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Comment by ThomPete | Hacker News Reader

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.

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...

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 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.

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