I was in an Uber this morning headed to Charles de Gaulle airport and got to see this all first hand. Hundreds of taxi drivers stopping traffic and flipping off the police while stalling traffic for a bunch of unlucky motorists.<p>My driver pulled the car over as we approached the airport. He asked me get into the front seat, and then told me we had to act like friends if we were forced to stop and end up getting harrassed. He then went to the trunk and pulled out a pair of his normal clothes and changed right there on the side of the road (Uber drivers are easily recognizable thanks to their fancy attire). Upon settling back into the driver seat, with a big smile and a thick French accent, he said, "I am Batman."<p>I rated the trip 5 stars.
How meaninglessly proletarian and small minded. Like the smashing of weaving machines during the industrial revolution. The impossible fight against change and the inexorable march of technology. Also shame on France for imposing a minimum 15 minute delay for picking up a customer. France, where free market competition is second to politics and special interests. Look at the anti Amazon legislation.
So I understand that on of the main points of contention is that the paris cab drivers face steep regulation in the form of requiring an expensive license, while the Uber drivers require no such license, and that to counter this lack of regulation they require the Uber drivers to wait 15minutes before picking up their customer.<p>But there are still a few things I don't understand:
Why do the Paris cab drivers require such regulations?
How come the Uber drivers aren't required to have such a license?
And maybe I don't completely understand the advantages of Uber (because I've never used a cab before), but at first glance, it seems the main reason uber is succeeding so well, is that there is an app to quickly summon a driver. So why doesn't such an app exist to call these licensed drivers who are so angry?
> France has already instituted a rule that requires a minimum 15-minute wait before a service like Uber can actually pick up a customer.<p>Holy crap. And I thought the "Lang Law" was bad:
<a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/10/the-anti-amazon-law-is-about-to-become-a-reality-in-france-but-its-not-a-bad-thing/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/10/the-anti-amazon-law-is-abou...</a><p>Apparently, France also fixes the price of all books to keep it 'fair' for small bookstores.
Protests and aggression are close friends in France.<p>For example, kidnapping the boss to prevent layoffs (or at least get better severances) is something that happens regularly.
If they are on strike the Uber driver is a scab. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo70qkxzelA" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo70qkxzelA</a>
Yes, I heard that the same thing happened to a driver from "Chauffeur Privé" at the Orly airport. Wind mirror broken, nothing serious, but it's crazy how the taxi drivers do not care about the situation and want to keep their monopoly. The French company "Taxis G7" is a powerful lobby and they still decide everything for every taxi driver in France. Instead of changing, ugprading, offering new (and better !) service to their passengers, they try to scare the new comers. And seriously, it would not be difficult to improve the service in French cabs : remove the bad smell, remove the racist jokes, shutdown the loud radio talking about the latest soccer game which not everyone listens to, learn to say hello/thank you/goodbye, etc.
Try to read the first paragraph in this article[1] to understand better how technology improvements were handled in the past in France:<p>[1]<a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21524883" rel="nofollow">http://www.economist.com/node/21524883</a>
While i condemn the violence, i have hard time justifying uber as a new revolution or advancement of technology.<p>Medallion owners pay close to 1.0 M $ to get the Taxi license from the city (NY) and they are not doing that for charity. If a new middlemen like Uber try to take the market without paying single dime it is bound to cause issues who have played by rules and invested significant money to acquire the license.<p>Uber simply tries to aggregate the demand side and demand concessions from the supply side to get the leads. Portraying Uber as egalitarian is wrong in so many levels.
This is one of the reasons that people don't cross picket lines.<p>Good people won't cross them out of principle. The unprincipled among us may encounter other obstacles. It is very likely this driver got his just deserts.