Uber Performs U-turn on Macau Exit Plan (reuters.com)

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Uber Performs U-turn on Macau Exit Plan (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on Friday September 9, 2016 @02:55AM from the u-turn dept.

Reuters reports:Global ride-hailing company Uber Technologies has aborted plans to pull out of Macau, citing support from residents in the Chinese-ruled gambling hub. Uber launched in Macau less than a year ago but announced at the end of August that it would withdraw from the former Portuguese colony because its drivers faced total fines of 10 million patacas ($1.25 million). The Macau government has taken a firm stance against Uber, with Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak stating that the service violated local laws. "After much deliberation, Uber will continue to serve the riders and drivers of Macau, the company said in a statement on its website. "The unprecedented amount of support we received over the past few weeks has been overwhelming."

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Will uber pay to bail drivers out? by Joe_Dragon · 2016-09-09 03:02 · Score: 1

Will uber pay to bail drivers out?
1. Re:Will uber pay to bail drivers out? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-09 03:12 · Score: 0
  
  No it will just pay the bribes, same as the local taxi guys do.
2. Re:Will uber pay to bail drivers out? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-09 03:13 · Score: 0
  
  Will uber pay to bail drivers out?
  Cancer does not know empathy.
3. Re:Will uber pay to bail drivers out? by ADRA · 2016-09-09 04:24 · Score: 1
  
  No, like all good internet companies, they'll flagrantly break local laws from outside their borders with no repercussions.
  
  --
  Bye!
Chinese-ruled gambling hub by fustakrakich · 2016-09-09 03:11 · Score: 1

Now that is an interesting concept! I wonder if you have to be a citizen if you want to open a brothel..
I am also interested to see how Uber will fare against Chinese guns if the government decides to enforce its laws.
Uber "Technologies" is kind of a misnomer. They are more of a overvalued hedge fund than anything else.

--
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
1. Re:Chinese-ruled gambling hub by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-09 03:19 · Score: 0
  
  yes, you have to be a citizen approved by the Chinese government to open any business in Macau.
2. Re:Chinese-ruled gambling hub by bill_mcgonigle · 2016-09-09 03:44 · Score: 1
  
  Uber "Technologies" is kind of a misnomer. They are more of a overvalued hedge fund than anything else.
  They lost a billion dollars last year, so not the best hedge fund ever. And no other traits of a hedge fund.
  What they are is a tech startup that has created an efficient market that is disruptive to an extant rigged market. Listen here - you'll learn something, guaranteed.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
3. Re:Chinese-ruled gambling hub by danbob999 · 2016-09-09 03:44 · Score: 2
  
  Uber "Technologies" is kind of a misnomer. They are more of a overvalued hedge fund than anything else.
  Uber is not a tech company. It's a lobbying company. Anybody can clone its app. Its strength is to make politicians change laws to accept Uber, and/or operate illegally without too much problems.
4. Re:Chinese-ruled gambling hub by danbob999 · 2016-09-09 03:52 · Score: 2
  
  In most jurisdictions, you need special permits and/or plate and/or insurance and/or background check and/or to pay taxes when you offer taxi service, which is exactly what Uber drivers are doing. There is no sharing, except with UberPool, but in all cases there is no sharing with the driver.
5. Re:Chinese-ruled gambling hub by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-09 04:29 · Score: 0
  
  Thank you Perry Mason.
  Yes Crimes include many legal elements. But do them wrong and Poof it is a crime.
  It _is_ legal to own a gun.
  It _is_ legal to to walk in to a bank.
  It _is_ legal to write Notes.
  It _is_ legal to wear a ski mask.
  It _is_ legal to ask tellers for money.
6. Re:Chinese-ruled gambling hub by TapeCutter · 2016-09-09 04:52 · Score: 1
  
  It is illegal to operate a hire car without a license and insurance, and in many places it is illegal to give money to beggars.The politicians in my location have allowed uber to devalue a taxi plate from $500K to $150K, they have legalized Uber are now imposing a $2 tax on every ride to buy the plates back at the devalued price. I would be very pissed at a government that sold me a regulated business and then allowed a bunch of racketeers to ignore the regulations and wipe out 2/3rds of the resale value of that business in just a few short years.
  
  Uber's strategy is to pay drivers fines and spend heavily on advertising and lobbying until it has destroyed the local industry and rebuilt it to suit its own business plan, I believe their business plan has now expanded into selling overpriced cars on high interest loans to desperate and/or naive people who know nothing about the business they are buying into. If I was a government I would do like Macu - keep imposing fines until they run out of money or go away.
  
  --
  And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
7. Re:Chinese-ruled gambling hub by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-09 07:35 · Score: 0
  
  I've heard someone call it a money laundering scheme. Perhaps they are correct.
8. Re:Chinese-ruled gambling hub by stephanruby · 2016-09-09 10:55 · Score: 1
  
  In most jurisdictions, you need special permits and/or plate and/or insurance and/or background check and/or to pay taxes when you offer taxi service, which is exactly what Uber drivers are doing.
  
  Yes, they do go through some background checks, although it's usually not as thorough as some of the taxi cab drivers have to go through, they carry commercial insurance, and they do pay special taxes to some of the cities and airports they service.
  That being said, Uber cars are more like limousines, black-for-hire cars, or airport shuttles, not taxis, they're not allowed to pick up people who flag them on the streets, nor do they have special taxi stands that they can wait at, but they're allowed to pick passengers up if the service was pre-arranged by telephone just like a limousine driver would be allowed to do.
9. Re:Chinese-ruled gambling hub by danbob999 · 2016-09-10 02:25 · Score: 1
  
  And in many places, they DO NOT pay the taxes they legally have to pay.
  Canada is such one place. All taxi services much charge GST+PST. Uber doesn't. And most drivers don't have commercial insurance, taxi plates and taxi license here.
10. Re:Chinese-ruled gambling hub by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-10 07:38 · Score: 0
  
  i see only one problem with taxi medalion price droping from $500K to $150K
  it should be/drop to $0K instead, meadalions should dissapear, oligopolies/taxis that bought them should loose all money on them
11. Re:Chinese-ruled gambling hub by Coren22 · 2016-09-12 05:35 · Score: 1
  
  https://newsroom.uber.com/5646...
  Uber insures all drivers in the US under a commercial insurance policy, and always has. Are you trying to claim that they work differently in Canada?
  https://newsroom.uber.com/cana...
  Nope, no different in Canada. That is at least Ontario, you may need to check if they do in your section of Canada. Though I can't imagine it would be different for some reason.
  
  --
  APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
12. Re:Chinese-ruled gambling hub by Coren22 · 2016-09-12 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  Where do you live? Uber carries commercial insurance policies on their drivers in the US and Ontario at least. This no insurance thing keeps persisting, despite evidence to the contrary.
  https://newsroom.uber.com/cana...
  https://newsroom.uber.com/5646...
  
  --
  APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
13. Re:Chinese-ruled gambling hub by danbob999 · 2016-09-12 06:44 · Score: 1
  
  Uber insures all drivers in the US under a commercial insurance policy, and always has. Are you trying to claim that they work differently in Canada?
  Yes.
  
  https://newsroom.uber.com/cana...
  Nope, no different in Canada. That is at least Ontario, you may need to check if they do in your section of Canada. Though I can't imagine it would be different for some reason.
  It is. Unless Uber explicitely gets an agreement with a city/province, it doesn't insure drivers in Canada. The deal with Ontario is very recent (2 months). Before that (for much of Uber's history in the province), it was the driver's responsibility to be insured. Most didn't bothered.
  There is no Canada-wide Uber-provided insurance for drivers.
How Brave of them to continue breaking laws by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-09 03:48 · Score: 1

There customers want it and that is all that matters.
Join the Brave Pimps , Traffickers, and drug dealer.
1. Re:How Brave of them to continue breaking laws by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-09 06:27 · Score: 0
  
  Never mind the War on (some) Drugs; thank God the state wants to protect us from paying a guy for a ride in his van!
Global ride-hailing company? by houghi · 2016-09-09 03:58 · Score: 2

Please call them what they are : a taxi company.
No need to repeat their marketing drivel.

--
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
1. Re:Global ride-hailing company? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-09 05:43 · Score: 0
  
  Well, at least they are not a global Sieg-hailing company .. yet.
2. Re:Global ride-hailing company? by Xyrus · 2016-09-09 08:26 · Score: 0
  
  Please call them what they are : a taxi company.
  No need to repeat their marketing drivel.
  They're not even a taxi company. They're a contracting service. They match independent contractors (drivers) with riders. The contract drivers agree to is so bad you'd have be blind and/or stupid to accept it. The drivers would actually be better off just working for a real taxi company. At least then they're aren't wrecking their own cars while making pennies on the dollar after expenses and taxes.
  
  --
  ~X~
3. Re:Global ride-hailing company? by stephanruby · 2016-09-09 10:39 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, "ride-hailing" doesn't work. Also, hailing implies the visual flagging down of the Uber car on the street, which Uber drivers are not allowed to respond to.
  A more accurate label is ride-sharing. After all, taxi cabs do not pick up different people who do not know each other at different points on a route to share part of their journey. That is more like airport shuttles, or buses, except unlike airport shuttles or buses, Uber/Lyft does the matching of riders in real-time.
4. Re:Global ride-hailing company? by Carewolf · 2016-09-09 11:54 · Score: 1
  
  Please call them what they are : a taxi company.
  No need to repeat their marketing drivel.
  Organized crime? If they don't register as a taxi company and organizing drivers breaking local laws they are just organizating crime.
Throwing off the shackles of government oppression by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-09 04:13 · Score: 0

It's my God-given right to make money however I see fit, laws be damned.
This is not news for nerds by Misagon · 2016-09-09 04:58 · Score: 3, Insightful

Uber is not a tech company, whatever they claim.
Sure, their business may be driven by an app and a server "cloud" backend - but so do lots of other businesses. It is nothing special about it - and it is definitely not nerdy.
So please, Slashdot, please stop giving this cheap taxi service more free publicity!

--
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
I don't understand this by thegarbz · 2016-09-09 13:22 · Score: 1

Macau is not the place I would find Uber to be of any real benefit and I don't understand why they operate here. This administrative region of China is tiny. 13km on it's longest length, but most of the population live and work on the northern island which is 4km across. I walked from the Chinese mainland border to the beach on the very south of Macau in under 2 hours. I took a taxi back to the hotel near the border and that only cost me ~$7USD. There's busses as well which can get you pretty much everywhere.
Cheap taxis combined with good and available transport is not the type of market where I expect to find Uber.
Re:Throwing off the shackles of government oppress by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-10 07:41 · Score: 0

if your not citzen in a country, or company with office in a country, that country laws do not apply to you
would you like to be forced under penalty of death to respect every law in every country in a world, i am sure some teorrists have soe laws in their country like cuting off hands and heads ...