Uber banned in Portugal
algarvedailynews.com
algarvedailynews.com
Their (national association of road transport) next step is trying to get Uber to pay up for missed income - or as they state it "compensation for damages to the industry" [1].
[1]: http://www.publico.pt/sociedade/noticia/uber-proibida-de-ope...
I think the main issue with Portugal, startup wise, is the people. We (as a nation) are very risk adverse and scared. There are many logical reasons for that that I won't get into the details here, but on the technical level, our graduates are quite good and salaries/cost of living are low. A typical YC investment on a Portuguese company would probably give them about one year of runway without any further investment.
I don't think legislators would have a problem with Uber per se, it's just that they cheerfully ignore the existing legislation (and pay the fines incurred by the drivers) and basically just try to force themselves onto the market. If they would take the time to get proper legislation passed it could end up fine.
But why would governments that explicitly forbid illegal taxi services start making an exception for Uber?
Except that doesn't work (with a few exceptional countries/cities), because the incumbents have massive political capital and Uber doesn't, and it's very hard to get popular support for something people haven't experienced.
I don't like Uber for other reasons, but regarding this tactic, I'm fine with it.
Even if we agree that these laws are important, surely there's no short term harm in having Uber around - it's not like they're dumping waste or performing unlicensed surgery - the courts just have to issue a ruling and everything can go back to normal in a week.
Uber are now stomping these small companies by ignoring local law because they can afford the fines or just don't care.
I agree they are being allowed to do this in many places, and that it the fault of the government -- but i am certainly NOT fine with it.
They want to be the taxi service for the world which is a fast track to disaster for everyone except Uber.
Yes they are. And they group themselves (here in Portugal we have a single, national association of taxi companies, which was the organization that got the court to ban Uber) and have long standing relationships with local parties and politicians.
The fact that they're small business is irrelevant; we're talking about political capital, ie., influence, not money.
A good example is how the Portuguese court ruled without even hearing Uber.
Uber are now stomping these small companies by ignoring local law because they can afford the fines or just don't care.
By stomping, you mean competing?
For example taxis are supposed to work and be reachable all around the country with the same prices, not just in high volume areas. If there is a new company that steps on the prices of the high volume areas, the older local company won't be able to offer the service in low volume areas.
People get angry if they don't have good services in their living areas.
When I was there last year, we were given a list of 5 taxi phone numbers. When you needed a taxi, you'd cycle through the numbers until you found one that 1) answered the phone 2) was available 3) managed to understand where you wanted to be picked up. When we were leaving and needed to catch a bus, I made 15 fruitless phone calls, then asked somebody for a ride.
If there's a country it's France. An airport ride to my place, 16 km (10 miles), no more than 20 minutes, goes for a whooping 60EUR/66USD, more than the roundtrip flight to London. Nope.
And when I needed a ride at 4-5AM I called only to be hung up because "I didn't book it 24h in advance".
That's the same fallacy as when people whine about Uber's "surge pricing". When there is huge demand, Uber prices may go up 2x, but you still will be able to get a ride in 5 minutes instead of waiting half an hour or not even knowing if you will be able to catch a car at all.
There's a very good reason why taxis are regulated in most jurisdictions. If Uber doesn't like such regulations they're free to try to change it. And they do have very heavy hitting lobbyists on their payroll to do just that.
They are not free, however, to break the law.
These two reasons are why Uber (a crappy company anyway, do use their competitors, don't reward their anticompetitive policies) are banned.
> by the Court of Lisbon which accepted an injunction filed by Antral, the road carriers association.
Incorrect
> Politicians are too short sighted, always protecting the status quo.
Incorrect.
Being "better than the competition", by sidestepping laws and regulations, like Uber does, is also anti-competitive.
Back in the day, if you had a tomato plantation, you would need to hire staff to perform the harvest. You couldn't do it yourself; half the tomatoes would rot before you could pick them. It would take hundreds of staff to harvest a large plantation.
Then the tomato harvester was invented. Almost overnight, a job that was done by 100 people could be done by one. All of the plantation workers lost their jobs and had to find new work. If a plantation did not buy a harvester, they would be undercut by the farms using one and would go out of business.
What would you have done, as a politician, in that situation? Would you have made the tomato harvester illegal?
I see Uber as this generation's tomato harvester. Technological advancements always come at the expense of the labour they replace. You can't inhibit progress, you have to work with it, otherwise you get left behind.
Why should politicians make it easy for a foreign company to destroy a local, tax-paying, profession that gives jobs to people and follows certain obligations and rules voted for public safety?
Answering your question isn't simple. I foremost think about how the lawmaking process itself could be changed to make it significantly harder to create superficial laws: the type of laws that interfere with consenting people; the type of laws largely responsible for so many prison economies and victimless "crimes." This doesn't answer your question. This is to say that it's a good question and it should be thought about.
At least for the latter there are regulations in place in the taxi market here in Europe.
Finally citizens can decide. Vote for politicians which going to make change injust law (or what we see as injust). This works at least sometimes. Homosexuality was a criminal offense in most countries forty years ago.
Frankly, that's a cop out, because you'd be insane to vote for the politician based on his/her opinions on taxi regulation laws. Our political systems simply don't allow real choice.
And even if you count voting in a broad direction as having real choice, that still doesn't work, because we have no pro-"free markets" party in this country.
So, no, we can't.
So is saying that the rules can be broken because there are no parties who would remove them. European democracies generally allow people to form new parties, and I don't belive Portugal is an exception. If the population was pro free market, there would be parties that are pro free market. If there are no such parties, that is because the population doesn't support that idea.
Because people are terrible at assessing risk and would chose cheaper cabs rather than insured cabs.
The modern state seems to have become little more than a huge and complex tax-collecting machine. Of course people can interact consensually, with or without the mediation of technology. But as soon as money starts changing hands, then the state will get involved, because it wants its pound of flesh. It would be naïve to believe otherwise.
They're the reason why (at least where I live) there's a alcohol limit of 0 0/00 for taxi drivers, with zero tolerance for violating it.
Those pesky regulations enforce mandatory maintenance standards for vehicles. They don't only have to look shiny. They actually have to be safe to drive.
Damn regulations dictate valid and adequate insurance, which covers commercial driving activity and covers the drivers liability in case you are hurt, maimed, or killed.
Regulations enforce that you can't be price gouged, they enforce some sensible mandatory standards (drivers may be prohibited by law to refuse transportation because you're blind and need a guide dog) and provide you with a venue to complain when things go wrong.
But hey, just do away with all that in the name of commerce.