Hacker News Reader

Comment by pacman2 | Hacker News Reader

Yes, it may have advantages. But every advantage comes with disadvantages.

Same with Uber, which is forbidden in Germany. Once you get used to Uber you wonder, how you were you able to ever live without it. Germany is a backward country. Digitization is 3rd world there. Looks, like under Merkel the country has been asleep for two decades. I am not sure they are going to wake up.

View on HN

Uber isn't forbidden in Germany, it even has a presence here[1]. The difference is that something like unlicensed drivers aren't allowed (which makes sense). You always have the rather good public transportation system as well as professional drivers. For some journeys, there are also websites that connect you to other people, so that you can share a ride on a private basis.

[1] https://www.uber.com/global/de/u/wir-sind-hier/

Don't you have taxis there? Or are they just terrible (like ours used to be 10 years ago)?

I've never used Uber (don't like how invasive the app is) but I do use taxis regularly and since Uber started operating here I've found that the general quality of the taxi service has improved dramatically. Turns out state-sponsored quasi-monopolies aren't that great after all...

Uber pays drivers very badly and operates at a loss in order to destroy every other business in the industry. It’s American VC money attempting to wipe out cab companies the world over so they can capture what’s left

Uber's a strange one. The thing is that the US taxi industry before Uber was also pretty corrupt, abusive and inefficient. A few drivers do well knowing the system, companies existed based on connections to the city, most drivers were very marginal with high turn-over, fares were high and companies were slow to take advantage of the web.

So Uber replaced abusive inefficiency with abusive efficiency and provided many more jobs of a similar quality to what taxi driving was before.

Source; once drove a taxi, had friends driving both Uber and taxi. The general response was "not better or worse, just different". Maybe Uber has gotten worse but so have many things...

Uber will achieve profitability some time this year. How will your change your narrative then to villify them? And cab companies are notoriously corrupt. You're actually defending them?

And cab companies are notoriously corrupt.

In Germany?

I don’t think I buy this reasoning. Operating a taxi doesn’t require a huge capital expense. So even if we accept your premise, once Uber raises prices way above what they used to be, someone can just create an old-schools taxi company with a decent app, lease cars and go ahead.

But I don’t buy the premise in the first place. Cab companies aren’t going out of business in any city which I frequently visit. They improved their offering (apps, you don’t have to pay with cash etc.) and they’re competing just fine.

I'm no expert and I've visited Germany only a couple of times (again, only Berlin and Hamburg), but don't they have like an awesome public transportation system? Uber is great, alright, but when subway/train/buses work so good, I don't think Uber is all that necessary.

Except when there's only one bus a day on Sundays, etc.

I have noticed Uber pricing is slowly rising.

Wait until they put all taxi services out if business, and lobby politicians more heavily than now.

They proved money can buy a Proposition.

It's pure dumping. Burn an astounding amount of money on subsidising your product to undercut competitors and on advertising, then once you got the market on your hands jack up the prices.

But that strategy is probably impossible in a market where the cost to entry is fairly low.

Suppose Uber drives out literally all cab companies out of the market in some city and rises prices to absurdly high levels. Creating a brand new cab company isn’t that hard. Lease cars, create a decent app, advertise a little and you’re good to go.

I think they were hoping that their runway extends to self-driving.

Then a well-capitalized firm could suddenly leverage their scale. Order and maintain a fleet of 200,000 driverless cars, and you can get costs lower than an individual driver with his single vehicle and inefficient fleet management tools.

>Some of these companies have been tightening their belts for years. But the pandemic seems to have emptied what was left of the bargain bin. The average Uber and Lyft ride costs 40 percent more than it did a year ago, according to Rakuten Intelligence, and food delivery apps like DoorDash and Grubhub have been steadily increasing their fees over the past year. The average daily rate of an Airbnb rental increased 35 percent in the first quarter of 2021, compared with the same quarter the year before, according to the company’s financial filings.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/08/technology/farewell-mille...

Dunno about the taxi situation in Germany but in Sweden the local taxi operations have their own apps. So if one wants to get hold of a cab, it’s just to install their app and request a ride. (It’s convenient, but not cheap – but I’m not sure that cheap taxi rides should be a universal human right.)

Sweden also has Uber and Bolt though, and is lightyears ahead of Germany technologically (high usage of cards, Swish, etc.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com