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Uber In Retreat Across Europe
HughPickens.com writes: Mark Scott reports at the NY Times that Uber is rapidly expanding its ride-hailing operations across the globe but some of Uber's fiercest opposition has come in Europe, where the culture clash between the remorseless competition of the US tech industry and the locals' respect for tradition and deference to established interests is especially stark. In Frankfort, Uber shut its office after just 18 months of operation spurred in part by drivers like Hasan Kurt, the owner of a local licensed taxi business, who had refused to work with the American service. Uber antagonized local taxi operators by prioritizing its low-cost service, and then could not persuade enough licensed drivers to sign up, even after it offered to pay for licenses and help with other regulatory costs that totaled as much as $400 for new drivers. "It's not part of the German culture to do something like" what Uber did says Kurt. "We don't like it, the government doesn't like it, and our customers don't like it."
Uber also pulled out of Hamburg and Düsseldorf after less than two years of operating in each of those German cities. In Amsterdam, Uber recently stopped offering UberPop, in Paris and Madrid, Uber has been confronted by often violent opposition from existing taxi operators, while in London, local regulators are mulling changes that could significantly hamper Uber's ambitions there. Uber's aggressive tactics have turned off potential customers like Andreas Müller who tried the company's Frankfurt service after first using Uber on a business trip in Chicago. Müller said he liked the convenience of paying through his smartphone, but soon turned against the company after reading that it had continued operating in violation of court orders and did not directly employ its drivers, who are independent contractors. "That might work in the U.S., but that's not how things are done here in Germany," says Müller. "Everyone must respect the rules."
Uber also pulled out of Hamburg and Düsseldorf after less than two years of operating in each of those German cities. In Amsterdam, Uber recently stopped offering UberPop, in Paris and Madrid, Uber has been confronted by often violent opposition from existing taxi operators, while in London, local regulators are mulling changes that could significantly hamper Uber's ambitions there. Uber's aggressive tactics have turned off potential customers like Andreas Müller who tried the company's Frankfurt service after first using Uber on a business trip in Chicago. Müller said he liked the convenience of paying through his smartphone, but soon turned against the company after reading that it had continued operating in violation of court orders and did not directly employ its drivers, who are independent contractors. "That might work in the U.S., but that's not how things are done here in Germany," says Müller. "Everyone must respect the rules."
Nonsense. Tuition in the US is free for the poor: there are sufficient grants to cover poor students who earn a place in college by performing satisfactorily on entrance exams and by demonstrating solid work in their high school years. The actual problem is twofold: first, that many poor children, like their parents before them, are not sufficiently intelligent to pass those exams or not sufficiently diligent to perform well in school; and second, that the parents do not value education enough to encourage their children to go to college. The two problems are not unrelated.
When I would ask my grandfather what the difference was between the U.S. and Europe, he used to tell me that America was made up of the descendants of the European people who were willing to work hard and take the risk of a better life in the New World. Europe was made up of the descendants of the European people who were too lazy or frightened to leave the Old World.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Evidence for 1-7 will suffice. If you can only back it up with your limited personal experience, concede the point like a rational person.
Actually, the original Europeans who came over here were tired of getting the short end of the religion stick, and wanted to be the bullies who got to define what religion was right.
That and Australia still was undiscovered...
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Nobody forced you to sign on the dotted line for the loan to fund your $55k/year Critical Queer Trans Women's Studies degree that rendered you less fit for a career asking people "you want fries with that?" than you were before you went in. It's your fault you didn't look into more cost-effective options which you might've been able to pay as you go, or at least rack up a smaller, more easily paid-off pile of debt. It's your fault you picked a worthless degree with no real-world applicability. Why should I (with the computer-science degree from a state school) and others like me (not to mention all of the millions who found gainful employment without a degree in the trades, the military, or whatever) have to finance your poor choices?
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.