Uber's MVP product improves upon all taxi services. Hailing a cab with an app is much better than making a call and hoping they show up.
But all the extra work getting people to drive in the spare time doesn't really add much value. It's only viable because they are dumping money in the market to subsidize it.
Uber could co-exist with taxis. In many cities you can hail a regulated cab with the app.
We've had taxi apps (like mytaxi and taxi.eu) long before Uber started in Europe. This really isn't anything new.
Re:Uber hit by legal setback in Europe
by maverick_iceman on Thursday May 11, 2017 @01:44PM
(#14317987)
Taxi service was bad everywhere if you were black.
Re:Uber hit by legal setback in Europe
by BlackjackCF on Thursday May 11, 2017 @02:06PM
(#14318169)
It's really not much different for Uber: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-31/study-fin...
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<quote>You know the rest of the world isn't as racist as the USA</quote>
Unless perhaps, you are a Turk in Germany or a Roma just about anywhere in Europe.
A reasonable point. I'd say the US is worse in absolute terms (simply on account of a much larger number of number of fatal shootings and the like), but whether that means it's more racist or similarly so and just more violent in general is tricky to analyze. It's unfortunate that we find ourselves having to make such comparisons at all :-(
Everywhere in the 60s or everywhere in pre-Uber XXI century? Honest question; I was under the impression that most of the racism problems in the US have been solved before I was born.
Racism in the US is not currently solved, so your impression is incorrect. Slavery is gone, and legal segregation is gone, but racism is still alive and well.
While the other comment is particularly snarky, and while modern day racism is less overt than activities like lynching, it still exists.
As an easy example from recent news, a Texas judge posting on facebook that it was "time for a tree and a rope" (which is an implied lynching)[0].
[0] - http://www.mystatesman.com/news/local-govt--politics/judge-m...
Can't wait to see them crash and burn and be replaced by commodity ride-share services that have a better connection to their service area.