I live in Berlin and this is extremely satisfying. I'm beginning to doubt that Silicon Valley startups have any clue how European cities work. We germans in general are weary of evil, predatory enterprises that start a spiral to the bottom.

Jest aside: This is just not how things work here, for good or bad. I think there's also not that much room for disruption in the Uber case, at least in Germany. The market for cabs is very much unlike the market in the US - there's not a single huge company owning all the cabs in Berlin and a medallion does not cost a million EUR. Service has been pretty ok for me so far and I use a lot of cabs, so I actually don't see much of an upside but I do see a lot of potential downsides, not that much for me who could easily afford a surge pricing but for people that maybe can't and have to rely on regular cabs.