and it should do so *before* opening up business.

  4. No matter what Uber says ... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Uber isn't some magical entity which exists outside of laws and regulations, no matter what its owners keep trying to tell us.

    Uber has basically said "why, no, we're special because we say so, and we don't give a crap about your laws", and then they go on to say "we're not a transport company, we're a tech company, who happens to behave like a transport company".

    I have precisely zero sympathy for Uber, and I think more places should be impounding cars and arresting people who have basically decided "fuck you, I'm going to run a commercial car service and keep saying loudly how I'm not a commercial car service".

    This bullshit about "Long-term, established transportation companies with powerful lobbying arms or the newcomer making use of disruptive technology?" is exactly that ... it's bullshit. It's how Uber tells their underdog story, but it's a complete lie.

    This has nothing to do with established players with powerful lobbying arms. This has everything to do with how governments have regulated commercial vehicles, and Uber using their bullshit story to sound like the plucky underdog.

    Uber is a tech startup, acting like a spoiled child, and decreeing they aren't subject to laws.

    The whole underdog thing makes for great PR copy, but is otherwise a complete fucking lie.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:No matter what Uber says ... by Nidi62 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If an airline was touting the fact thay they use uncertified mechanics, pilots without commercial ratings, and insuring 737s like they were single engine Pipers and that it makes them the cheapest and most competitive people would be all over them yelling for them to be shut down. That is essentially what Uber is doing. It's a lot easier to be cheap and convenient when you are ignoring laws and regulations that are put in for very good reasons.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  5. Re:Who will win? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    >they break the law all over

    Read Walden. This is absolutely a case of civil disobedience. The laws about taxis have nothing to do with safety, which is the usual government apologist saw broken out to defend them. In fact, they attract unsafe drivers.

    I could present dozens more articles like this, though this is the most shocking:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2221238/Christopher-Halliwell-Swindon-taxi-driver-asked-fellow-inmate-question-serial-killing.html

    Nobody gets hurt when these laws disappear except fat cat taxi firms and overpriced fares.

    >are un/under insured

    Bullshit. $5 million per driver sure as hell doesn't sound uninsured to me.

    http://www.thestar.com/business/2015/03/20/uber-loses-bid-to-keep-its-unique-insurance-policy-secret.html

  6. Re:Who will win? by dunkelfalke · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Right, so if I go fly a plane with no training or testing it's ok, because I'll only do it once?

    And this is why private pilot and commercial pilot licenses are very different.

    The emissions and brakes, sure, but guess what? Those are things the RIDERS will notice, and they will get bad rating for it and get deactivated before too long.

    Even airlines skip on maintenance. This has already killed people. These airlines still exist, making your point unconvincing at best.

    Further, lots of Uber drivers don't actually drive that much. Certainly not more than, say, someone who commutes in a major city, or who goes on road trips. If you are going to harp on this further, I would suggest a better system would be to have inspections based on miles driven, rather that periods of time elapsed.

    And now you are pulling numbers out of your arse. There is a reason why insurance companies insist on commercial insurances for professional drivers.

    And in any event, you are ignoring the elephant in the room, the enormously expensive medallions/good-old boy "regulations" that price everyone out of the market and create artificial scarcity.

    Uber has problems with the law even in cities/countries that go without a medallion (i.e. anybody who has a commercial driver license and commercial insurance can have their own taxi).

    --
    "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
  7. Re:Who will win? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is absolutely a case of civil disobedience.

    Which is still breaking the law. It's just breaking the law knowingly, with full willingness to accept the punishments that come from doing so (with the aim being that their being punished will draw attention to the perceived injustice of the situation). But somehow I don't think that Uber's top execs or their run-of-the-mill drivers would either (1) admit to breaking the law, or (2) accept the punishments for doing so without trying to weasel their way out of them.

  8. Re:Who will win? by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Spoken like a true Social Justice Warrior

    Spoken like a true drooling idiot who has lost all critical thinking skills.

    Look, I drank the Ayn Rand Koolaid for a while. Which means I'm now good at spotting the lies and bullshit associated with it. If you want to continue to be an idiot who falls back to ad hominem attacks when people disagree with you ... go ahead. But fuck off and leave me alone.

    Don't fucking pretend it's because you have some natural laws and facts on your side.

    I say again, Capitalism is NOT a law of nature, and Uber deciding laws don't apply to them is nothing more than a corporation deciding they should play by different rules. But Capitalism isn't a law of physics, it's a school of economics -- or more accurately, it's an observation that "people own stuff".

    Yes, choice is a strong aspect of the market. But if you think the market achieves perfect outcomes in the long run just simply because it's the market ... you're delusional.

    Pure capitalism is based on as much fantasy and bullshit as pure communism -- neither can exist on their own as claimed, and neither ever will. Both of these systems of though assume perfect outcomes will happen once everyone is forced to follow the irrational claims laid out in them. Oooh, the magic unicorns on my side say this must be true so it is.

    Such bullshit.

    If you think removing all government regulations will produce anything except anarchy, you really need to step back and look at reality, and what the actual evidence is for your ideology, instead of just thinking your ideology is 100% complete and infallible.

    Then it just becomes an appeal to higher authority, and exactly like any other religion -- full of zealots who just keep repeating things they don't comprehend as if it's magic.

    The free market as moral ideal is as full of shit as Karl Marx ever was. Which means between those two extremes might be some truth in both camps.

    Taken to their extremes, both of these ideologies collapse under their own crap. Neither is, in fact, an innate and natural fact.

    Stop pretending otherwise.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.