Uber London loses licence to operate

Re:Uber London loses licence to operate by lotsofpulp on Friday September 22, 2017 @07:45AM (#15311243)

In the US, I don’t think I’ve ridden in a small, local cab company whose cars didn’t smell like cigarettes and was barely legal to drive, and often had drivers trying to scam you. It was always nice expensive black car service, or shitty local taxi company, which was a super last resort.

The transparency and accountability that Uber brought has been preferred by everyone I know, and people are voting with their dollars.

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Re:Uber London loses licence to operate by kbart on Friday September 22, 2017 @07:50AM (#15311270)

It might be due to the fact that in most parts of Europe there's a cheap and good public transport available, so cabs must compete with it too. In USA, there's not much to choose from, so cabs have local monopolies, hence higher price and lower quality service.

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Re:Uber London loses licence to operate by cholantesh on Friday September 22, 2017 @08:02AM (#15311348)

Canada is in the same position. Cab drivers regularly take longer routes than necessary to drive up the meter and often pretend their card machines aren't working to force cash payment.

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Re:Uber London loses licence to operate by kofejnik on Friday September 22, 2017 @08:03AM (#15311353)

most taxi services in Europe are quite bad and hugely overpriced due to artificial monopoly, to the point that I try to stay away from the countries without Uber

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Re:Uber London loses licence to operate by kbart on Friday September 22, 2017 @08:14AM (#15311425)

From your description and my personal experience, only London falls under this category. What other cities do you have in mind?

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Re:Uber London loses licence to operate by icebraining on Friday September 22, 2017 @09:03AM (#15311761)

In my opinion as a local, Lisbon is pretty bad. Scamming and rude drivers, unreliable when requested by phone, forget about paying by card (now some have apps, but that's a post-Uber development), plus the organization leadership is very corrupt (getting around licensing limits by putting them under their families names, outright snatching licenses from members when they ask for help renewing them, leaving small towns without cars by using the licenses to drive in big cities, etc).

Before Uber, I already avoided taxis as much as I could, only taking a couple per year.

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Re:Uber London loses licence to operate by kofejnik on Friday September 22, 2017 @08:33PM (#15317253)

Athens, Greece is one obvious example; also Brussels. And Amsterdam. And a lot more. And I _love_ Vienna.

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Re:Uber London loses licence to operate by wavefunction on Friday September 22, 2017 @08:08AM (#15311394)

I've never had that experience with local cabs. Now what?

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Re:Uber London loses licence to operate by leot on Friday September 22, 2017 @08:22AM (#15311476)

Game theory makes it clear why anonymous cabs paid in cash will almost always provide worse service than a rating sensitive system.

The notion that people will be kind and nice because of social norms or "plain decency" or something is sentimental hogwash. People behave well when the system rewards them for doing so and penalises them for not.

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Re:Uber London loses licence to operate by kbart on Friday September 22, 2017 @08:33AM (#15311553)

Most of local cab companies in my city also let you rate a driver now, so it's not a unique selling point of Uber anymore.

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Re:Uber London loses licence to operate by leot on Friday September 22, 2017 @01:57PM (#15314279)

When was the last time you rated a local cab? If no one uses the system it might as well not exist.

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Re:Uber London loses licence to operate by kbart on Monday September 25, 2017 @01:09AM (#15328213)

Last night, actually.

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Re:Uber London loses licence to operate by trentnix on Friday September 22, 2017 @08:16AM (#15311445)

They do? You sure about that?

Then why not just let them compete?

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Re:Uber London loses licence to operate by kbart on Friday September 22, 2017 @08:25AM (#15311495)

"They do? You sure about that?"

Yes, I pay with credit card 9/10 times and get a receipt. I doubt any of these companies are big enough to have offshore companies to route their income through.

"Then why not just let them compete?"

They do. There's quite big competition in my city among public transport (city owned), many local taxi companies, private taxi drivers and Uber. Competition is quite fierce and costumers can choose freely whatever they prefer. I prefer taxi, I call taxi, some of my friends prefer Uber - they call Uber. What other competition do you have in mind?

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Re:Uber London loses licence to operate by conanbatt on Friday September 22, 2017 @09:15AM (#15311841)

I dont think people appreciate the uneven response. They equate allowing Uber to Uber vs taxis. But thats not whats being discussed: cabs arent banned. Its Uber vs Governments. The foe is large and abusive.

You can exercise your opinion by not taking an Uber. Why would you ban a third person from using uber?

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Re:Uber London loses licence to operate by trentnix on Friday September 22, 2017 @08:58AM (#15311731)

I was responding to the "lots of people prefer" part.

The competition you describe is exactly what's needed, but that's not always the competition that's allowed.

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Re:Uber London loses licence to operate by kbart on Friday September 22, 2017 @09:02AM (#15311749)

Yes, I was talking only about my city and my personal experience, I agree that it's more of an exception than a rule (at least judging by many comments here, especially coming from USA).

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