Wierd how the article states that Über doesn't solve "real" problems.
Or perhaps we should acknowledge that Silicon Valley these days is mostly about becoming the biggest brand in service-mediation, and running on external funding while making net losses year after year, and in the process pushing everybody else out of the market. It is not so much about technical innovation anymore. Look at how a lot of open source software is written in Europe and monetized in the US.
I'm fairly sure the staff of Uber would strongly disagree with you there. The logistics they manage must be vast. Dealing with the real-world is messy and hard.
From what I gather, taxi businesses in the US seem to be in the hand of Mafia-like criminal organizations. That's not the case in most Western-European cities with good and cheap public transport and well-regulated taxi systems.
If I can get from anywhere to anywhere at any time for little money already for the last 30 years, what's the point of a service like Uber, especially Uber with their shady business practices and aggressive stance towards established labour laws.
Uber offers me these small things that stack up: - automatic transaction - google maps destination (one less thing to explain to the driver) - happy drivers, always - slightly higher air conditioning temperature by default (taxis like to blast you with cold air and you have to ask them to put it up) - lesser chance of a bumpy driver - a chance to meet and chat with a new person, who isn't necessarily a professional taxi driver, and from that a fun life story or two
And that's enough to make me switch and even evangelise the service.
Then I go abroad and I get google maps "taxis" with no need to take out foreign cash, and it's warming somehow.
Their latest move - after getting a court order to ban Uber, which they fortunately were too incompetent to get right - was trying to leech tourists by asking for a flat fee for any trip starting at the airport that would be enough to cross the whole city.
Regulations protecting the safety of citizens (both inside and outside the taxi) might be necessary, and Uber should be punished if they violate them. But competition shouldn't be regulated away, and Uber for all its flaws has given a well overdue kick in the pants of complacent companies.
Here's some real problems which Uber addresses:
- taxi services being run by organised crime
- taxis wasting fuel driving about looking for fares
- massive shortage of taxis on a Saturday night in the city centre
- having to wait on the street in a queue for a taxi rank, probably in the rain, in a crowd of drunk people
- people getting mugged/assaulted because they had to walk home because they couldn't get a taxi
- being totally surrounded by cars but unable still being unable to get from Point A to Point B
- owning a car and a drivers licence, being unemployed, and not being able to put your skills and capital goods to use
- taxi drivers not knowing how to get to your destination
- not being able to get a taxi because you don't have cash
- not knowing when your taxi is going to arrive
- not having any log of the fact you ordered and got into a taxi, in case no one ever hears from you again
Ironically in ex-communist Russia, they don't really have these problems because people apparently just flag down any car on the road and hitch a ride, probably for a little cash.
This story shows the situation for taxi drivers, way before Uber: http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/09/nyregion/driving-a-taxi-di...
Some quotes:
The average rate a cabbie paid to take a taxi out for a 12-hour shift climbed 11 percent, to about $85, between 1990 and 1993 (...) In 1993, 32 to 45 percent of the income of a fleet or lease manager was profit, or $16,000 to $21,300 per car, up from $5,500 to $9,800 in 1986, according to the taxi commission.
Lease drivers rent the medallions, and usually the taxis, for a day or a week from their owners or a middleman. Depending on the owner and the night of the week, a lease driver pays $72 to $100 to take a car out for a 12-hour shift, or about $450 to $650 for a weekly lease. The driver must also pay for gas, at $15 to $20 a night. Drivers keep whatever fares and tips they collect, but they often start a day's work $100 or more behind.
The kind of market "efficiency" seen in the housing market where huge amount of property is left empty.