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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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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
|Uber have been shut down in cities in the following countries: "Cities" is the keyword here.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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?