Yet Uber operates in most European countries.
It is very much the bureaucracy that’s holding it back, and the bureaucracy stems from the culture.
The corruption then makes it worse.
Why do so few countries in EU have ride sharing?
Fragmentation is an excuse.
There is pretty popular EU one https://www.blablacar.com/ but its used mostly by students and people wanting to save. It’s not glamourous.
And most countries have Bolt and local taxi apps like Freenow or Liftago.
If by "bureaucracy" you mean "not being allowed to blatantly break the law(s)", then yes, it is very much so.
> The corruption then makes it worse.
Blaming issues in Europe/EU (two different things by the way) on corruption seems to indicate you don't really have a perspective on corruption as an issue in the world. Take a look at South America or various Asian countries to see corruption as something actually having a huge impact.
> Why do so few countries in EU have ride sharing?
What countries are you referring to here exactly? I don't I've visited a single country in Europe that didn't have some sort of "ride sharing" (app taxis?)
In e.g. Spain IIRC Uber is just a front end for the taxis.
It isn't. In some places yes, but not in Spain
Same with Airbnb, having some guests over from time to time it's just usual life, hosting people to make money is a business and the business of hosting people has different rules than having a guest at home.
We can debate if such rules should be relaxed, if they make sense or need to be updated, etc., but these rules were created out of necessity through time, just allowing some tech company to completely sideline it because "it's tech!" is absurd...
What startups/companies/apps that people use in the US (which I guess is where you're from?) allow people to do this without treating it as a job or a side-job?
> In e.g. Spain IIRC Uber is just a front end for the taxis.
It is not, and if you take a moment to read up on the history of Uber in Spain, you'd clearly see that that's not the case. There has literally been violent protests about just this thing.
Original comment: I _think_ that it’s not “real” ride sharing in many of the noted places. E.g. it shows Denmark, and in all my years living there I’ve never seen one. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal. I imagine they are just a front end for standard taxis.
AFAIK it's the same with food delivery apps now. (Sometimes both the rides and the food delivery is done by the same company - e.g. Bolt.)