Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits • Hacker News Board

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#21

Post by shocks » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 2:40 PM UTC

daenney wrote: post #13

shocks wrote: post #4

Stockholm is full of 'fake' taxis that take you longer routes and charge you more money. I'd much rather use Uber.

Regular, real/official, taxi's are easily recognisable by their number plate which is orange with black letters whereas regular vehicles are white with black letters. You don't have to use fake taxi's, that's your choice. A regular taxi ride in Stockholm and a Uber ride (depending on the time of day) usually don't have a big price difference between them. Unless you want to take one of the Tesla taxi's.

How is a tourist supposed to know this and avoid getting ripped off?

My brother lives there and explained to me how they can be identified, I otherwise would not have known.

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#22

Post by piva00 » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 2:41 PM UTC

edblarney wrote: post #9

kalleboo wrote: post #3

So, they want to encourage ride-sharing in the original meaning - carpooling. Not the "taxi company in disguise" meaning. Sounds fair enough to me. For context, the taxi regulation in Sweden is very light. There is no medallion system limiting the number of cars, and no regulation of prices. You just need an extended driver's license, an approved taxi-meter (same as how grocery stores need their scales to be approved…

"So, they want to encourage ride-sharing in the original meaning - carpooling. Not the "taxi company in disguise" meaning. Sounds fair enough to me." I'm not necessarily a fan of Uber, but this is ridiculous. If 'taxis' are legal in Sweden then there's no reason Uber should not be able to operate so long as they are obeying the laws . Ostensibly, this is about a specific issue - distance travelled and the lack of abi…

Do you live here in Scandinavia? Because the comment on entrepreneurship sounds VERY odd for me living here in Stockholm. I've literally never seen an instance of that, quite the opposite. Being a business person is just an occupation as any other, what Swedes are quite against is for you to make 100x to 1000x what your workers earn just by being the owner or CEO of the company.

This sense of equality is well ingrained in society and it's one of the reasons I wanted to live here (after living most of my life in Brazil).

Like another comment in this thread said: Uber can still operate here, you just can't disguise a service making profit as carpooling. I've used Uber quite a lot here and every single time it was just a taxi also running with Uber, I don't think this ban will affect Uber at all.

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#23

Post by piva00 » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 2:43 PM UTC

daenney wrote: post #13

shocks wrote: post #4

Stockholm is full of 'fake' taxis that take you longer routes and charge you more money. I'd much rather use Uber.

Regular, real/official, taxi's are easily recognisable by their number plate which is orange with black letters whereas regular vehicles are white with black letters. You don't have to use fake taxi's, that's your choice. A regular taxi ride in Stockholm and a Uber ride (depending on the time of day) usually don't have a big price difference between them. Unless you want to take one of the Tesla taxi's.

And taxis sometimes are cheaper than Uber here. I just moved apartments and paid 400 SEK for a taxi van to carry most of my boxes from one part of Stockholm to another, Uber XL was quoting a fare between 550 and 620 SEK.

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#24

Post by imafish » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 2:48 PM UTC

edblarney wrote: post #9

kalleboo wrote: post #3

So, they want to encourage ride-sharing in the original meaning - carpooling. Not the "taxi company in disguise" meaning. Sounds fair enough to me. For context, the taxi regulation in Sweden is very light. There is no medallion system limiting the number of cars, and no regulation of prices. You just need an extended driver's license, an approved taxi-meter (same as how grocery stores need their scales to be approved…

"So, they want to encourage ride-sharing in the original meaning - carpooling. Not the "taxi company in disguise" meaning. Sounds fair enough to me." I'm not necessarily a fan of Uber, but this is ridiculous. If 'taxis' are legal in Sweden then there's no reason Uber should not be able to operate so long as they are obeying the laws . Ostensibly, this is about a specific issue - distance travelled and the lack of abi…

Well, the problem is that for some reason Uber and its drivers do not think they have to live up to the same regulations that taxi drivers do, even though they provide the same exact service and compete for the same customers. That is called unfair competition.

So if you allow Uber to exist in its current form then you'd also have to waive taxi regulations, and I do not see why we would be interested in doing that.

Oh, and I have never experienced the hostility towards entrepreneurship and private business. But of course I wasn't born before the 80's, so can't comment on that :-)

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#25

Post by adamlett » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 2:49 PM UTC

edblarney wrote: post #9

kalleboo wrote: post #3

So, they want to encourage ride-sharing in the original meaning - carpooling. Not the "taxi company in disguise" meaning. Sounds fair enough to me. For context, the taxi regulation in Sweden is very light. There is no medallion system limiting the number of cars, and no regulation of prices. You just need an extended driver's license, an approved taxi-meter (same as how grocery stores need their scales to be approved…

"So, they want to encourage ride-sharing in the original meaning - carpooling. Not the "taxi company in disguise" meaning. Sounds fair enough to me." I'm not necessarily a fan of Uber, but this is ridiculous. If 'taxis' are legal in Sweden then there's no reason Uber should not be able to operate so long as they are obeying the laws . Ostensibly, this is about a specific issue - distance travelled and the lack of abi…

1) They are super, super aggressive when it comes to tax things. Cheating on taxes is worse than some major crimes!

Which major crimes would that be? I'm a Dane, and this sounds ridiculous to me.

2) They are culturally anti-business and anti-entrepreneurial.

That is way overstating it at best, and at worst just BS. True, we in the Nordic countries (or at least in Denmark), don't have quite the reverence for business men and entrepreneurs that Americans seem to have. But we do generally have a great deal of respect for our captains of industry and for people who've succeeded at building something.

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#26

Post by robert_foss » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 2:49 PM UTC

edblarney wrote: post #9

kalleboo wrote: post #3

So, they want to encourage ride-sharing in the original meaning - carpooling. Not the "taxi company in disguise" meaning. Sounds fair enough to me. For context, the taxi regulation in Sweden is very light. There is no medallion system limiting the number of cars, and no regulation of prices. You just need an extended driver's license, an approved taxi-meter (same as how grocery stores need their scales to be approved…

"So, they want to encourage ride-sharing in the original meaning - carpooling. Not the "taxi company in disguise" meaning. Sounds fair enough to me." I'm not necessarily a fan of Uber, but this is ridiculous. If 'taxis' are legal in Sweden then there's no reason Uber should not be able to operate so long as they are obeying the laws . Ostensibly, this is about a specific issue - distance travelled and the lack of abi…

As a Swede:

1) Cheating on taxes is quite literally stealing from every other person in the country. That being said I think there is a lot of small scale cheating going, especially for small cash-driven businesses.

2) There's no hostility towards entrepreneurs as far as I've seen it, quite the opposite. However people in general do seem to realize that there is a very real tradeoff between business interests and the interests of citizens. You can't have 0% corporate tax and free healthcare and education.

As for Uber Pop, the drivers are not volunteers and are simply either taxed for the profits they make through Uber Pop or they can do actual not-for-profit car pooling.

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#27

Post by matwood » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 2:51 PM UTC

kalleboo wrote: post #3

So, they want to encourage ride-sharing in the original meaning - carpooling. Not the "taxi company in disguise" meaning. Sounds fair enough to me. For context, the taxi regulation in Sweden is very light. There is no medallion system limiting the number of cars, and no regulation of prices. You just need an extended driver's license, an approved taxi-meter (same as how grocery stores need their scales to be approved…

> There has been quite a bit of criticism of this lack of regulation, since some private taxi drivers will prey on tourists by overpricing their services by 3x and waiting at airports. Since their rip-off prices are displayed right there in the window, it's fully legal. Tourists don't know the typical price of a taxi, and fresh off an airplane are not sure what the local currency rate is (Sweden isn't on the Euro), and hence get ripped off.

I was in Stockholm over the summer, and prior to going I read about this beforehand on almost every site I visited. Is it the most tourist friendly thing? No, but it is listed in big numbers on the taxi. It only takes seeing a few taxis to get an idea of what is a good price. Everything in Stockholm ended up being expensive, so the taxi was just a minor inconvenience.

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#28

Post by arkitaip » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 2:54 PM UTC

edblarney wrote: post #9

kalleboo wrote: post #3

So, they want to encourage ride-sharing in the original meaning - carpooling. Not the "taxi company in disguise" meaning. Sounds fair enough to me. For context, the taxi regulation in Sweden is very light. There is no medallion system limiting the number of cars, and no regulation of prices. You just need an extended driver's license, an approved taxi-meter (same as how grocery stores need their scales to be approved…

"So, they want to encourage ride-sharing in the original meaning - carpooling. Not the "taxi company in disguise" meaning. Sounds fair enough to me." I'm not necessarily a fan of Uber, but this is ridiculous. If 'taxis' are legal in Sweden then there's no reason Uber should not be able to operate so long as they are obeying the laws . Ostensibly, this is about a specific issue - distance travelled and the lack of abi…

Nonsense. The Nordic countries are the best to start a/do business in [1][2]

[1] http://www.forbes.com/best-countries-for-business/list/

[2] http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#29

Post by daenney » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 2:58 PM UTC

shocks wrote: post #21

daenney wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regular, real/official, taxi's are easily recognisable by their number plate which is orange with black letters whereas regular vehicles are white with black letters. You don't have to use fake taxi's, that's your choice. A regular taxi ride in Stockholm and a Uber ride (depending on the time of day) usually don't have a big price difference between them. Unless you want to take one of the Tesla taxi's.

How is a tourist supposed to know this and avoid getting ripped off? My brother lives there and explained to me how they can be identified, I otherwise would not have known.

I don't think that problem is unique to Stockholm, plenty of other cities have that issue.

Usually when I go to a new location, doing a Google search or two on these things proves helpful. The number plate stuff is on wikipedia and the VisitStockholm.com website for example: http://www.visitstockholm.com/en/Good-to-know/Getting-around... has all the information on taxi's, how to recognise them, what the regulations around them are and other methods of getting around.

A little bit of research upfront can spare you many unpleasant experiences no matter where you're going and regardless of if you know a local or not.

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#30

Post by wavefunction » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 3:00 PM UTC

kalleboo wrote: post #3

So, they want to encourage ride-sharing in the original meaning - carpooling. Not the "taxi company in disguise" meaning. Sounds fair enough to me. For context, the taxi regulation in Sweden is very light. There is no medallion system limiting the number of cars, and no regulation of prices. You just need an extended driver's license, an approved taxi-meter (same as how grocery stores need their scales to be approved…

"ride-sharing" is ride-sharing. That's the only meaning it has.

Ride-hailing is what Uber and Lyft and ArcadeCity and Fare and all the rest of the taxi-apps offer.