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In the US the government-taxicab relationship tends to be corrupt and customer-taxicab relationship tends to be acrimonious, so something like Uber was good news.

In much of Western Europe there's less corruption on one end and less acrimony on the other end, so in Spain white-label apps like myTaxi or Cabify proliferated (whereas Uber only offers food delivery), in Denmark and Sweden each taxicab operation runs its own app, which they prominently advertise.

In Eastern Europe the concept of unlicensed unmarked "gipsy taxes" has been around for so long, that there is genuine pressure from voters for more regulation, licensing and safety standards, so any newfangled company that promises to seat you in an unmarked vehicle with dubious safety history will be viewed through negative lens of decades of yet another gipsy cab operator out to make a quick buck.

Thats not the reason for why Uber got popular in Europe. Europe had plenty of good taxi-dispatch companies.

The primary reason the real disrupting was their attack on legislation by allowing anyone to become a taxi driver.

Yeah. You could (can) call a number, order a taxi, get one five minutes later. Typically with a very nice and polite 40-50 year old driver who has doing this for decades and knows all the streets AND is the best source for local gossip. When you pay (with a credit card!) you get a nice receipt. It's all quite nice.

I'm talking about the civilized northern European countries now, of course. In other parts of Europe, Uber is a major disruption because the existing service more resembles the US taxi non-service. Except possibly with even higher risk of being ripped off if you are not local.

In all parts of Europe though, just tapping in an app with automatic payment is more comfortable than calling a phone number.

I had a "US taxi non-service" experience in Toulouse, France, earlier this year. Taxi arrived late, no credit card payment accepted and we were gouged on price. Same experience in Brussels.

Uber, on the other hand, worked exceptionally well in Belgium, and in Eastern Europe (e.g. Prague).

I think "Northern Europe" usually means Scandinavia, really.

Oh, that's fair. My mistake then.

Germany, Denmark and the UK outside of London too, actually.

That's not the reason why Uber is getting moderately popular in São Paulo. We have a few great taxi calling apps and here the taxi service is fairly good and reliable (unlike Rio de Janeiro, where taxi service is hell, dishonest, rude and unreliable - there, Uber is a god sent gift).

Here in SP people use it only because of the price (about 30% cheaper than taxi). Uber Black was here for some time and no one never noticed. Only when they came with cheap UberX that people started using.

But taxi lobby fought back hard and Uber is oficially forbidden here until further regulation (unoficially still running though).

Anyway, just to share that here in SP is mostly a price competition. Not much else.

EDIT: Just for curiosity, the two bigger taxi apps in SP 99Taxis: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.taxis99&hl... Easy Taxi: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=br.com.easytax...

Yes and the reason it's cheaper is that it's unregulated.

Thats the insight here.

Same with telco. Markets that were unregulated ended up having the cheapest phone and internet service (and, surprisingly, also the best).

in densely populated areas

Which are by definition, the areas that matter to most people.

The existence of a densely populated area doesn't imply that most people live there. The majority of a population can be sparsely distributed just fine.

In Canada it only became true ~80 years ago that most lived in urban areas according to statscan. In the territories it's only reached parity in the last 10 years.

Hence, regulation, so the minority isn't ruled by the tyranny of the majority.

Taxis in Panama are also more or less unregulated. The cars are barely serviceable, the rates vary wildly, especially if the driver doesn't like your skin color, and congestion is so bad that if you want to get across town during rush hour, the driver will not even bother to pick you up.

Markets optimize for cost. The point at which they will begin to correct for congestion is well after the point of total gridlock (since it costs the driver very little to sit in traffic). You can't drive down fuel costs, so any cost savings have to come from driver salaries and vehicle maintenance. Hopefully the Uber app provides sufficient feedbacks to correct for the market's tendency to drive down those costs, but I tend to doubt it. There is no particularly effective way to provide disincentives for gridlock as far as I'm aware, beyond limiting the number of vehicles allowed on the road. Some countries do this for all personal vehicles already, which may work better than a medallion system, but I doubt it would be popular in the USA.

The Brazilian taxi "lobby" (some would say mafia) is really fighting back:

Taxi drivers assault Uber driver in Brasilia: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...

In Porto Alegre: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...

In Sao Paulo: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&tl=en&u=h...

That doesn't make sense. Nobody chooses Uber over X because "I prefer a cab company that allows anyone to be a driver."

They choose Uber because it's reliable, cheap, and convenient.

They choose it because "I prefer a cab company that doesn't spend money on licensing/car inspections/paperwork"

I choose it because I prefer cars that actually show up when I wait for them. As far as I can tell, a taxi dispatcher is a placebo with no influence over where drivers go.

In Europe?

Thats not why the customers choose it. They choose it because now that everyone can be a taxi driver the cost goes down and so they get the same service cheaper.

Honest question, is it possible for a large and dominant system to innovate without competition ? or does the position makes it short sighted since all it's intrinsic indicators are in the green. Basically the perception of the world for said system makes it impossible to detect issues, that would be devoting energy to try to kill yourself, without someone pulling the rug and endangering you again.

> Is it possible for a large and dominant system to innovate without competition?

AT&T held a monopoly during the golden age of Bell Labs, which was one of the most prolific centers of innovation in the 20th century. Google has a de-facto monopoly over search traffic today, and I think they're a genuine innovator — or at least trying to be.

Peter Thiel writes: "Monopolies drive progress because the promise of years or even decades of monopoly profits provides a powerful incentive to innovate. Then monopolies can keep innovating because profits enable them to make the long-term plans and finance the ambitious research projects that firms locked in competition can't dream of." [1]

[1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for-l...

So the answer to the parent poster is a clear yes. How about the more difficult question: Do monopolies innovate more than competitive industries?

Peter Thiel's argument brings to mind similar arguments about billionaire philanthropists such as Bill Gates. Would we be better off if it simply weren't possible to amass such a fortune?

I just read that about PARC. So many people could realize the impossible because so many resources and talents devoted to solve each others issues.

I understand market is as much of a benefit (competition) as a burden (competition). That said other monopolies ended up sour, Kodak for instance.

Hah. "Show me a competitor and I'll show you a loser" [1]

I like the idea that only anti-competitive (probably large) institutions can do stable long term projects (space exploration, say). I think it's hard to argue against that claim, really. Highly competitive firms do produce a lot of stuff, so they feel productive, but the pile of new apps that came out in 2015 will not propel us into a more livable world.

But a lot of resources went into the competitive clusterfuck of building them all! Those resources should have been allocated better.

I'd prefer a responsive democratic state to direct the flow of resources and guide long term innovation, instead of a monopoly that trades stewardship of innovation for an upward redistribution of wealth and has zero accountability to anyone outside of it.

[1] Apparently Thiel used to say "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser" when he lost at chess. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/no-death-no-tax....

The article doesn't say so but I think that quote originally comes from Vince Lombardi. http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2010/03/why-the-vince-lo...

Not to nitpick, but that basic dynamic -- the prospect of decades of monopoly profits driving innovation -- was long acknowledged even when the US constitution was written; it's not just Peter Thiel's thing.

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause

Leveraging (especially pooling) the massive R&D resources of large, secure companies, while also ensuring that they stayed large and secure, was a big part of how Japan went from a poor, ruined post-war country to a tech powerhouse so quickly. It's my personal go-to example when faced with the assertion that low-intervention, high competition markets are always the best idea, without qualification.

Two thoughts:

1) Every discussion of Uber includes these anecdotal testimonials of great Uber experiences and bad taxi experiences. Anecdotes don't tell us anything useful, and the pattern smells like astroturfing. For what it's worth, I use taxis regularly and find them reliable, pleasant and efficient - but so what?

2) If Uber wins on 10000x better experience, why do they need to invest so much in lobbying, violating the law, and treating drivers poorly? Why are they losing money?

Agree. The only city that I've used uber/lyft is SF, basically because the taxi system in that city was completely broken. In all other places/cities I don't even think and just use taxis: NYC, London, Paris, Berlin, Beijing, Santiago, Buenos Aires. In all those places even though the experience is not perfect, I have to say that for some reason I prefer it to the current lyft/uber experience. (I live in SF and use uber/lyft pretty frequently)

Imagine a world where crony-capitalist incumbents legislate with the explicit purpose of stifling competition and protecting their monopolies. That is the world we live in.

Given that fact, as Uber your potential choices are to either: 1) ignore those laws until you grow large enough to mobilize public support 2) invest in lobbying yourself as a defensive measure 3) do both.

The fact that Uber is lobbying and in some cases outright ignoring laws has little to do with the quality of their product, and a lot to do with the realities of our current legal system.

>crony-capitalist incumbents..stifling competition and protecting their monopolies

That describes Uber to me, given that they call their drivers contractors yet tried to prevent them from driving for other firms.

>realities of our current legal system.

I might excuse this if Uber was fighting for some sort of human rights and wasn't a highly funded corporation

Taxi service is not homogenous across the planet.

Taxi in SF was awful, and probably still is. But even there, there were pockets of decent service in the most profitable corners of the city.

In other places it works really well. Sounds like you live in a place like that.

Uber needs to fight the law because the Taxi lobby controls so much of it. In the Game of Crony Capitalism, you lobby or you die.

At this point, it cannot be fairly characterized as anecdotal that taxi drivers routinely a) demand more than the regulated rate ("tipping"); b) refuse service to persons of color, with disabilities, and with undesirable destinations; and c) decline credit cards despite bearing the processor's trade dress.

(That's just the US, though, can't speak for France, not having researched the market there.)

>>Plain and simple the taxi industry had a monopoly, got lazy, didn't innovate, and didn't give a shit about their customers.

I take this another SV hubris in trying to look at every problem like they've been working on it for a long time, or have better understanding than the actual people working in that domain for decades.

The only reason Uber like companies can give you those rides for a cheap price is not because there is some magic, or innovation happening there. Its because they are burning billions of that VC money to subsidize your travel, transportation is a very capital intensive business.

The day these companies are subject to the same tax rules as every body else and have to work without those billions in the bank, it will be game over. There is a reason why these airlines, logistics and transportation companies are always scraping from bottom.

Its very hard to run these businesses if you play by fair rules and don't cheat.

Capital intensive because of the completely backwards requirement of owning a medallion that goes for millions of dollars?

The regulatory capture that entails means that the industry has no reason to improve service because nobody is allowed to compete with them. That's not "SV hubris", that's basic understanding of big business.

>>Its very hard to run these businesses if you play by fair rules and don't cheat.

Yes, exactly why the taxi industry has survived despite not innovating. Their protected status (your idea of 'play by fair rules and don't cheat') allowed them to be lazy and not give a shit about their customers.

I find this amusing, 'Fair' seems to be a word with different meanings to different people based on where they stand.

A journalist thinks, Uber is fair and innovative but a ad blocker is unfair and cheating. Steve Jobs collaborating with other CEO's to drive down programmer salaries is unfair and cheating, while Uber offering the same to drive down driver salaries is perfectly fair to us.

I imagine a job market where companies bid for programmers who would work for least prices. A global kind of a platform which consistently drives our salaries lower.

I find this amusing, 'Fair' seems to be a word with different meanings to different people based on where they stand.

From one of Raymond Smullyan's books: There was one Japanese diplomatic code the US code-breakers couldn't quite figure out during the war, but they settled on an interpretation of "Pro-Japanese" as a working theory. Years later, one of the US crypt-analysts met a Japanese foreign service member and found out from him that the code meant "sincere."

>> The only reason Uber like companies can give you those rides for a cheap price is not because there is some magic, or innovation happening there. Its because they are burning billions of that VC money to subsidize your travel, transportation is a very capital intensive business.

This is certainly NOT the case in NYC where I live. Artificial scarcity of taxis was created by the city government by limiting the number of medallions to 13,000 and as a result, taxi medallions had cost $1.2 million. Much of taxi fare went to paying for those $1.2 million medallions. Uber has offered lower fees, offers greener rides and lower still fees through Uber pool where passengers share an Uber than the taxi industry with a rating system so that you know if you are getting a good driver. Now those $1.2 million medallions are worth about $700K and many taxis are now not in use and the taxi companies are declaring bankruptcy.

It is possible that if the government had not created the artificial scarcity by limiting medallions Uber may not have gained traction.

So, what stops NYC from taxing Uber? That $15 billion is going to have to come from somewhere.

The money already came from the sale of the medallions. It isn't a yearly fee, which is good, since at 150m taxi rides per year, that would increase the price of each ride by at least $100.

Though medallion sales also aren't worth anything near $15b, anyway -- the 1.2m figure is what medallion sales peaked at. Most sold for significantly less in the past.

Normally very few new medallions come up for auction; the city knows their value is in their scarcity. Though the current budget[1] accounts for some $400m per year from medallion sales, mostly from the continuing rollout of green/boro cabs, which, if coming from the rest of the system instead, would still be a pretty significant fare hike per ride.

1: http://council.nyc.gov/downloads/pdf/budget/2015/taxi.pdf

they'll probably institute some kind of tax that if you have a medallion you don't have to pay. Since all the Uber data goes through the internet all the transactions can be tracked and taxed.

> That $15 billion is going to have to come from somewhere.

While governments may tend to think that way, it's ridiculous to assume that once they have a source of revenue it must never go away. That $15 billion could just go away.

More to the point, they already don't currently derive that level of revenue from taxi medallions; those medallions have already been sold. So the only question is whether they try to invent a new source of revenue by adding targeted taxes on something that isn't currently subject to targeted taxes.

Not only do I think you are wrong as other commenters have pointed out the artificial scarcity caused by medallions and the like but for me this isn't about price. I regularly paid $20 (including tip) to get a ride home or to downtown and had no major qualms with it. It's about leveraging technology which the taxi companies never did and are only now starting to do.

You're right about a lot of things, but 100% wrong in implying that people who have been working in the domain for decades actually know how taxis better than Uber does.

The problem is not knowledge, it's service. Taxis are a perfect example of regulation and stagnation. The shitty service taxis provide have nothing to do with it being hard to provide a good taxi service. They could have provided a better service, they just have no incentive to, because they were protected.