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Uber London loses licence to operate

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#521

Post by caoilte »

sol_remmy wrote: post #501
taormina wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, it happened in Austin. Lyft and Uber threw a hissy fit and the market was happy to fill in the gaps.

> Frankly, it happened in Austin. Lyft and Uber threw a hissy fit and the market was happy to fill in the gaps. Good luck with that, the markets are not remotely comparable: Austin: 900k pop; In a red state known for low regulatory burden; No established mass transit to compete with; No established tax companies London: 8.8M pop; High regulatory burden; City's incentive: each Uber rider is a potential lost customer f…

The only incentive TFL has is to make travel as efficient as possible.

The underground is way too crowded, but so are the roads (mainly because of taxis these days).

This makes Uber a better bet than taxis (more efficient) buses better than both, bikes best of all and something in between a nirvana.

However, none of that matters as long as Uber think they're above the law.

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#522

Post by Anderkent »

markman wrote: post #511
zeveb wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uber isn't magic - if there's pent-up demand for a company that fills Uber's boots, one will pop up. The thing is, until Uber popped up, that pent-up demand simply wasn't being satisfied. The taxi monopolies and regulators were quite happy with their rents (in the economic sense of rent-seeking), and consumers suffered from it (I suspect that Uber & Lyft have prevented thousands of drunken-driving deaths). A lot of…

Yeah but a taxi driver can buy a home and put a kid through college, perhaps even take a vacation once a year. An uber driver may have 6 or 8 months of economic boom but eventually the house of cards will come tumbling down. It is exactly the type of company that is destroying the middle class. It is also the status quo of making a few people extremely wealthy. If you use uber you're just contributing to the decline…

A taxi driver in London can't buy a home on his own income, don't be ridiculous. An uber driver in London can put a kid through college (it's basically free). Both can take vacations.

Anecdotally, uber showing up in London was when I started to use car transport in the first place. It didn't remove me from the customer pool of black cabs - I was never there; most of the time it's competing with the tube / a bus. I would guess the only significant customers moving from taxi to uber are business travelers - but those are rarely motivated by price, and rather it's the convenience of the app that appeals.

GPS killed taxi drivers, not uber; the wage is catching up to the fact that almost anyone could drive a taxi nowadays.

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#524

Post by taysic »

taormina wrote: post #497
SilasX wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You could easily build a company that does what Uber does in London without the hate for local Government that is ingrained into Uber's culture - and there already are a number of minicab companies that do what Uber does, just minus quite as fancy an app. But that just begs, er, fully reduces to the question of ... why haven't they? Is a slick, user-friendly app really that much of a barrier? The article has tweets…

Frankly, it happened in Austin. Lyft and Uber threw a hissy fit and the market was happy to fill in the gaps.

Did it happen in Austin? According to this article, they were allowed back in a year later and no longer were asked to perform fingerprint based background checks.

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#525

Post by toomuchtodo »

ghostwriter wrote: post #516
toomuchtodo wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valuing ethics over consumerism requires time and life experience.

What is the ethics of those who deny private companies the right to engage in volunteer transactions among people in the market? Secondly, consumerism is possible only in the presence of production, and it cannot exist unless there's a product to consume. Are you questioning the ethics of value-production?

> What is the ethics of those who deny private companies the right to engage in volunteer transactions among people in the market?

You're breaking the law, laws with good reason.

> Secondly, consumerism is possible only in the presence of production, and it cannot exist unless there's a product to consume. Are you questioning the ethics of value-production?

Yes. Must I list human abuse that takes place because of "demand" and "production"? Child labor? Child prostitution? Slavery? Unregulated economics is anarchy.

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#526

Post by Anderkent »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #474
confounded wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Almost all Uber drivers in London used to be minicab drivers (or work for e.g. Addison Lee), and the pay, rates, customer-base etc. are similar.

> Almost all Uber drivers in London used to be minicab drivers Source?

It's natural - you still have to be licensed with tfl to drive uber; all minicab drivers were already licensed; uber is a better platform to drive for than a shitty call-in minicab company. So most of the drivers switched, and only people who have got licensed after uber showed up don't count as 'used to be minicab driver's.

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#527

Post by Anderkent »

squigg wrote: post #358
erwan wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This decision has officially nothing to do with tax evasion/optimization. It is on grounds of consumer protection that Uber's licence is not being renewed. Anyone who has taken a black cab should immediately understand the hypocrisy motivating this decision. The user experience is absolutely horrendous and there's no good tracking system to make black cab drivers accountable. In short, as everyone knows, it is just a…

I'm sorry but you will have to do more to explain your point on black cab user experience being horrendous. Whilst it can be hard to get a hold of one at times, in my experience of 20 years of using them, the user experience is great - the drivers are typically friendly and get you there as quickly as they can. I have used Uber many times in London and abandoned it months ago, as the drivers don't have the local know…

I've been turned away by a black cab driver because they didn't want to go where I wanted to go.

Yes, during the rush hours they are faster than ubers (mostly because they have priviledged access to bus lanes etc). But catching a black cab at night is almost impossible.

Also some of my friends regularly get ignored by black cabs when they try to hail it.

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#528

Post by Anderkent »

vidarh wrote: post #478
Jaruzel wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Black Cabs in London are wonderful, except: 1. When you need one at about 10pm in the City, and stand on the street corner for ages watching dozens of them go by with their lights off and no passengers. 2. When you are less than 1/2 a mile north of the Thames, and the cabbie refuses the ride because he 'doesn't go south of the river, mate' 3. Same as #2 but 'doesn't go north of the river, mate' 4. Same as #2 and #3 b…

In nearly 20 years of relying extensively on black cabs as I don't have a drivers license, I've never experienced a single one of the above. Sounds like you're exceptionally unlucky.

Let me guess: you're white, male, in your 30s+, and usually in a suit when calling a cab?

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#529

Post by caoilte »

walshemj wrote: post #442
lmm wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen many cyclists go through red lights in cases where doing so is obviously safe. But for comparison I don't think I've met a single car driver who obeyed speed limits, indeed they seem affronted when I raise that question.

I have never seen in London a car driver run a red light but I regularly see cyclists blast through a red light at > 20mph and it is always the ones on fixies or racing bikes not actual bikes built for commuting. I have also seen bikes blast through pedestrian refuges during the rush hour

Black cabs do it regularly on Oxford Street.

Re: Uber London loses licence to operate

#530

Post by metamet »

vkou wrote: post #482
dx034 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even sure how you would convince them. Full code and database audit isn't easy nor cheap and I doubt Uber wants to pay for that. Apart from that, there's no way to detect if Uber runs services to detect regulators.

Open up your books. The problem is that once you have a history of unethical behaviour, nobody believes you when you say 'don't worry, trust me'.

Trump would beg to differ.
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