In all those countries what’s illegal is abuse of a monopoly, which is not what’s being discussed here. The parent cited Uber and Lyft when they first started. Nothing is illegal about startups undercutting established competitors.
In all those countries what’s illegal is abuse of a monopoly, which is not what’s being discussed here. The parent cited Uber and Lyft when they first started. Nothing is illegal about startups undercutting established competitors.
No you’re missing the point.
They acquired market power by killing them through predatory pricing, leaving incumbents unprofitable and forcing them to exit - while creating a steep barrier to entry for any new comers and strategically manipulating existing riders by offering high take rates initially and subsidising rides to create artificial demand and inflate market share - then once they kicked out the incumbents, they exercised their market power to raise prices and their % of the take rate of each transaction; leaving consumers and riders worse off.
We can talk all day about the nice UX blah blah. But the reality is, financially, they could not have succeeded without a very dubious and unethical approach.
I get why we look on Uber with disdain today. They're the big rich behemoths who treat drivers poorly, previously had a CEO who was a raging asshole, and have now raised their prices (gasp!) to a level that they need to be for a sustainable business.
But I remember when I started using Uber back in 2012. It was amazing compared to every single other option out there. Yes, they entered the market in questionably-legal or often probably outright illegal ways. But illegal is not the same thing as immoral. And I don't think it's unethical to force out competition when that competition is a lazy, shitty, legally-enforced monopoly that treats its customers poorly.
Yes ... THAT was when governments should have stepped in and prevented uber from undercutting taxi drivers with investor money.
As pointed out here, many governments have laws stating that they will step in ... and they didn't.
Do you feel like the taxi medallion system was a better regulatory mechanism than what is currently in place?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_medallion
> But illegal is not the same thing as immoral.
Creating the gig economy doesn't get any moral points from me.
Okay but is that illegal?
I can only speak in EU terms in any more detail here, but the EU laws are based on "dominant market position". Monopoly is one route to that but it's not the only route and there is no minimum market share required, as e.g. Qualcomm found out (https://www.cliffordchance.com/insights/resources/blogs/talk...)
Which EU country reacted against Uber's predatory pricing when it was actually happening? Ie. which EU government refused investor money flowing into their economy? The only examples I can find are a few cities, and some of those are in the US. No EU state did, unless I'm missing something.
Sure now that it costs them money, they're reacting, making things worse for literally everyone: the taxi drivers, who've been victimized by the governments not reacting when they should. The customers, who are now paying more. The Uber drivers, who are certainly not the ones getting the money.
A great lawyer will tell you laws don't matter if they're not applied, and then tell you how laws are applied and what you can and can't get away with (this is a necessity since most laws aren't very clear at all, especially where it comes to actual real-world cases or penalties). The EU are absolute masters of that. The famous GPDR, for example, isn't protecting anyone's data in any way it matters since governments have the power to grant themselves exceptions to them. Which lead to all the things the GPDR tried to avoid: insurance getting private medical data (who are mostly part of governments in the EU), private medical data being used by the police or in court, just to give some examples.
Hell, it's now been confirmed every 2 years or so since 2015 that essentially all European countries think all of the FANGs are abusing their market position. Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, ... they've given them billions of dollars in fines. Tell me, what has been fixed? US advertising companies are deeper entrenched than ever before (even outside of the internet, ie. ClearChannel). Law is supposed to fix the problems. Well, obviously the problem of US companies' dominance is not solved, in fact it's gotten a lot worse.
And this is nothing new. Take what EU countries signed in the Budapest memorandum. You will find that it states that if Russia ("any of the ... blabla", which includes Russia) takes Crimea a bunch of EU countries (France, UK) would, first, declare war on the country that did it (Russia) and initiate actual hostile action against that country (ie. not just support to Ukraine). That meant they agreed to have UK and French (and ...) soldiers attack Russia. That was the security guarantee Ukraine had, and that was an international treaty, which in the EU (look it up) has the power of law.
As everyone and their grandmother's cat knows, they didn't actually follow through. They "gave support". That's just one, at the moment important, example.
And of course, the effect is the same: it became worse and worse. Russia's actions became worse and worse and worse. Now the EU countries have given the same guarantees for countries like Poland, Latvia and even Estonia, either directly or through NATO. Will Russia attack? Why not? It's not like these countries will (or let's be real: can) actually fight under any circumstance.
A couple EU countries bans on Uber seem to date back from 2015-2019, which is slow, but still fairly early as to worldwide adoption per https://dig.watch/trends/uber
Example ban in Finland: https://www.uber.com/fi-/blog/uberpop-tauolle/
After few years of operation, government realised it was serious and pressured Uber to stop taxi operations « Uber pop », until disruption in legislation got through.
I used Uber from first year it was here. As the service got popular with young adults and the people took notice and public debate began, the police was instructed to fine Ubers. Then the drivers asked us passengers to sit up front and pretend we were friends. (Not sure if the app had instructions related to this or not.) Once the legislation change was clear, they closed operation officially for the brief period, as stated in the article.
I just thought it was exciting at the time..
Page not found ...
And Uber is available in Finland: https://www.uber.com/global/en/r/finland/cities/
For what it is worth what Wikipedia says about the document you mention is not what this comment mentions. Personally I found that comment spreading disinformation.
No country gave guarantees only assurances and it is even highlighted that the US senate would have never voted for it favourably, and thus it never was a treaty.
On the other hand breaking this assurances will guarantee no other country will ever give up their nuclear arsenal, of course a non consolation price for Ukraine. Guarantees in nato which is indeed a treaty and ratified, covering Poland and Latvia and Estonia would be stronger but of course, I would not put all my eggs on it.
> Which EU country reacted against Uber's predatory pricing when it was actually happening?
Bulgaria kicked out Uber for not obeying taxi regulations.
Sounds unrelated? Well it used to be a socialist dictatorship and laws are still written in a ham-fisted-yet-vague* way so that (1) you can't realistically obey them and (2) they can be used against anyone state authorities (or their friends) don't like.
So what's the actual reason? Uber was on its way to price taxi companies out of the market by offering better service at a price of €0.25/km.
* If you're from a developed country and this sounds like what your government is currently doing, you should start panicking.
I can't find news on that, and Uber is available in Bulgaria:
https://www.uber.com/bg/en/