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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?
>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.
Uber must to, or work to change the laws
just like everybody else
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.
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.
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.
No, not only China. Uber's business model is illegal in most of the world where there are already laws governing charging fares to passengers in your car.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Would a taxi service by any other name behave as badly? Apparently yes.
Laws around taxi services exist for a reason, regardless of what uber would like people to believe.
Uber have been shut down in cities in the following countries:
3.1 Australia
3.2 Belgium
3.3 Canada
3.4 China
3.5 Denmark
3.6 France
3.7 Germany
3.8 India
3.9 The Netherlands
3.10 New Zealand
3.11 Philippines
3.12 Poland
3.13 Portugal
3.14 South Africa
3.15 South Korea
3.16 Spain
3.17 Taiwan
3.18 Thailand
3.19 United Kingdom
3.20 United States
Uber is trying to enter the taxi market that is controlled by the govt. Instead of just providing internet hailing service to existing taxis and collect very low profits, it wants to provide taxis directly to consumer and make the whopping 20-30% cut of taxi fare (instead of the 2-4% cut by providing internet booking to existing taxis).
All these illegal maneuvers are about making a ton of money by working around the highly controlled and regulated taxi market.
In the long run, private industry will win, if only because the government cannot stifle disruptive competition forever. But in the meantime, government can -- and obviously will -- inconvenience an awful lot of people by fighting Uber.
I see tons of posts here bashing Uber for not following the rules, basically saying they're competing unfairly with cab companies that are required to carry insurance, etc. All that is true, but it's also completely irrelevant. You do realize these cab companies came up with and supported those rules, right? It presents a formidable barrier to entry for any new transportation service, thus virtually guaranteeing a small number of service providers a captive market, an oligopoly if you will. No wonder they're crying foul. They should be screaming "let us compete with the same lack of restrictions as Uber" but instead they're screaming "force Uber to be just as restricted as we are!"
It's amazing what the free market can do if you let it. If people have a choice between cheap Uber rides with under-insured drivers and more expensive cabs with fully-insured drivers, let people make that choice! Why does government have to nanny the ever living fuck out of people to the point where it will deny them the right to make a choice that affects no one but themselves???
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Private industry being the mentally unstable guy who will charge you a fee for sitting in his disgusting car which he has an expired license for, while you pray not to die from the fumes and that the car actually holds together long enough to get you to your destination. Laws exist to regulate private industry because private industry too easily focuses on the "my profit" part of the equation and not enough on the "quality of service" part. The race to low prices is a race to the bottom unless artificial floors are put in place. While those floors (such as vehicle inspections and standards, licensing, insurance, etc) might look like a barrier to entry into the industry, they are really defining the minimum level of service acceptable. Anyone who generates profits by circumventing the rules is trading passenger safety for dollars.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Ok, so what is your argument about Uber flouting the laws in the UK, where anyone can get commercial passenger carrying insurance and then get a taxi cab license from the local council for less than £3,000 to operate from a taxi rank or a private hire license to operate point to point on prebooking jobs?
Is it perhaps because those drivers dont have to prove that they have taken out the commercial passenger carrying insurance, nor pay the license fees, and instead just sacrifice a smaller amount to Uber?
It just shows that when you remove undue barriers to entry, people will still cut corners in order to save that little bit more money, even when the fees are justifiable and fair. And that is why Uber is having the hard time they are.
Private industry being the mentally unstable guy who will charge you a fee for sitting in his disgusting car which he has an expired license for, while you pray not to die from the fumes and that the car actually holds together long enough to get you to your destination. Laws exist to regulate private industry because private industry too easily focuses on the "my profit" part of the equation and not enough on the "quality of service" part.
You amply illustrate the thinking of the nanny state. Yeah, people are just too fucking stupid to make their own decisions. Why not let the all powerful, all knowing, all seeing government tell you what's best for you.
You talk about "minimum level of service acceptable" as if it were an absolute. Why don't you let people decide on what they'll accept instead of you -- or, by proxy, your totalitarian vision of government -- decide for them? What's acceptable to me may not be acceptable to you, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be happier paying less for it. It's my skin I'm risking, not yours. You have no business telling me I can't choose to do something because you think you know better than me what's good for me. Neither does government.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Funny how after all that talk about how the regulations are corrupted and illegitimate, you turn around and call Uber a scam. How about a third option: The people like Uber so much that any attempts to close it result in complaints and politicians getting thrown out of office as young people start to enter the voting population.
As an example, in Austin, Texas, it is illegal to possess marijuana for personal consumption. Yet everyone smokes it out in the streets, and the cops just walk on by. They have been told to ignore it, and allow the "law violation" to proceed. Why is this? Popular outcry. The politicians see the writing on the wall, and while it is hard, politically, to change the law, it is easy to call up the police commissioner and tell him to adopt a new "lax enforcement" policy. Of course, with respect to taxi companies, this results in uneven application of the law. Perhaps now they will lobby to drop all the ridiculous regulations their grandfathers called for.
"Governments, especially the likes of the Chinese government, absolutely do NOT have the monopoly on moral authority."
They have the monopoly on control, which is all that matters. If the Chinese government doesn't want Uber there, then Uber won't be there. They'll start executing people if they have to, that's how much power they have.
Keep in mind this isn't the same Tienanmen Square China.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
So where do you draw the line then? Let's say I drive to work - 60+mi each way (I really do, sometimes). If I give someone a lift from their place ... say 2 streets away from my house, to where I'm working, and they walk another 300 yards to work - should that be banned? Why? What if they offer to chuck in $10 to cover some fuel every week (with my weekly fuel bill at $100)? What if we agree they'll pay for every second tank? Now, what is the fundamental difference between chucking in half the cost by paying fuel and by giving me $15 each time?
Because you and he are going the same direction, and you aren't making a profit from them, just something to offset the cost of driving you were mostly going to be doing anyway. Uber drivers are sitting around until they are effectively dispatched by the app(they can pick who they want to pick up, but it's the same idea) to a person to take them to a place that the driver was not (in all likelihood) already going to, and getting paid to do it. If you can't see a clear distinction in that you are either rather dense or going through some major cognitive dissonance.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Ok, so what is your argument about Uber flouting the laws in the UK, where anyone can get commercial passenger carrying insurance and then get a taxi cab license from the local council for less than £3,000 to operate from a taxi rank or a private hire license to operate point to point on prebooking jobs?
My argument is simple: such laws are idiotic and serve only to create barriers to entry and depress competition and innovation. If I pick up a friend and drive him to the airport and he gives me gas (excuse me, petrol) money, do I have to have a license and carry commercial insurance? Of course not. That'd be ludicrous. And if I do it for his friends every now and then, do I need it? Still, probably not. But you think there's some magical, arbitrary line that exists somewhere saying that if I transport enough people enough times for enough money, suddenly I need insurance and have to pass a bunch of tests and comply with a bunch of regulations. Baloney. Hogwash. Balderdash.
Uber wouldn't exist if the in situ transportation companies were fulfilling their function as efficiently and cheaply as possible. Nature abhors a vacuum, and Uber is filling that vacuum. Cab companies are crying foul because they don't want their business model challenged. It has nothing to do with their sudden love of human life. You say this is all about profit and you're right, but it's about their profit, not Uber's.
And let's not forget, nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to ride with Uber instead of an insured, regulated cab. People have a (gasp) CHOICE. My God, we can't have that, can we? Government MUST step in and tell these poor besotted idiots how they must decided because they're clearly too stupid to do it for themselves! Here comes government to save the day!
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I have mod points, but Slashdot has no "-1, Full Retard", so I'm posting instead.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The portion you quoted was sarcasm, my friend. Go back and read it again and you'll see.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Breaking oppressive and illegitimate laws is good for the people and humanity.
Uh? Oppression = not allowing a company to do business? Are we taking the immoral USSC decision that companies are people too far?
Could this be the first company whose business model is to break the law, i.e. a criminal enterprise with VC funding? Of course other companies have broken the law, but Uber's specific business model is to break the law and hope to get away with it or get the law changed.
It's kinda bizarre. Maybe VC firms feel a bit uneasy about investing the maffia due to the level of violence, but Uber sounds kinda legit and has a lot of willing customers so is somehow okay. Maybe it sounds more like the kind of white collar rich person illegal-but-only-a-slap-on-the-wrist crime that they are used to, or have even engaged in themselves, like tax dodging or a bit of investment fraud.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"please enlighten me how requiring to pass a test that you fit to transport others" What is a person going to do as an Uber driver that would hurt others that he couldn't do just driving himself or his friends around? If there is a danger posed by an Uber driver, then the same danger is posed by regular drivers, and EVERYONE should be subjected to the same tests. Don't punish people for carrying out commerce. That is oppressive and hurts the people.
Someone who drives professionally spends a hell of a lot more time on the road than someone who spends 20 minutes driving to/from work each day. That means that they have a hell of a lot more of an opportunity to kill someone than the average commuter. Uber encourages these people to drive more.
"requiring more frequent car inspections (since the cars are also used much more intensely)" The cars are also owned by the drivers, who will notice when something is wrong, and get it addressed quickly, since they have to pay for it and don't want damage to compound. If the car is unsafe, the passenger will notice, give a bad rating, and complain to Uber, who will quickly deactivate the driver contengent on getting his car fixed. This is called market regulation, and it is 1000x as effective as corrupt government regulation. All you have to do is find a corrupt inspector and slip him five extra bucks and your car will pass ANY inspection.
No. Most people I know will drive around with their check engine light on for months because they don't know how to actually see what the engine code means. They also fail to maintain the emission components of their vehicles, change their oil, and a host of other small things they should be doing. Hell just a month ago I replaced the brakes and rotors on a coworker's car because she didn't realize that grinding noise she was hearing when she hit the brakes was bad.
"Fine print"
When the policy is or isn't in effect is the central point of the policy. That's like saying that a life insurance policy not paying out on a suicide is "fine print". The driver was personally liable in that case. And also, I should add, no more likely to be the cause of such a tragedy than any other driver. Should all drivers be required to carry million dollar policies?
Setting norms for industry is not "nanny state". Are you glad that the pilot of your airline has a license, the mechanics who work on the plane are certified, etc or is that "nanny state"? Maybe I should buy a plane and start flying people around. I have a history of heart disease and haven't actually flown anything apart from my dad's piper when I was a kid and he let me take the controls, but I have plenty of simulator time. I should start my own airline.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
AFAICT it was illegal.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
If you think paying taxes and playing by the same rules the yellow taxis have to play by is "punishing people", then I don't even know man.
Yeah, that's a nice fantasy there. I use Uber and Lyft to get around sometimes and the number of times I've gotten into a car with a check engine light on is astounding.
I never review drivers and ding them for it because drivers can review me and make it hard for me to get car service.
Here's the thing, it's not the consumer's responsibility to make sure that what they're consuming is fundamentally safe or not. I'm not an inspector. I don't have the tools, money, access, and most importantly time to vet every single one of my drivers. When I need to get across town in twenty minutes, I don't have time to shop around for a cab. I get in the one I can get and go. It's not like I'm shopping around for a washing machine, a video card, a pair of pants, or any other consumer good.
Fortunately, there are people out there who make it their job to ensure that commerce is done fairly with proper levels of oversight to take care of that for me. I elect them. They need to do their damned jobs. And in the case of the Yellow Cabs, they do it amazingly well.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
And this is why private pilot and commercial pilot licenses are very different.
Even airlines skip on maintenance. This has already killed people. These airlines still exist, making your point unconvincing at best.
And now you are pulling numbers out of your arse. There is a reason why insurance companies insist on commercial insurances for professional drivers.
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
Hardly. AirBnb and PayPal are both good examples of this sort of thing. PayPal got raided a lot and got sent C&D letters by various state regulators when they were rolling out across the USA. Eventually they had to sell to eBay (their primary competitor) to get enough money and political immunity to survive. There's a book about it called the PayPal Wars that goes into more detail on this.
|Uber have been shut down in cities in the following countries: "Cities" is the keyword here.
I think they are a double edged sword. They get taken advantage of, yes but you can't operate without them altogether either.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
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.
Who will win, long-term, established ecologies or kudzu?
Maybe it's inevitably kudzu, but does that mean we should cheer for it? Cancer is also a disruption. Should all laws be dissolved if they get in the way of anyone's business plan? Why insist on anyone having drivers licenses at all, let alone commercial ratings and proper insurance to carry fares? It would be cheaper to build cars without seat belts and airbags. Let's disrupt that!
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
One thing is for sure, some poor Uber driver's life will be destroyed the first time there is an accident causing injury with another uninsured driver. Uber won't be standing behind them.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Look, you're way abusing that metaphor.
See, "the market" isn't "nature", and "undercutting competition by ignoring laws and regulations" isn't a vacuum. That is a complete lie.
Capitalism isn't a natural law of the universe. It's a belief system which came out of observations about how things were structured. This whole crap about "yarg, let teh companies do as they please" is basically being stupid and ignoring all of the reasons why we have these laws in the first place.
And we have those laws because in the past greedy, shady douchebags with little regard for the welfare of others have decided to act like greedy, shady douchebags. And this whole crap of "people are free to not buy from greedy, shay douchebags" is so so much garbage it isn't funny.
In the same way that melamine laced baby formula in China (and pet food in North America) wasn't a choice where someone could say "hey, gee, I know, I'll save a few bucks and buy the toxic stuff". By the time people know about the corners greedy, shady douchebags have cut ... it's simply too damned late, and people can die to pad the profits of greedy, shay douchebags.
The notion that the market works because people have access to information is a complete lie ... because the people in that market will always be trying to figure out how to fuck over their customers.
The 'market' is an abstraction. It sure as hell isn't some noble construct which achieves perfect outcomes in the long run. The 'market' is amoral, and doesn't give a sweet damn if people die.
Because in the long run it devolves to scams, fraud, collusions and cartels.
Your previous 'market' is a complete lie which has never existed, cannot exist, and will never achieve the perfect outcomes you blindly believe it will.
The rest of us don't want to live in a world where all of the advantages are in the hands of greedy, shady douchebags. And we certainly don't want to live in one predicated on the bullshit lie of consumers making "choices" among lying bastards giving them false information.
Honestly, you have so little understanding of the real world if you really think crap like safety regulations come down to consumer choice and intrusive government. You're romanticizing something which has never existed as you imagine it to be, and which simply can't exist as you imagine it.
Sorry, but you can't run a society on the fucking Ferengi Rules of Acquisition -- which is what the laissez faire capitalists think we should have.
The free market is bloody lie, and especially all of those wonderful outcomes people attribute to it. The market is the collective behavior of a bunch of sociopaths, that's it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
In a civilised country they are required to. German driver insurance policy has to be, by law, at least EUR 7.5 million for personal damage - per person, capped to 100 millions per case.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Good point. Reading comprehension fail on my part. Thanks for pointing this out.
I do when what you do involves me, and it turns out I might be on those public roads, and I might even be asked to pay for the expenses when you get in an accident, and I surely am expected to deal with the fumes released by the ICE vehicles. You know, when you make your business my business.
I'm not asking you to pay for any of my expenses if I get into an accident. If the government is forcing you to do so, however, your issue should (again) be with the idiotic government regulations that compel you to do such things, not with me for exercising my free will.
The "fumes" crap is just that -- crap. It's a non sequitur to the argument at hand, namely whether the government has any right to shut down a useful service that's in demand by a willing population.
We do not living a sovereign anarchy.
Nor did I say we should. A sovereign anarchy would mean I can do whatever I want regardless of how it might affect anyone and everyone. Quite the contrary, I propose the government has no business telling me what I can and can't do when it only affects myself. For example, if I want to sit in my house and get blind stinking drunk, that's my business and the government has no right to stop me. If, however, I choose to get drunk and drive, then it affects others, so that should rightly be a crime. See? It's pretty simple. You get to do what you think is best for you, I get to do what I think is best for me, and so long as neither of us tread on the other, why should either of us care what the other did or does?
Your problem is you think what's best for you ought to be best for everyone else. The height of arrogance. Let everyone make their own choices, even if they're the wrong ones. In the end, the "right" choices will eventually win the day and society will progress.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Obviously, the more crony capitalism and rent seeking there is in a sector, the harder it is to innovate, drive down prices, and deliver a better product, viz transportation, healthcare, education.
Are you glad that the pilot of your airline has a license, the mechanics who work on the plane are certified, etc or is that "nanny state"?
I'm glad they have licenses, certified mechanics, etc., but you miss the point. I don't have a choice in the matter. All these things are mandated and regulated. However, if I did have a choice, I would choose of my own free will to fly the licensed, certified airline. Most other people would probably choose the same way, and the unlicensed, uncertified airline would wither and die for lack of business...all without the almighty hand of government forcing the populace to think and act a certain way.
Maybe I should buy a plane and start flying people around. I have a history of heart disease and haven't actually flown anything apart from my dad's piper when I was a kid and he let me take the controls, but I have plenty of simulator time. I should start my own airline.
Then nothing should stop you from doing so. If you can attract paying customers to your business and you prosper at it, you're filling a market need that wasn't being addressed to begin with. Your customers are happy, you're happy, and nobody is harmed by these free choices. If you give bad customer service, endanger your passengers beyond their willingness to accept risk, or run your business poorly, your endeavor will fail as it should based strictly on the merits of your idea and enterprise. Government should not be in the business of determining who can or cannot come up with a useful service. Period. Government is too corruptible, too faceless, and far, far too powerful to trust with something like this.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
One thing is for sure, some poor Uber driver's life will be destroyed the first time there is an accident causing injury with another uninsured driver. Uber won't be standing behind them.
So? It's not like someone put a gun to their head and said "you will drive for Uber or else!"
For crying out loud folks...grow the fuck up and take some responsibility for your own actions. If you don't want the risk, don't take the job.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Really? What possible beneficial function does taxi licensing actually fulfill that wouldn't be better accomplished by other mechanisms?
And why should Uber "stand behind them"? These drivers are adults; they know what kind of insurance they ought to get.
One thing is for sure, some poor Uber driver's life will be destroyed the first time there is an accident causing injury with another uninsured driver. Uber won't be standing behind them.
So? It's not like someone put a gun to their head and said "you will drive for Uber or else!"
For crying out loud folks...grow the fuck up and take some responsibility for your own actions. If you don't want the risk, don't take the job.
No, but if you work for a company (and these drivers are working for Uber, as much as they try to claim otherwise) that company should be liable for any injuries that occur to their employee (workers comp) as well and any injuries and damages caused to a third party by their employee (insurance). If they want to claim the drivers are contractors, then they have a duty to ensure their contractors are fully certified and insured(that is, commercial car insurance with higher liability) before they pick up a single passenger.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Thank you. Obviously this guy has some reason to ignore reality in order to support Uber. Especially that comment about riders knowing that the driver isn't maintaining their car properly. How does anyone know that the brakes need service if they don't stick their head in the wheel well and look? Perhaps if there were no brake pads left! But with drum brakes you wouldn't even hear a sound when the brakes stopped working. And there are plenty of new base model cars with rear drum brakes.
Well, just so you know... I visited Guangzhou last week, and left there at roughly EOB on 30 April.
Put that little logical capsule in your Nespresso and see what gets poured into your mug.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
And if I do it for his friends every now and then, do I need it? Still, probably not. But you think there's some magical, arbitrary line that exists somewhere saying that if I transport enough people enough times for enough money, suddenly I need insurance and have to pass a bunch of tests and comply with a bunch of regulations.
There is a line, but it isn't arbitrary or magical. When it stops being "give a friend a lift to the airport" and starts being "charging people money to take them to the airport" that's the line. It has become commercial activity.
Uber pretends (or used to) to be "ride-sharing" but it isn't. Ride sharing would have people who are making trips post their trips and offer to pick people up on the way. "I'm going from the vicinity of the high school to the mall leaving between 2pm and 3pm, any riders?" If Uber was doing this, they would have an argument that they aren't a taxi service they are just selling unused seats in cars that were making the trip anyway. But that isn't what Uber is selling.
--
JimFive
Please stop using the word theory when you mean hypothesis.
This is China. So you can be sure that once Uber is driven out of the country, the Chinese version of Uber will be sanctioned and completely take over the market share. Its happened in every other sector. US companies go there to divulge technology and operations information, only to be replaced by state sponsored actors as soon as is convenient.
eBay and paypal were never competitors.
eBay and Paypal are synergistic - eBay needed a low-friction payment platform. Prior to the Paypal acquisition, an auction listing might only take money orders for payment (thought many sellers took Paypal because it was way more convenient). And money orders in the age of the Internet really goes back - I mean, telling the buyer to go to a post office, buy a money order, then stamp and send it off the seller and hopes it all goes alright? If you were a buyer out to screw the seller, you could win a bunch of time-sensitive auctions, then hang them up for weeks waiting for money orders. (You have to remember they will take roughly a couple of weeks for the buyer to get one and mail it off, and perhaps you can claim "lost" and take another couple of weeks). If it was a time-sensitive material, that could span a couple of months and render the product worthless.
Then there was the seller who might receive and claim it as not paid still.
Paypal offered something no one else did (or still do) - the ability for Joe Random to take a credit card payment irregularly. Merchant accounts are expensive and often have conditions. Paypal did not - if you only did 1 $100 sale in a year, that was fine for Paypal. Most merchant accounts would've charged you several hundred dollars if you did that. And credit cards ensured payments could be sent instantly and quickly, more in line with traditional online shopping.
Sure it probably took eBay's might to sort out all the financial and banking issues, but eBay and paypal are not competitors. They're not even just two random companies - they're companies that realize each has a product or service that works really really really well together. Even post eBay/Paypal split the relationship is more than that of two companies.
Timothy went full retarded years ago, probably even before his editorship at Slashdot. He's a dumb motherfucker.
Passenger livery laws exist for a reason, and it's not simply to make taxi companies richer. It's to ensure the safety and well being of the passengers both during normal, mundane fares, and when something like an automobile accident happens.
If Uber was being used as a real ride-sharing service, where the driver happened to be going to a destination near the passenger's destination, such that the passenger's fare offset there driver's costs somewhat, I might be inclined to let Uber slide on the regs a bit, as that's not a lot different than getting gas money from the drunk friend for the trip home from the bar. Instead Uber is operating as a taxi service, where the driver acknowledges requests for pickup, drives to the location of the fare, collects them, drives them to their destination, and then looks for another request for pickup. Uber is a taxi. As such it needs to abide by passenger livery laws. If it doesn't like the laws, and if the passengers in a given area also feel that there's a problem, they should work to change the laws, not to break them while claiming that the laws do not apply.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
That's not reductio ad absurdum, that's a non-sequitur. And I didn't say that all regulation is bad. I said that laws that harm the people are not just, and we have no moral obligation to follow them, as so many here seem to assert. Yes, everyone needs to play by the same rules. In the case of the Aztecs, do you think that should mean that the ruling class should have submitted their own children for slaughter, or that they should have just stopped slaughtering children altogether?
Then there is a lawsuit, and the courts will sort it out. These kinds of disputes happen ALL THE TIME in insurance. Why do you think there are so many lawyers advertizing on TV with tough guy names like "The Hammer" or "The Gorilla" all talking about going after insurance companies?
Yes, they escort the cameras out first, then they start arresting the crowd from the edges and driving them away, proceeding in toward the center. As they make arrests they determine who's of high-value and who's small-fry, and let the small-fry go with a note on their record so when they get out of line in the future they know to be harsher, while they punish the high-value prisoners.
All governments do it this way. The various governments within the United States did this during the Occupy movement. The Canadians did this during the G# summit. They don't pull a Blade Runner and bomb the rioters, that's stupid. They tie them down with red-tape instead.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
That's good then. Sensible, self consistent, consistent with current law, and non-biased is what you want in regulation.
I've taken taxis before. I don't feel that the rides I took, which are the culmination of the laws and policies and rules, were hurting me.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The story never ends. Tech head figures out a way to earn money by not playing on a level playing field. Of course,they make it sound like the "evil establishment prohibits competition". The truth is there: the table is level and either step up and challenge or go away. When you meet all the technical requirements for the contract, you may then compete on price. failing to meet the technical standards and you don't get to play.
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
No, not only China. Uber's business model is illegal in most of the world where there are already laws governing charging fares to passengers in your car.
Not only China, but more China. As a practical matter, I have never heard anything good about China's response to foreign business investments. It's probably the single biggest thing limiting their growth at the moment. Worse, even companies investing billions there have to basically have a Chinese company do it for them because there is so much corruption that it is impossible to do it themselves without violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
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.
I'm a little confused. Are you arguing a hypothetical, that taxi rates could jump orders of magnitude in price, or are you arguing that taxi upstarts would get destroyed, or are you arguing something else?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The point you're missing is that many will be happy to tell you that they are fully licensed, certified, etc and actually be lying through their teeth - especially if profit is involved. The only way to ensure compliance is to force them.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
As for rear drum breaks, they are only an assist. If they go out, it just makes the front breaks wear faster.
They're also quite useful when you're not driving the car.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
The police are still free to enforce the speed limit though. The defense in court that everyone was doing it doesn't hold any weight with the judge, and in in jury trials where the odds of finding people more sympathetic to the herd argument it might not work. Also in this analogy, if the police are letting speed infractions slide, they might still pull over tailgaters and other aggressive drivers that are making the road more dangerous irrespective of speed, or they might cite the speed limit infraction along with the reckless driving infraction.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I don't know about NYC, but in London Uber has an option for this, UberTAXI which summons a black cab. You're then charged off the meter in the usual way.
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
"How does anyone know that the brakes need service" Not a car guy, eh? Here's a hint: that terrible screeching sound you are hearing every time you hit the breaks means you need to get new pads, IF you haven't already destroyed the rotors.
Sounds like you are not the car guy. The screech you hear can be chatter from the brake pads, or from the wear indicator. It is NOT and indication that you need to replace the brakes, it is an indication that you need to inspect the brakes. Brand new brakes can cause a screeching sound if they do not have the proper shims installed, or an anti-screech compound put onto the back of the pads.
There is nothing to cause a screeching sound that would also destroy the rotors - neither brake chatter nor the wear indicator will cause damage to the rotor. If you hear a grinding noise, then the brake pad has been worn completely away (at least in one place, or on one side of the rotor). Of course someone can hear steel on steel grinding. You can feel it in the car when the brakes are applied.
As for rear drum breaks, they are only an assist. If they go out, it just makes the front breaks wear faster.
Anyone who understands physics understands that the rear brakes do not provide as much stopping power as the front, regardless of whether they are drum or disc. However, up to 40% of your stopping power can come from the rear brakes. If you're driving without rear brakes, you had better hope you never need to make a panic stop. In a brief Googling the best I could find for you is the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's Basic Handbook that indicates that the average motorcycle has 30% of its total available braking power in the rear wheel. It does not say that the rear wheels provide nothing but brake assist, that is just absurd. And I would prefer to NOT ride in the car of someone who only has 70% of their total stopping power available to them.
I support the rights of the people, including their right to free enterprise without interference from men with guns, whether they be banditos or g-men.
You're right, people deserve freedom. However, being a member of society requires that you follow certain norms. For simplicity's sake, why don't we call these norms regulations? These regulations forbid you from murdering me, for instance. The general purpose of these regulations are to prevent injury or harm to others. If you'd like to go back to the days without any sort of government regulations, why don't we just go ahead and let you, your partner, your parents, your children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, or any progeny of your family work in a factory for 100+ hours a week?
Democracy has rules! It is not just about everyone rampantly going around doing what they want! If what you say is true, then the existence of any government at all is purely undemocratic.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
It ensures a certain minimum of safety. When you release the floor, everyone will devolve into total crap. Crap for the consumer, crap for the industry. No one wins unless everyone is forced to a certain common minimum.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
The whole Uber thing is nothing more than Karl Marx's prediction that capitalism would end up being a race to the bottom.
Removing government controls at this point would just get us there more quickly.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I don't know what code that light is indicating. I'm 99% sure I'm going to reach my destination, so I hop in anyway.
Still, doesn't make me feel great to do so.
I live in NYC. Yellow Cabs here are impeccably maintained. Maybe you live somewhere that doesn't care about taxis? NYC is run on taxis.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
What I don't understand is why this business model is allowed to work for Uber, but not for napster, thepiratebay, or more recently, Grooveshark. All of these entities thought that they would invent themselves in the face of laws that they considered unfair yet only Uber is the one that is allowed to survive among them?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The police are still free to enforce the speed limit though. The defense in court that everyone was doing it doesn't hold any weight with the judge, and in in jury trials where the odds of finding people more sympathetic to the herd argument it might not work. Also in this analogy, if the police are letting speed infractions slide, they might still pull over tailgaters and other aggressive drivers that are making the road more dangerous irrespective of speed, or they might cite the speed limit infraction along with the reckless driving infraction.
No, in that area they will pull you over if you do go the speed limit, because if you're not speeding then you're impeding traffic. Go ahead and try it if you don't believe me.
The problem is that the people who make the rules, the people who enforce the rules, and the people most affected by the rules, are all different groups with different objectives. Reality is based on which rules are enforced or followed, not what is written.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Reductio ad absurdum. You claimed that higher prices don't hurt you, which is patently wrong. They just haven't hurt you enough for you to notice. Others sure have.
There's no rule that says that if you disagree with a law and decide to break it, that you have to be willing to accept the punishment and draw attention to the situation. That's only one way to do civil disobedience, and it will only work if people are extremely sympathetic to those breaking that law. Uber's method of blatantly breaking the law but having anyone important untouchable due to technicalities, also works well. Presumably not getting caught would be yet another (and drawing attention via the amount of resources wasted on attempted enforcement).
Public civil disobedience would of course be the best method for those few who live in a democracy.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
No, I claimed the prices that I paid didn't hurt me. While I usually make an effort to get low prices, it doesn't physically pain me if there are circumstances when relatively inexpensive transactions are not absolutely bargain-basement in the interests of expediency. The two times most recently I used a taxi were hailing one in a high density city, and taking one home from the airport. In both cases I got my transport essentially immediately.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I live in a city where people routinely do fifteen miles an hour over the posted speed limit on the freeways, and usually to 5 to 10 miles per hour over the speed limit on surface streets. So, upwards of 80 in a 65, 70 in a 55, 55 in a 45, 50 in a 40, 30 to 35 in a 25.
To be pulled over for obstructing traffic on a freeway, you have to be going at least ten miles an hour slower than the posted speed limit, and honestly have to be too far to the left. You won't be pulled over for obstructing traffic on a surface street unless you're not moving or again, you're too far to the left.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
As you said... but remember, no matter what lane you are, if you're going the speed limit the only traffic you'd be obstructing would be traffic going above the speed limit.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Spoken like a true drooling idiot who has lost all critical thinking skills.
Those who cannot argue logically resort to ad hominem attacks.
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.K
No one said it was perfect, but thank you for creating a strawman, another weak logical fallacy.
f 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.
Again, another strawman. I never said anything about removing all government regulations. Some things -- like not being able to shout "fire" in a crowded theater -- make logical sense. Others -- like forcing nail salons to obtain a license in order to do their specific business -- are idiotic. If you're unable to sift the wheat from the chaff, that's your problem.
Stop pretending otherwise.
Since you're the one who's consistently stooped to ad hominem, strawmen, and completely refused to address any of the logical arguments presented -- namely, why should choice be restricted when it harms no one but the person making the choice? -- it's clear you're the one who needs to quit pretending. This is not about Uber being a corporation trying to flout rules and screw the public. It's about the rules being ridiculous in the first place and Uber is disrupting the status quo. Get this through your thick anti-capitalist skull: Uber would not exist if there was not a demand for its services. Ergo, if Uber exists, it's because the existing services model is flawed, inefficient, expensive, outmoded, or some combination thereof. Replacing something flawed with something less flawed -- or even differently flawed -- is probably a good thing. The only way to know for sure is to let the idea compete in an open market where it will live or die on the merits of its usefulness. But you don't want to do that. You want to maintain the status quo, quash choice and innovation, and tell people you know what's better for them than they do. Because reasons. And corporations bad. Yadda yadda yadda. Your vitriol in this respect is as predictable as it is laughable.
I have yet to hear anything logical or reasoned from you regarding why choice should be quashed. If the idea is bad, it will die on the vine...as all bad ideas should. If it's good then what it replaces will die on the vine...as it should.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
And where is the evidence for that? We have private limousine service, private bus companies, and Uber itself, and they all work a lot better than taxis and public buses.
Uber has not been shut down in any part of the UK.
It operates as a licensed private car hire service ("minicabs") and drivers must possess appropriate licensing for commercial work plus have a criminal record check.
The problem arises where Uber is touting drivers "for hire" when they're not licenses for hire work - which in most cases invalidates their insurance.
"no matter what lane you are, if you're going the speed limit the only traffic you'd be obstructing would be traffic going above the speed limit."
Just about every set of road rules in the world says "keep right(*) unless passing". Cruising up the middle lane of the highway is "failing to keep right" (*) and can be prosecuted as careless driving, even if there's no other traffic on the road - in practice such people are rolling roadblocks because it's usually illegal to pass them on the right(*) and as such they turn a three lane road into a 1 or 2 lane one.
Many countries also have laws on the books such that if you're travelling slowly and have more than N cars behind, you _must_ pull over and allow them to pass.
(*) s/right/left/g for countries which drive on the left side of the road.
Well, I find it amusing that they have laws that are there to benefit people breaking other laws.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways