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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.
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
"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
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.
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.
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.