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Comment by gentleman11 | Hacker News Reader

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

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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...

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.

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?

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