Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 520 posts

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#291

Post by dominotw »

oarsinsync wrote: post #257
eggy wrote: post #247

If the concern over rider safety was that somebody could pose as an Uber driver and update a photo to make it work, why are black cabs not also deemed unsafe? Couldn't somebody borrow a friend's black cab, slap on a fake photo, and work the city? Maybe a stretch, and more work, but the same concern is there, no? I guess the black cabs have some powerful lobbyists in parliment? Yellow taxis in NYC were a monopoly, and…

I don't know the answer to this, but I suspect it may have something down to the difference in penalty for fraudulent behaviour. At the very least, if the only penalty is getting booted off the 'platform', getting added to Uber's platform is relatively cheap. Getting added to the black cab 'platform' requires getting licensed, which takes years and costs a lot of money. I'd imagine that fraudulently impersonating a b…

Obviously solution is monopoly :D

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#292

Post by urbanjunkie »

BurningFrog wrote: post #267
gorgoiler wrote: post #240

After living for years in London, it’s hard to compare Ubers with black cabs. In the centre of town during the day black cabs are often ubiquitous, immediately available, and skilled at getting you the hell out of dodge. Something for which I’m happy to pay a premium. Anywhere else they can be capricious and scarce. After 11pm this is the case with in fact almost all black cabs anywhere in the city, when a very diffe…

Takeaway: Maybe London should spend some effort becoming more naviagatable, instead of demanding professional drivers acquire a PhD level education (the Knowledge) to find their way.

My takeaway is that you're a moron.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#293

Post by 72deluxe »

BurningFrog wrote: post #267
gorgoiler wrote: post #240

After living for years in London, it’s hard to compare Ubers with black cabs. In the centre of town during the day black cabs are often ubiquitous, immediately available, and skilled at getting you the hell out of dodge. Something for which I’m happy to pay a premium. Anywhere else they can be capricious and scarce. After 11pm this is the case with in fact almost all black cabs anywhere in the city, when a very diffe…

Takeaway: Maybe London should spend some effort becoming more naviagatable, instead of demanding professional drivers acquire a PhD level education (the Knowledge) to find their way.

No offence, and I can see that you've been downvoted but how do you actually propose solving this "unnavigable" problem? By bulldozing existing property that is owned by multitudes of private landowners and building new roads or something else??

Honestly, what's your solution?

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#294

Post by cartoonworld »

ekianjo wrote: post #271
criddell wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since drivers can't set their own rates, I've always felt the government should regulate the split. Uber's portion should be capped at something like 5%. The marginal cost for them to connect a driver to a rider is close to 0 so even 5% feels very generous.

That's not the job of the government to regulate margins of businesses. If you go by that way, then you might as well regulate every margin of every app store?

That is the governments job.

They aren't regulating an app on the store, they would be in this hypothetical scenario regulating the labor practices of a multinational corporation, which is for sure the job of any government.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#295

Post by roflchoppa2 »

gorgoiler wrote: post #240

After living for years in London, it’s hard to compare Ubers with black cabs. In the centre of town during the day black cabs are often ubiquitous, immediately available, and skilled at getting you the hell out of dodge. Something for which I’m happy to pay a premium. Anywhere else they can be capricious and scarce. After 11pm this is the case with in fact almost all black cabs anywhere in the city, when a very diffe…

of all the jerks i see causing traffic delays, 90% of them are lyft/uber drivers. next time your in SF and you see someone blocking the bus-lane with their hazards on as if its some excuse, you'll see the uber/lyft tag.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#297

Post by tomatocracy »

cnorthwood wrote: post #170
readhn wrote: post #144

On one hand i am glad that a transnational company is getting stopped like that, especially when breaking the rules. they are basically a giant money hoover that comes in and sucks the money offshore with offshore interests as #1 priority. on the other hand, often it often takes an outsider to disrupt a well established and corrupt market in order to move it forward.

I'm not entirely sure it's fair to say that London's minicab market was particularly corrupt. Uber's real success in London was marketing and investment meaning that it'd could grow rapidly, I believe Addison Lee had a booking app concept at the time, so not even that was particularly new.

Addison Lee is often more expensive than a black cab though. It's really more of a premium car service than a minicab firm.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#298

Post by Symbiote »

rovek wrote: post #233
maxehmookau wrote: post #226

I'm always amazed at how fatalist about this sort of thing Londoners are. Like losing Uber will be a massive problem for a huge portion of the population. London has, by FAR, the best, cheapest and most efficient public transport in the entire UK. Uber is, yeah, cheaper than a black cab but also why is it cheaper? Worse working conditions, VC-subsidised, lower standards for vetting (as we've seen here!) It's not sust…

Cost is only one, relatively small, part of Uber's USP in London. The general shittiness of Black Cab drivers about taking you anywhere close to the edges of zone 1 is the biggest issue for me. Night tube only runs on Fri/Sat nights so I literally couldn't get home from a late week night without Uber. I wouldn't be surprised to see Uber riders blocking taxi ranks if Uber actually stopped operating, Black Cabs serve v…

> I literally couldn't get home from a late week night without Uber.

Don't be ridiculous. Private hire minicabs have existed since the 1960s.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#299

Post by eviltandem »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #286
eviltandem wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market has spoken. Uber as a service has shown itself to be wildly better and more loved than traditional cab services in every city where it's gone head to head in open competition with traditional taxi services. Unfortunately people are morons that don't know how to make the "right" choice. We will be conveniently layering bureaucracy and laws on top of all of this to make sure the clearly inferior product wins…

You don't think its worth protecting the trade of taxi-driving? Used to be the case you could make good tradesman money to be able to afford a house and a family on a taxi salary. Post-Uber that wont be so. Is it "stupid" to want jobs that arguably require "less-skill" to not pay out a decent wage? Are we going to try to force more and more into university and leave those that don't fit in that box to work towards mi…

I think fundamentally you have 2 arguments here.

First your argument is does one have a right to make money doing something the same way it was done yesterday? Or 10 or 20 years ago?

At one time you could make good money operating an elevator. Do we ban buttons in elevators to protect these jobs?

So no. No I don't think it's on societies best interest to outlaw buttons in elevators. New technology is happening that fundamentally de-values what a driver now does. It's unfair but it's maybe time for new jobs. That's simply best for society as a whole. The amount we all collectively save will vastly dwarf anything these few get by holding back the tide.

Two - the old system sucked. It was terrible. It still is. Taxis in NYC were already a cesspool of con-men and corruption. Lives were ruined in the buying and selling of medallions. The cars sucked, the drivers refused to go places, the ONLY reason it survived at all was the government forced it down our throats.

Uber won because people like it better. No matter what you say about any of it - people decided they VASTLY prefer pressing their own button in the elevator. It's sad but it's life.

So yes, it is "stupid" to fight this when everyone using these services has so clearly said the new way is better.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#300

Post by 72deluxe »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #288
thathndude wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I'm always amazed at how quickly people crap on Uber. In hindsight it's not a particularly revolutionary service. But does everyone remember how much the Taxi system sucked?

The Taxi system still sucks often. I take cabs when I'm in downtown Chicago once in a while because they are faster than waiting for an uber. Recently I was wearing a tie-dye shirt and joggers (leaving the climbing gym) and it took me 5 minutes to flag down a cab even though plenty of empty ones passed me. I've never had an issue in the past with being picked up and it was clearly related to my state of dress. Cabs s…

That's quite an amusing story! Perhaps cabs are the new fashion police?
Post reply on HN