“Comments like these show Seoul is in danger of remaining trapped in the past and getting left behind by the global ‘sharing economy’ movement,” the statement said.
You know, I don't particularly like the "sharing economy" movement. The whole thing seems predicated on deregulation of industries that I honestly think should be regulated.
Airbnb acts, essentially, as a parent company for a hotel chain without any of the actual power or responsibility of the traditional holding company. Uber/Lyft act as car dispatchers without any of the power or responsibility of traditional taxi/limo companies. The ability of these companies to outcompete traditional companies on price in their spaces is due to their choice to not follow regulations as much as possible. The reasoning Uber gives in the article for not being in violation of the law sounds suspiciously like the reasoning given by escorts ("You're paying for my time"). If this trend continues we will see additional disregard for regulation with more and more absurd reasoning ("We aren't breaking the law on regulation because we are simply a technology company that connects your phone with another phone who happens to be in the possession of a guy in a car and whatever happens after that is between two consenting adults"). How far can this race to the bottom go before our search for low costs starts to war with our sense of personal safety and social responsibility?
As an aside, I use Uber pretty regularly in any city where it's available simply because I generally don't have the local taxi numbers. Does this make me a hypocrite? Probably.
While I agree with some amount of regulation, part of the benefit of "app-driven" business models is that some of the regulations become obsolete.
For example, one of the major reasons for taxi regulation is so you don't have to negotiate a fare after flagging down the car. The rate is regulated so you know what it will be before you flag down the taxi, and the regulated meter gives you assurances that you're not being cheated.
This bit of regulation becomes obsolete with an Uber model: if you request an Uber ride with the app, you know you'll be paying Uber prices (and you can even get an estimate in the app IIRC). There is no need to regulate the price because consumers are empowered to do informed comparison shopping prior to the hail.
Regulations should not be imposed on a business who has made the rationale for that regulation obsolete. Other regulations may still be important though.
That is only because Uber has decided to. Tomorrow Uber could put a price on the app and then when you get there double it for "unforeseen traffic conditions".
Before regulation taxis were experts at scamming and scheming their way into higher fares. I'm not sure why you think Uber, who outwardly admits profit is their only motive, won't use similar tricks if it benefits their bottom line. Or any number of similar copy cat services that will arrive if the Uber model finally does replace taxis.
Agreed. By the same token, we should also fix by the decree the price of any service - after all, companies can put surcharges and other tricks after you signed up. I say the Legislature of California should decide how much is fair for a SaaS company in SF to charge for its apps. Clearly they know better than the consumer. And it should be a standard price, none of this nonsense of different companies charging different prices.
Why do we need stop lights? I've never been hit by a car, why should the government decide when I cross the street. A car stopping and my crossing is a contract between me and the stopping driver. The government will never be able to decide when is the best time for cars to stop and people to cross.
Maybe we don't: "“Naked Streets” Without Traffic Lights Improve Flow and Safety"
An article in a local Bristol newspaper explaining the effort stated, “drivers will now be expected to use a combination of common sense and courtesy to negotiate the junction of the town’s High Street, Wyndam Way and The Cabstand.”
"Removing Roads and Traffic Lights Speeds Urban Travel"
Another kind of anarchy could actually speed travel as well—namely, a counterintuitive traffic design strategy known as shared streets. The practice encourages driver anarchy by removing traffic lights, street markings, and boundaries between the street and sidewalk. Studies conducted in northern Europe, where shared streets are common, point to improved safety and traffic flow.
It does? Why? I've never heard of that. Where I'm from, taxi regulations are basically a more stringent driver's license, insurance, inspected taxi meter, and standardized/consumer-friendly presentation of the pricing. If a taxi wants to charge $100/km then that's up to them, but it has to be clearly displayed in the taxi window so the customer can avoid them.
As far as I know, most cities regulate fares. Seoul (the city in the article) certainly does, as according to a survey done by some economists, so do most cities in the US. Same here in Lisbon.
If Uber did this, their business would get eaten up by Lyft and other competitors. There is very little to prevent users from changing ride sharing companies, so they must compete fiercely on price.
> That is only because Uber has decided to. Tomorrow Uber could put a price on the app and then when you get there double it for "unforeseen traffic conditions".
That's like saying we should regulate the price of milk because the grocery store cash register might charge you something different than the price you saw on the shelf. There are plenty of consumer protections already in place to punish that kind of deception.
> There are plenty of consumer protections already in place to punish that kind of deception
And who's going to spot if the Uber app incorrectly calculates distances, skimming a couple bucks off each rider? This is why taxis have regulations for approved taximeters. That's an existing taxi regulation that clearly should also apply to Uber. Same as how scales used in trade have to be validated.
I feel like the term "sharing economy" would be better suited to something like where you share tools with your neighbors or something.
Uber is a great business, but it's not sharing anything. It's a bunch of contractors and a communication network. If you are paying for the service it is not sharing, is it?
When learning the workings of the Internet, one feels an overwhelming sense of the empowering possibilities that global peer to peer communication brings.
The marketing coup of modern web companies is to make us think that relying on centralized code out of our control embodies this spirit, and is thus the future.
This involves downplaying these companies' powerful (and lucrative) roles, by making people focus only on what they facilitate. Thus, it makes perfect sense why the industry brands itself as "sharing" based - it makes you think about the interactions between participants, and ignore the cut going to the new middlemen.
I would like to add that quotes like this make me sympathize with abduhl's opinion even more:
> An Uber spokesman in Seoul denied that the service was illegal as Uber is “a technology company that connects drivers with passengers” and doesn’t directly run a taxi service with rented cars.
I know they want to claim they're not a (distributed) taxi company but that's what they are; they pay drivers, verify the drivers, help the drivers get insured and connect them with their passengers. That's what a taxi service is. Yes, they don't rent cars, but that is not the defining trait.
If they want to fight an injustice of a system, shouldn't they admit that's what they do -- and be ready for the consequences?
>If they want to fight an injustice of a system, shouldn't they admit that's what they do -- and be ready for the consequences?
They are there to make money, and if fighting an injustice system is aligned with their goal of making money, they will fihgt. I get the feeling that Uber is idealized, same as Tesla.
Right, and I don't have a problem with them fighting the system; in fact, I believe as most of us do that the regulations may be too strict in most areas.
However, this "half-fighting" when you criticise the regulations and at the same time you claim you're outside the law because you're just a "service" -- this rubs me the wrong way.
It is this "half-fighting, half-outside" approach that is most evident in corporations. It's similar to corporations dealing with censorship -- everyone, even executives, agree that censorship is a bad thing but the company still wants to make money in China, so they have to obey it and respect it at the same time.
> If they want to fight an injustice of a system, shouldn't they admit that's what they do -- and be ready for the consequences?
If you're trying to fight an existing, firmly entrenched system, you don't walk up to the front door as early as possible, knock, and say "Hi, I'm here to destroy you." You become as popular as possible as quickly as possible, and then you might have the ability to survive such a challenge.
One notable advantage this gives: if you follow the letter of the law as written, any subsequent change to the law is effectively targeting you specifically, which gives you a substantial amount of high ground to operate from. Assuming you're doing something that people actually want, you're then much more likely to have the general public on your side.
If the regulations are not working in the consumer's favor, why shouldn't we disregard them? In DC we just last year, that's right 2013, got taxis to agree to universally accept credit cards. Why? Because Uber came to town and people finally had another option aside from the generally terrible taxis in this city.
This is true, but it is possible that less regulation is necessary because of improvements to tech.
E.g., I've found both Uber and Lyft drivers in SF to be way better than cab drivers. I've had cab drivers that seemed visibly high, stopped to open their door and cat-call women, etc. -- nothing like this has ever happened in Lyft or Uber for me, and it would be very unlikely, because a driver that did that would get low reviews and be kicked off the service very quickly.
The drivers I've talked too have been really happy with the services too. It seems much more equitable and less exploitative than the standard cab setup.
(Something like Airbnb seems much more a mix of good and bad.)
> The whole thing seems predicated on deregulation of industries that I honestly think should be regulated.
In the case of Uber, in particular, the self-regulation they impose is much greater than the regulation that the government does, and accounts for a MUCH higher quality of service than the very heavily regulated taxi cabs. Maybe that doesn't work for every instance or every company, but the crowd-sourcing of relevant data seems, to me, a far more effective solution than the protectionist bureaucracy masquerading as regulation that exists.
I don't think Uber's quality of service is the result of crowd sourced feedback. I think its the result of Uber as a company being aware of the intense scrutiny of its business model, and self-regulating accordingly. If the threat of shutdown wasn't looming overhead, and you saw the kind of competition in this space that you do with regular taxicabs (dozens of little cab companies), I don't think crowd sourced feedback would be effective.
It's private regulation. The public has no voice despite Uber utilizing public resources. For example, the public has an interest in efficient pickup and drop off at their airport. The public has an interest in the driving skill of professional drivers. The public has an interest in universal access to public transportation. Above all the public has an interest in determining what is and is not lawful.
The people of Korea have spent more than 100 years (since colonialization by Japan in the 1890's) in a struggle for self-determination. Under what kind of logic does the profit of Silicon Valley venture capital trump the interests of the Korean people?
> You know, I don't particularly like the "sharing economy" movement. The whole thing seems predicated on deregulation of industries that I honestly think should be regulated.
I mostly agree with you but I think the sharing economy is something that needs to happen in a better regulated way. Let's face it, wage growth is stagnant and the only way the average person is able to improve their financial situation is to be more efficient. [e.g. sharing cars, renting out spare rooms, moonlighting as an Uber driver]
My main problem with Uber is the fact it isn't paying the same tax rates to the local government as the Taxi companies.
My main problem with AirBnb is they don't even bother with building an address list to filter out apartment complexes [almost all of which don't allow subleasing in the US] & condos [ditto]. They need to do that and require a copy of the person's lease to be on file with them showing they can sublease, etc.
> the only way the average person is able to improve their financial situation is to be more efficient
AirBNB doesn't provide the average renter a way to improve their financial situation in the long run.
For renters in non-regulated units (ie, no rent control/stabilization), if you can make an extra $200/week on AirBNB and your landlord knows it, he or she will simply raise the rent by $800/month the next time your lease is up for renewal. (Or, if he knows this in advance, this becomes the market rate for your initial lease to begin with). This is very easily corroborated by the studies showing that AirBNB led to an increase in rent in several cities (linked in other HN discussions, and also very easy to find elsewhere).
This isn't a statement about AirBNB; it's just basic economics. Absent regulation or other market "stickiness", the money eventually flows to the individual or entity who owns the capital - in this case, the real estate. (The etymology of the word "capitalism" is not coincidental!).
For property owners, the math is different (though still not as good for the owner as one might think).
> For renters in non-regulated units (ie, no rent control/stabilization), if you can make an extra $200/week on AirBNB and your landlord knows it, he or she will simply raise the rent by $800/month the next time your lease is up for renewal.
> This isn't a statement about AirBNB; it's just basic economics. Absent regulation or other market "stickiness", the money eventually flows to the individual or entity who owns the capital - in this case, the real estate. (The etymology of the word "capitalism" is not coincidental!).
Please provide evidence that this doesn't happen with normal split leases, normal renting of rooms out to people, using craigslist to rent temporary rooms, and is directly linked to AirBnb. Like many things in life "basic economics" is not "basic" when you have multiple equal solutions that bring about equivalent outcomes.
The same effects happen when people split rent [e.g. they can afford more, on average].
Also? They'd be able to do this without AirBNB and people did for a long time. AirBNB has only increased the supply & demand by making it easier.
Instead the sharing economy will make those wage stagnated people's lives more expensive and force them into the sharing economy.
It was like refinancing. In a lot of markets many people couldn't afford a house unless they planned to refinance in a couple years based on price appreciation. With Airbnb the price of apartments will rise to the point where one cannot afford an apartment unless one rents part of it out on Airbnb.
> It was like refinancing. In a lot of markets many people couldn't afford a house unless they planned to refinance in a couple years based on price appreciation. With Airbnb the price of apartments will rise to the point where one cannot afford an apartment unless one rents part of it out on Airbnb.
People keep saying this without any real evidence.
People did the same f'n thing with sharing rent, subletting, etc. before. The only difference is they didn't have as easy access to the tourist market. It isn't going to magically reevaluate the prices of all real estate everywhere as long as its legal.
Refinancing did not become big until computer models and the online connectivity of the customer allowed lenders and consumers to price them very quickly and efficiently. The exact same can be said of the difference existing now in the sharing economy.
I'm not saying the sharing economy should be stopped, but to believe it will be a net benefit to the working class is a bit naive in my opinion.
Wage growth is not going to return because we've started hustling rides. Its demise was political and its resurgence can only be political. The 'sharing' economy is simply symptomatic.
While largely true, employers fought a long hard political battle to break down impediments to trade and keep the value of the USD propped up.
Those are the things that let them arbitrage labor costs and they (currently) come with the consent of labor. "Globalization" (in this sense) was not some inevitable force of nature, it was borne out of hard-won policies like NAFTA and CAFTA.
>We aren't breaking the law on regulation because we are simply a technology company that connects your phone with another phone who happens to be in the possession of a guy in a car and whatever happens after that is between two consenting adults
"How far can this race to the bottom go before our search for low costs starts to war with our sense of personal safety and social responsibility?"
As far as people want to give up state-"guaranteed" safety for a better price. The state shouldn't have any saying in how ready I am to take risks. Who is the state to tell me in whose car I sit to go from A to B? In this particular case, the state is only a hinderance for the market to adjust to the personal needs of people.
Taxi regulation for safety reasons increases the trust in taxis for people that don't know the area: tourists.
Harp about personal freedom and responsibility of the state all you want, but the regulation is for people that don't know the area and could get hurt by stepping into the wrong car. Because when the day occurs that a tourist is kidnapped or hurt because of this service, it will ruin the local industry. Uber may not care about the locals once it is sufficiently global (what's one city?), but the municipality does and this is precisely the reason why they're stepping in.
I think generic laws/jurisprudence that, in a court, would find those companies guilty of negligence (and heavily punish them) if they hadn't performed standard checks before hiring[1], would be more than enough to convince every company to check.
There is also no reason Uber can't operate a true communication and payment service.
In Chicago they ran a service called UberTaxi. You'd get a regulated Chicago taxi and you'd pay the regulated rates.
The app and payment is the true innovation. Skirting local regulations by hiring out contractors isn't innovation.
The regulations are often a burden on the taxi drivers for the good of the public. Of course you can beat their prices if you don't have to follow. That's not competition.
> The app and payment is the true innovation. Skirting local regulations by hiring out contractors isn't innovation.
What the hell does it matter what the innovation is? We're not talking about including Uber as a subject in business class; we're talking about its relationship to governments.
>The app and payment is the true innovation. Skirting local regulations by hiring out contractors isn't innovation.
As far as Uber is concerned, though, the hard part of their business IS skirting local regulations. Their core competence is not running a payment system - it's being able to lobby successfully to enter protected markets where other taxi companies couldn't. Once they've got first mover advantage the network effect takes over.
> The ability of these companies to outcompete traditional companies on price in their spaces is due to their choice to not follow regulations as much as possible.
The only significant regulation affecting price that Uber carefully avoids is the limit on the number of taxi "medallions" issued. If you're in favor of regulating that industry, could you explain how a limit on taxi medallions is in any way good for taxi passengers?
The number of medallions is set in an effort to reduce the total number of taxis in the city.
This is not good for any one particular person trying to get a cab.
However, it is good for the total traffic situation in the city. If there were a significantly greater number of taxis, gridlock would be all but unavoidable. Then no one could take a taxi anywhere.
It's one of those situations where the negative eternality is felt a tiny bit by everyone, so the regulation needs to take that into account.
I'm not saying we have the perfect scheme - if we did congestion pricing would be higher, street parking prices would be way higher - but there is actually a rationale behind it. Most of the people are hyper focused on the rider/driver interaction, but there is a bigger city wide transit question in play that is often ignored.
I have less of a problem with Uber than with Airbnb. I do believe that Uber deals with issues of trustworthiness and reliability that taxi regulations were put in place to solve, without many major downsides. I think this is one area where technology makes regulation less necessary. Evaluating taxicab service is fairly easy, and reputation works well.
Airbnb is more difficult. Evaluation doesn't replace regulation as easily in this case - I'm unlikely to pay that much attention to, say, fire safety unless I've experienced fire problems in the past. There's also much bigger externalities - for other residents in the same building as an Airbnb let, for example.
Instead of viewing them as a race to the bottom, perhaps it would be better to think of them as shining a light on the current systems. Just because they aren't regulated now, doesn't mean they can't be in the future. In a way, they offer another chance at regulating areas that have entrenched interests and decades of poor regulation that prevent efficient solutions from emerging today.
The only light these companies shine is that of capitalism. Why should we believe that they will be regulated meaningfully in the future and that the regulations won't just serve to bring them into the fold of existing regulations? What is to stop the next "innovator" from coming in to the same space and repeating the same argument about <insert timeframe> of poor regulation preventing efficient solutions? How does re-regulation do anything but protect these companies that have essentially ignored the law?
As I said, where does our search for low costs end up battling our sense of personal safety and social responsibility?
I used to think taxis and hotels needed to be regulated to ensure quality and safety of the services. I don't anymore. It's pretty obvious by now that users have more trust in the sharing economy services like Uber than they do in the old taxi service.
Yet another case where technology has improved on an older solution built by legal means alone.
If there's one place that doesn't need an uber, it's Seoul. Perhaps one of the best cities on the planet to hail a taxi. Cheap, ubiquitous, safe and surprisingly highly regulated for safety and fares.
If you've never been to Korea, one thing that pops out immediately is the uniformly very high level of service quality nearly everywhere as compared to the U.S. or Europe. You can already order just about anything you can imagine to be personally delivered just about anywhere you are for next to nothing.
Taxis there are similar and the prices are so low it's a wonder that the drivers can even feed themselves. The fares barely seem to cover the cost of fuel.
I've never had a taxi show up late when I called for one, and there are so many you can usually hail one almost on demand. The taxis are always clean, unlike NYC. More importantly, the number of stories I've heard of drunk people leaving purses or phones behind, and having them returned the next day, is remarkable.
Sure you get the occasional surly driver, and language can be a problem, but that's anywhere, even with Uber drivers. And for $10-15 a ride across most of the city, Uber isn't pushing down anybody's prices.
If there's one place that can revolutionize their own taxi service and offer on-demand pickup via apps, it's going to be Seoul.
Uber's statement about Seoul is garbage. If there's an example of a modern, efficient, "smart" city, anywhere on the planet, it's there. Compared to London and D.C. at least, transport in Seoul is one of the best planned utopian paradises you can imagine and it gets remarkably better every year. The Seoul city government is right to crush it out of existence.
If I accept what you've written at face value (which I do), then it also strikes me that Seoul is one city where the emergence of Uber would have little impact on the taxi industry. But if Uber actually does have a significant impact, then it seems that the people want something that they are not currently being offered. Seems like a good experiment, not something that should be shut down.
You do have a point. I'd add that the historic pattern in Korea is to be allergic to foreign companies doing business there. Things like trade protectionism is a very political strong thing there because it keeps money inside the country. Sending <whatever percentage of a ride goes to Uber> outside of the country, when the alternative is to just update the very well done and current taxi system is a political non-starter.
I'd be highly surprised if they were ever allowed to operate. If Uber was allowed to go, I'd imagine some kind of tight regulation or high taxes on Uber service to make it less competitive than the normal service.
The Overall Taxi experience (or all of public trans for that matter) in Seoul is much, much better & cheaper than anywhere in the US. It's usually pretty easy to catch a cab, and when you can't you can get a "call taxi" and have it arrive in a Uber-esque time.
I'm not sure if anyone in Korea would pay the premiums that people pay in NYC/SF, especially if taxis get a comparable app.
Yeah, the taxi service in Seoul is among the best I've ever experienced (if you can get over the language barrier and sometimes grumpy drivers). Fast, cheap, ubiquitous. Several tiers of service, bullet taxis, company taxis, self-owned, deluxe.
For some tiers, drivers have to have 5-10 years of accident free driving - in Seoul that's remarkable.
Here's an example fare: $2.50 to pickup and go 2km, about $.70 a km after. Gangnam to Gyeongbokgung palace (across most of the city and over a major river) will run you about $15.
A trip from Brooklyn to Harlem, about the same distance and complexity, is likely to run $30-40. Uber will run you $40-50.
A big mac meal in Seoul runs about $6. I think the sandwich is about $4. I wouldn't know offhand since I've only ever eaten once at a McDonald's in Korea, and that was 8 years ago.
Something interesting that I found was that in different cities, the price proposition changes.
For example, in London, Black Cabs are generally considered decent but expensive, so Uber is priced cheaper than black cabs, but slightly more expensive than mini cabs.
In Delhi, the prices are far higher than anything you can hail on the street, but cheaper than calling a town car service.
Seoul has an army of taxi drivers, probably a surplus of them, and the fares are already quite low. It's a massive city of 10 million people and you can get a cab from one end to the other for the equivalent of about $30 USD. Most rides cost $10-20. Good cab service is essential there, and my theory is that it's due to the extremely high rate of alcohol consumption among the working population. I can't really imagine the Uber business model being attractive in that city because the existing taxi service is so strong.
Seoul is also very big and the subway shuts down at night. Wherever your subway car is when it shuts down, that's where you're getting off. As a foreigner, this bewildered me. Me and my buddies would find ourselves in some dark neighborhood full of high-rises and it would be a battle amongst the subway passengers for the few cabs that happened to be waiting at the exits. I would have loved Uber back then, especially the ability to type in our destination. I was there with the military and we lived on big bases but the cab drivers acted like they had no idea where we wanted to go and would drive around aimlessly until they'd ripped us off sufficiently before suddenly remembering and driving us home.
Years later, a friend back home explained that most of these taxi drivers (who were men in their 50's) were the deadweight that got laid off from Chaebol corporations back during the Asian Financial Crisis. These guys resent their new occupations and have the shitty attitudes to show it.
This is very interesting, thank you for the perspective. Clearly it must be somewhat popular if the government feels it necessary to step in and stop them. Is that assumption wrong?
The taxi service in Seoul is quite well regulated. Fares are cheap and drivers have to have rather incredible safety records (for Seoul) to operate - like 5-10 years of no-accident driving.
Uber wants to skirt all around that and rely on crowd sourced reviews to ferret out drivers and unscrupulous fare charging.
Can the average Seoul taxi driver be grumpy? Sure. On Uber that would get him bad reviews and get him kicked out. But average Seoul taxi guy also has more than 3/4 of a million safe driving miles on him as well.
It's also hard to explain, but unlike NYC style taxis, which are grimy and uncomfortable, Seoul drivers actually keep their cars clean and well serviced.
I'd argue that the main reason that the Seoul city government wants to keep Uber out (in favor of a domestic service analog) is that it keeps money patriated and in domestic industries. 0% of the money taxis operate off of leaves Korea. While with Uber, some percentage is likely to.
I understand, these are all interesting points. But neither explains the anxiety; if everyone is happy with current service, why would the unions even care? Why aren't they confident that the service will fail on its own?
Because they aren't. Any competition, even a failed one, will eat into your bottom line. And in the case of Uber, it's easy to make the political case that it shouldn't be allowed since it's a foreign entity and that means money will leave the country. From the Union's POV, it means that there will now be non-Union drivers out and around.
Well the taxi drivers in South Korea are unionized, and labor unions have a lot of political power there. I have no doubt that as soon as they caught wind of Uber, they lobbied the government to pass legislation banning it.
UPDATE: Uber Monday evening called Seoul city government’s earlier statement a sign that it lags behind in adopting what it called an innovation in transportation. “Comments like these show Seoul is in danger of remaining trapped in the past and getting left behind by the global ‘sharing economy’ movement,” the statement said. An Uber spokesman in Seoul denied that the service was illegal as Uber is “a technology company that connects drivers with passengers” and doesn’t directly run a taxi service with rented cars.
Anyone know where we can get this statement? Taken out of context (which is most likely was), this reads like Uber is just a bunch of whiney rich kids and makes me like Uber less. I presume they would write something that talks about the economics of Uber for a city like Seoul. For example, saying Seoul can leverage existing technology (drive costs down) and increase economics (more people in the city and more jobs for drivers).
> An Uber spokesman in Seoul denied that the service was illegal as Uber is “a technology company that connects drivers with passengers” and doesn’t directly run a taxi service with rented cars.
I'm not sure any definition of a taxi service requires renting cars.
It just requires connecting vehicles to passengers, at a time and place the passenger defines.
Uber don't half come out with some rubbish when they're trying to skirt around some narrowly worded local policy or law.
>> "Taxi Drivers complaining that barriers to entry are being removed, so fares remain artfically high."
Anytime I've read about Uber or the few times I've used it myself it is much more expensive than a taxi. They aren't coming in to drive fare prices down.
Preface: I'm a huge fan of Uber & AirBNB and use (and love) both extensively.
That being said, I have to say I'm impressed/shocked/in awe of their respective strategies. One of their biggest innovations isn't necessarily their use of tech (which is huge of course), but the adoption of their regulatory strategy, which is basically:
"Screw the law. We'll do what we want, get people to love us, then appeal to the masses / out-lobby the politicians when the governments attempt to enforce the law"
I bet most attempts to start AirBNB/UberX/Lyft (in their current form) would have been met by "Sure, great idea, but it's totally against the law, and you'll get shut down." And that would have stopped most people.
So, I suppose, kudos to the respective founders for taking a different (and bolder) approach. Like it or not, it seems to be working through sheer brute force.
Honest question; If a chemical start-up took the same approach - make an awesome product and ignore all safety and health regulations - what would you think?
You mean like Soylent? (They've had FDA approval as a food since January, but plenty of people wanted it before then without worrying about an official stamp saying there aren't any health risks.)
Sharing a ride or renting a property is a high risk proposition and humans have traditionally relied on trust networks and connections like families and friends to find good customers and providers.
I think the true innovation of the sharing economy is using technology to scale up these trust networks with rating and reviews to the level required by a modern city. These mechanisms have of course been known for a long time in the internet, but sharing economy realized its full value for renting and sharing rather recently.
> The city added that it will launch in December an app that will provide similar features to Uber for official taxis, such as geo-location data on cabs nearby, information about them and their drivers, as well as ratings.
I don't know what the state of labor unions is in South Korea, but I think the reason why an app described as such is typically discouraged in municipalities is because the ratings systems could be seen by the union as unfairly punitive or arbitrarily gamed...similar to the protest some teachers unions have against testing schemes and bonus pay for meeting benchmarks.
And of course, doesn't the Uber app allow drivers to see the ratings of various passengers?
An app that would show real-time location and other info about cabs, as well as being able to hail them, would be very nice for any taxi system. I'd think it's the other stuff, such as ratings, that could only be palatable by drivers and users under a privatized context.
Now we need Uber to start offering flights in Korea. It's impossible to book a flight in Korea unless you go through Air Busan. Why? Because they all require you to use Internet Explorer and a Korean Credit Card. On the flip side, you can cancel Air Busan flights for only $1. In Japan you can cancel flights at no cost.
I actually think this is a fair idea. I think France (my country, but any other country too) should aim to do the same.
People don't realize how much of france's (and other countries) economy goes to american companies, when we perfectly well have the ability to make as good or better companies locally.
Kind of seems petty when there's already a perfectly viable solution out there. Why not give the consumer the choice, take the risk and compete like a real business; real people would have to.
"South Korea’s capital city said on July 21, 2014 it planned to ban the smartphone car-hailing service Uber, saying it raised passenger safety issues and threatened the livelihood of licensed taxi drivers."
You know, I don't particularly like the "sharing economy" movement. The whole thing seems predicated on deregulation of industries that I honestly think should be regulated.
Airbnb acts, essentially, as a parent company for a hotel chain without any of the actual power or responsibility of the traditional holding company. Uber/Lyft act as car dispatchers without any of the power or responsibility of traditional taxi/limo companies. The ability of these companies to outcompete traditional companies on price in their spaces is due to their choice to not follow regulations as much as possible. The reasoning Uber gives in the article for not being in violation of the law sounds suspiciously like the reasoning given by escorts ("You're paying for my time"). If this trend continues we will see additional disregard for regulation with more and more absurd reasoning ("We aren't breaking the law on regulation because we are simply a technology company that connects your phone with another phone who happens to be in the possession of a guy in a car and whatever happens after that is between two consenting adults"). How far can this race to the bottom go before our search for low costs starts to war with our sense of personal safety and social responsibility?
As an aside, I use Uber pretty regularly in any city where it's available simply because I generally don't have the local taxi numbers. Does this make me a hypocrite? Probably.