Uber Facing Ban In Turkey After Erdogan Backs Taxis (sbs.com.au)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from SBS: Uber faces being banned in Turkey after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the ride-hailing app was "finished" on Saturday following an intense lobbying campaign from Istanbul taxi drivers. Erdogan's comments, in a late-night speech Friday in Istanbul, came after the government agreed new rules that are expected to severely complicate Uber's operations in Turkey. Drivers of Istanbul's yellow taxis have over the last months waged an intense campaign to have Uber banned, saying the company is eating into their business without having a proper legal basis for work. "This thing emerged called Uber or Muber or whatever," said Erdogan. "But this issue is now finished. It's over now. Our Prime Minister (Minali Yildirim) made the announcement. We have our system of taxis," he said.

"Yildirim's government last month issue a directive sharply hiking fines and threatened to blacklist companies whose vehicles illegally work as taxis," reports SBS.

Comments

Re:This makes no sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Uber is a taxi service.

No, Uber is a web company whose business model involves screaming loudly they're not a taxi service, and not subject to the rules and regulations of a taxi service.

Me, I said fuck uber.

Where I live, cabs drivers have extensive background checks, have to have vehicle inspections and commercial insurance, and by law have a camera at the driver's rear-view mirrow ... the cab drivers initially refused them when a cab driver did something to a passenger, but when one of their own was robbed, they were suddenly in favor of them.

Uber is an illegal cab company, with insufficient licensing, background checks, and insurance.

More places need to be saying hey, if you don't have a commercial license and insurance, and don't follow the same protocols as a cab, then fuck off an go away. The idea that a cab company gets to have the pretense they're not a cab company because they say so is bullshit.

The one time I was in an Uber, the driver was downright scary and incompetent. With a real cab, I have a plate number I can file a complaint against.

With Uber, somehow I'm supposed to believe that a fucking app on my phone is capable of reporting dangerous, illegal, incompetent, under-insured, and un-inspected people.

Fuck Uber and they're "we're not a cab company we're magical unicorn shit". Sorry, no, you're either a legal cab company, or an illegal cab company. Since you refuse to be the former, I have no other choice than to treat you as the latter.

I don't wish to be driven anywhere by someone too stupid to realize they're not being paid for their time and depreciation, and instead are funding the profits of a large corporation out of pocket, while that company continues to pretend it's every bit as good as the cab companies it's trying to sat it's just as good as ... all while failing to have any of the things which allow me to have some confidence in an actual cab company.

Tell you what ... oh, golly, I'm not a bank, but if you give me money I'll hold onto it ... of course, you get none of the protections of a bank, but I'm going to loudly remind you I'm not a bank, so if I steal all of your money, that's your problem.

Uber is a company built on wishful thinking, and bullshit.

Re:This makes no sense

[JaredOfEuropa]

It doesn't have to make sense. Erdogan is a despot who at this point can pretty much do what he wants. And he is a populist pur sang... banning a disruptive foreign company fits exceedingly well in his playbook, whatever the actual rights and wrongs of the matter are.

Stop trying to make sense of it...

[denzacar]

Turkey is also blocking Wikipedia and blaming a candy manufacturer for fomenting a coup.

Basically, you're arguing that a double rainbow and a new star appearing at the birth of Kim Jong Il doesn't make sense from meteorological OR astronomic point of view.

Very interesting

[no-body]

How single individuals get the power to determine the lives of well, millions or billions of people, defining how their individual lives turn.

This ongoing game has not changed for ? 1000's of years.

It needs two parts - the allowing and the demanding side and as always, the allowing number of individuals is by far the much larger number.

Maybe there are some niches where this system has somewhat changed to benefit a larger part of a population. Overall, it is the same and the mechanisms to uphold this imbalance getting more and more refined.

Has it to do something with upbringing, where behavioral patterns are formed and kept or is it genetically imprinted?

If you look from a more distant point, it is just weird. There is some different opinion about a point and then starts this prancing and breast pounding and vassals are sent out to measure up their skills under the risk of getting injured or killed, now from very remote and safe places..

Who benefits? It seems to just create more and more trauma in people where the opposite event, less trauma could lead to more happiness.

Re:Very interesting

[cdsparrow]

Ever driven up to a busy 4 way stop and watch how it doesn't work? People need stop lights - they need to be told what to do. That's just part of human nature, a large portion of the population would rather cede control over their lives as long as it's easier. The real problem lies in the rest of the population who don't want to cede control. They are in two camps generally, either a leave-me-the-fuck-alone camp, or the I-want-to-rule-over-the-flock camp.

Re:Very interesting

[whoever57]

I think it is a tree of power thing.

People support the putative dictator because the dictator promises to give those people the power to shit on others.

This goes down all the way, historically, the lowest level being men dominating women.

Re:Very interesting

[Bongo]

Has it to do something with upbringing, where behavioral patterns are formed and kept or is it genetically imprinted?

I gather it has to do with the size of the group. Fifty thousand years ago, we were organised as tribes, of about a few hundred people. Later, around the time of agriculture, and settling down, the size of the group expanded, and now you needed some way to impose order on disparate tribes. It became the time of Kings, and eventually, empires, like the Roman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire, and so on. That was also the time of the large monotheistic religions, where there was One True Way, One God, one ruler, one empire, and so on. All that coincides with what various philosophers have termed the "mythic-membership" stage of our cultural evolution. That is, you are part of the large group which has a common identity as defined by a set of myths, beliefs, and rules. The whole thing is very hierarchical. In one way or another, the "authority" of the hierarchy is divine, and the myths and laws all serve to make it work, to allow you to become an empire. It also kinda echoes in the way a child grows up and is taught the rules by the parents, and learns to think of themselves as a member of one family, rather than as being an individual who just does whatever their own impulses dictate. So all this became the normal state of the world around 2000 BC or so. And this empire + religion + sacred laws + empire is how the world was organised.

What you are talking about now, as in, why do free thinking intelligent individuals all decide to support dictators today... is simply because the stage of empires has lasted a very long time, as it was the main game in town for thousands of years, and only since things like, the Maga Carta, and the French Revolution, and basically, the Western Enlightenment, did the system swing back from the empire-group to the individual, to a free thinking individual, and ideas like, all people are created equal, all should be well educated, etc., only recently, ie. a few hundred years, has that new structure or way of organising things, been developing.

And the trouble is, the world is one place, but it isn't all at the same time -- the hierarchy-empire structure is still the main player in most of the world.

The key is, the empire brings stability and safety. After that, things like democracy can start to develop. But safety comes first. Which is why "strong men" are valued, if they can appear strong enough to bring safety and stability. It is a stage which cannot be skipped.

(Notice also, all the stuff about Western Imperialists and NeoColonialists is just a footnote, because EVERYONE was building empires every chance they could get, and it is not just some Western thing.)

But a fatal flaw with empires is they get too big and centralised control cannot work anymore. You need the individuals to exercise their intelligence, ie. you have to give them freedom.

Re:Very interesting

[thegarbz]

Who benefits? It seems to just create more and more trauma in people where the opposite event, less trauma could lead to more happiness.

Is this specific about dictators or is this a generic comment? People in general benefit from collective organisation when they have to share resources. This collective needs to ultimately be decided somehow which gets done by people with power. Even in a direct democracy the system ultimately devolves to those interested in the process consolidating power over others.

This isn't a bad thing. What is bad is if this power goes unchecked. The ideal situation is where someone with power decides things for others, but if those others collectively disagree then they can overturn the decision.

Re:Very interesting

[froggyjojodaddy]

Oh man, this!! 4 way stops are terrible. I encounter two of them during my drive to and from work and 9 times out of 10, there is mass confusion. Everyone seems to arrive at the exact same time so you end up with a bunch of different personalities:

1. Hyper aggressive driver who barely came to a stop and wants to get going immediately. Doesn't matter if someone else has already started moving, they'll honk their horn and throw their hands up in exasperation
2. Super nervous driver who realizes they have to content with 3 other drivers and is unsure when to go. Desperately looks for cues in the eyes of other drivers
3. Polite driver. Might be their right of way, might not be. Doesn't matter. Wants to wave the person opposite them to drive on, especially if that person is going straight
3a. Polite driver on both sides. "You go", "No, you go", "No, please, I insist", "No, really, I insist".
4. Rational driver. Knows the rule: First one to stop, goes. Give way to the right. Get's frustrated and confused when others can't follow the same rule. Ends up flooring it out of sheer frustration. Most likely to cause an accident
We need roundabouts, not 4 way stops. Even painted roundabouts for smaller junctions would be better than the hell that is a 4 way stop.

On the one hand...

[Ecuador]

On the one hand, Uber did its usual thing of going around local laws to offer their service, so they naturally got stopped at some point. I won't even attempt to make a case on whether taxi protection laws are good or bad, my hunch is that the answer is "it depends", but in any case rarely have we seen companies with as little regard of local laws as Uber.
On the other hand, the neo-Sultan is obviously not worried about poor taxi drivers, he built the narrative he wanted: one or two sentences after the "Uber / moober" populist joke he asked where they got Uber from, and he answered "Europe of course". Which is completely wrong, it is an American company that started in San Fransisco, but he wanted to dish on Europe because the EU leaders don't seem to appreciate how he is cleansing his nation from "dangerous anti-democratic elements"...
In general, Erdogan seems to know how to win the people, I was aghast when I saw him get the audience to applause while he was bad-mouthing Kemal Ataturk, who for Turkey is more than what Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson and Roosevelt are combined for the US, but represents the opposite of the current course (Kemal established a democratic & secular nation). I can think of other leaders who had the same charisma in the past, fortunately Erdogan controls Turkey and not Germany ;)

Re:This makes no sense

[sfcat]

It doesn't have to make sense. Erdogan is a despot who at this point can pretty much do what he wants. And he is a populist pur sang... banning a disruptive foreign company fits exceedingly well in his playbook, whatever the actual rights and wrongs of the matter are.

Sort of, but Turkey is a large country and still subject to the international markets. And when he says things about being against interest rates and taking control of the central bank, there are consequences. Turkey's currency is crashing (similar to what Obama did to Russia in 2014 but self inflicted) and this will cause significant issues with their ability to finance large projects and importing foreign goods becomes much more expensive. And considering food is one of the things Turkey imports in large amounts, this is a big problem. Its just that Erdogan doesn't seem to know this so he's just gone power mad and started just making proclamations that seem like they will have consequences in the near future for him and Turkey.

Re:This makes no sense

[satsuke]

Uber charges passengers and pays drivers based on time and distance. The only modifier to a standard cab fare is the surge rate that acts as a multiplier on the fare.

So yes, they act exactly as a cab company in most respects save the "for hire" status that a licensed taxi can provide.

Istanbul taxi drivers are theives

[ghoul]

Other cities Taxi drivers may overcharge you but in Istanbul they will literally steal money out of your wallet. Its a common trick. They will halt by the side of a main road ,instead of your destination saying their is construction ahead. While you try to quickly get down and pay the fare you will be hit by the second part of the plan - a highly overcharged fare which just jumped in the last 30 seconds. At this point you already have your money out of your wallet and stuck trying to figure out how the fare jumped so high. At this point they will reach into your wallet , take out a 100 and swap it (using sleight of hand) for a 20 and then say to you Ok you gave me 20, give me the rest. You as a tourist are in shock at this point and cant even argue.
Erdogan is a populist who gets his votes from thugs and hoodlums so I am not surprised he supports Istanbul Taxi drivers.
In comparison Uber works fantastically well in Istanbul.

Re:This makes no sense

[slickwillie]

Same goes for the Armenian Genocide.

I'm supposed to be outraged?

[Ranger]

Uber is a predatory company. They took a great idea and turned it to shit. Uber gets no sympathy from me. Erdogan is far worse. He created a fake coup and led a countercoup to cement power, arresting thousands, firing thousands. He is a despot.

Re:This makes no sense

[hazardPPP]

The one time I was in an Uber, the driver was downright scary and incompetent. With a real cab, I have a plate number I can file a complaint against.

You have to realize that people's experience will vary a lot by locale.

In the city where I currently live, Uber does not operate, but there exists a local Uber clone (seriously, the app is almost identical...). Unlike Uber however, they have found a way to operate legally from the beginning. Looking through the laws on the books, they realized they could register as a car-hire (limo-driver-hire) service without being a taxi...but with the app, essentially operate like a taxi. The taxi drivers are furious of course, however so far the authorities haven't found anything illegal in the venture (which might change since the taxi drivers are lobbying hard to have the laws changed and the "loopholes" closed).

Now the comparison: the number of taxi drivers is fixed. Getting a license usually requires some kind of bribery...the city sets the maximum price, so theoretically anyone can offer a lower one...but this is very rare as the taxi associations have a cartel-like agreement not to undercut each other. Most of the taxi associations are run by people who are essentially mobsters. The taxi profession has some unmerited tax breaks...dishonest taxi drivers that pray on tourists by charging double, triple, even 10 times the allowed maximum rate operate with impunity. Most taxi drivers are rude, they are careless drivers, and some of them are down-right scary folks when you see them. The population of the city almost universally loathes them. A lot of them drive cars that shouldn't really be on the road, yet "somehow" they pass inspection. Every time a government tries to get them in line a bit, they protest and block the city traffic during rush hour with their cars. Oh, and they always bitch if you don't have exact change (paying by card is available in only a very small number of vehicles).

On the other hand, all the drivers of the Uber-like app that I've met are nice, cultured, friendly normal people who seem to care about doing their job...and drive properly with care. Cars are usually in better condition....and the prices are 20-40% less than with the taxis. You can pay by credit card, so you don't care about change...everybody who has used the app almost universally comments "what a refreshing change! Nice drivers!" and so on.

Re:This makes no sense

[gtall]

In Turkey, if it walks like a dick, talks like a dick, and acts lick a dick, it's Erdogan.

Just another crony dictatorship move?

[swb]

This seems kind unsurprising, there have been plenty of stories about how part of Erdogan's power base is construction companies owned by cronies who get a ton of government contracts. I think part of the whole dictatorship toolkit is crony capitalism, make sure your loyalists hold control over at least key economic sectors if not all of them.

In Turkey specifically, making sure your loyalists control the taxi market makes sense on several levels. One, I'd bet a lot of drivers are part of Erdogan's core demographic -- low income, more traditionally minded religiously. Two, a well-controlled taxi system provides control over transportation -- who's driving, who's being driven, etc. Three, Uber is a western company and will suck some of the profits out of Turkey, something that Erdogan won't want when his economy does relatively poorly, and four, it allows for Erdogan's cronies to reap the profits of a controlled sector.