It's been the same situation in Ecuador for a while. In some cities it's tolerated, in others the police have cracked down by calling Ubers and handing out large fines when the car arrives.

I'm sympathetic to the taxi drivers.. but Uber is considered significantly safer. There's also InDriver and Cabify but they are less popular.

And Beat and Didi. But the reputation system on Uber is better, both for drivers and for riders. I'm sad to see it go.

Rappi does have a competing app called Beat, but Didi is definitely where's it at here. Significantly cheaper than Uber (assume they're subsidizing it quite a bit.)

My wife uses Didi to go to uni on days she has pico y placa and pays barely more than a bus would cost, which is kinda crazy.

My guess is maybe Didi, Beat and Waycali would face the same fate as Uber? They're all basically Uber.

I think eventually they'll legalize the apps, just a year or so ago I saw they were looking at it. The uproar over Uber leaving might be just what's needed to make some progress on that front.

Perhaps what is most frustrating is that the legal situation makes it impossible to do something like what Grab does in Asia, where a user just asks for a ride and both taxis and private cars participate as suppliers.

Uber is extremely popular with the upper classes here. I doubt all the apps could be illegal for very long.

The case against Uber was led by a local company providing among other things an app to hail normal taxis. It wasn't just some politicians decision.

Personally I never saw the big appeal of Uber and co anymore as soon as such apps starting to come around (which is since at least 2014 in Colombias major cities)