We know that Uber is awful and managed by sociopaths in absolute terms. It does not need comparison to any kind of old taxi industry ideals. Plethora of reports we had for the last few years show this clearly. And old "taxi mafia" was at least subject to some improvements - each taxi company was local and had to listen to authorities, which in turn could be influenced by citizens. Uber? They don't give a flying fuck about the law, and they're too big for any single city to pressure them into anything. It's like trying to replace a bunch of crooked mayors with a warlord hell-bent on total domination in the region.

I don't like Uber either; I just dislike dishonest propaganda, even if targeted at a bad actor.

> They don't give a flying fuck about the law, and they're too big for any single city to pressure them into anything.

I think that's a little overblown. Uber has been forced to leave many cities (Paris, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Madrid, etc) and parts of cities (e.g. Calgary Airport).

Uber may be willing to bend the law, but the cities can literally call their cars and ticket them (or even impound them), it's not like it's an underground operation, and not even Uber can sustain that, as we've seen.

Fair enough. I know about Germany, but I missed Paris and Madrid - thanks for the info. Though how much % of the total operations is that?

But it's not bending it, it's disregarding and breaking it. Bending was what Uber-like services have been doing in Europe for past 10+ years, and in time they managed to integrate themselves with the infrastructure nicely.

In my city the IRS tries to randomly call and then fine the living crap out of Uber drivers, but it doesn't seem to be effective. Frankly, if Uber teaches people anything it's how slow and inefficient local governments have become. Which is both good and bad to know. On the other hand, local startup community figured out that they're obliged to help Uber win, so they promote them and jobhunt for them and if our startup community is good at anything, it's good at promoting and finding people.

Why would the IRS be fining Uber drivers? Uber is legal under federal law. And the IRS doesn't really care that much about how you got your money, as long as you pay taxes on it. Do you have a source for that or just anecdote? Maybe it was the state-level tax authority.

I don't think TeMPOraL lives in the US; for us foreigners when speaking in English, it's common to use the American term to refer to the local equivalent.

Like you said, I meant the local equivalent to the American IRS. I actually picked up this way of writing here on HN :).

Uber is still available in Paris. Only UberPop has stopped. They still have UberX and UberBlack which are legal according to French law since they rely on licensed drivers.

I prefer the accountability of the market, over taxi cartel boards.

Fine, but it doesn't work when one side plays by different rules than everyone else.

I agree. Abolish the medallion systems and other industry protectionist laws. Then cabs will just become a federated competitor to Uber and prices will fall to the same level, if not lower. I guarantee that the taxi lobby will not approve of that. They want government protection to revive their dead monopoly. There's nothing morally wrong with that; they're just looking out for their own interests. It's on the rest of us to see that for what it is.