“Comments like these show Seoul is in danger of remaining trapped in the past and getting left behind by the global ‘sharing economy’ movement,” the statement said.<p>You know, I don't particularly like the "sharing economy" movement. The whole thing seems predicated on deregulation of industries that I honestly think should be regulated.<p>Airbnb acts, essentially, as a parent company for a hotel chain without any of the actual power or responsibility of the traditional holding company. Uber/Lyft act as car dispatchers without any of the power or responsibility of traditional taxi/limo companies. The ability of these companies to outcompete traditional companies on price in their spaces is due to their choice to not follow regulations as much as possible. The reasoning Uber gives in the article for not being in violation of the law sounds suspiciously like the reasoning given by escorts ("You're paying for my time"). If this trend continues we will see additional disregard for regulation with more and more absurd reasoning ("We aren't breaking the law on regulation because we are simply a technology company that connects your phone with another phone who happens to be in the possession of a guy in a car and whatever happens after that is between two consenting adults"). How far can this race to the bottom go before our search for low costs starts to war with our sense of personal safety and social responsibility?<p>As an aside, I use Uber pretty regularly in any city where it's available simply because I generally don't have the local taxi numbers. Does this make me a hypocrite? Probably.
If there's one place that doesn't need an uber, it's Seoul. Perhaps one of the best cities on the planet to hail a taxi. Cheap, ubiquitous, safe and surprisingly highly regulated for safety and fares.<p>If you've never been to Korea, one thing that pops out immediately is the uniformly very high level of service quality nearly everywhere as compared to the U.S. or Europe. You can already order just about anything you can imagine to be personally delivered just about anywhere you are for next to nothing.<p>Taxis there are similar and the prices are so low it's a wonder that the drivers can even feed themselves. The fares barely seem to cover the cost of fuel.<p>I've never had a taxi show up late when I called for one, and there are so many you can usually hail one almost on demand. The taxis are always clean, unlike NYC. More importantly, the number of stories I've heard of drunk people leaving purses or phones behind, and having them returned the next day, is remarkable.<p>Sure you get the occasional surly driver, and language can be a problem, but that's anywhere, even with Uber drivers. And for $10-15 a ride across most of the city, Uber isn't pushing down anybody's prices.<p>If there's one place that can revolutionize their own taxi service and offer on-demand pickup via apps, it's going to be Seoul.<p>Uber's statement about Seoul is garbage. If there's an example of a modern, efficient, "smart" city, anywhere on the planet, it's there. Compared to London and D.C. at least, transport in Seoul is one of the best planned utopian paradises you can imagine and it gets remarkably better every year. The Seoul city government is right to crush it out of existence.
The Overall Taxi experience (or all of public trans for that matter) in Seoul is much, much better & cheaper than anywhere in the US. It's usually pretty easy to catch a cab, and when you can't you can get a "call taxi" and have it arrive in a Uber-esque time.<p>I'm not sure if anyone in Korea would pay the premiums that people pay in NYC/SF, especially if taxis get a comparable app.
Seoul has an army of taxi drivers, probably a surplus of them, and the fares are already quite low. It's a massive city of 10 million people and you can get a cab from one end to the other for the equivalent of about $30 USD. Most rides cost $10-20. Good cab service is essential there, and my theory is that it's due to the extremely high rate of alcohol consumption among the working population. I can't really imagine the Uber business model being attractive in that city because the existing taxi service is so strong.
<i>UPDATE: Uber Monday evening called Seoul city government’s earlier statement a sign that it lags behind in adopting what it called an innovation in transportation. “Comments like these show Seoul is in danger of remaining trapped in the past and getting left behind by the global ‘sharing economy’ movement,” the statement said. An Uber spokesman in Seoul denied that the service was illegal as Uber is “a technology company that connects drivers with passengers” and doesn’t directly run a taxi service with rented cars.</i><p>Anyone know where we can get this statement? Taken out of context (which is most likely was), this reads like Uber is just a bunch of whiney rich kids and makes me like Uber less. I presume they would write something that talks about the economics of Uber for a city like Seoul. For example, saying Seoul can leverage existing technology (drive costs down) and increase economics (more people in the city and more jobs for drivers).
Preface: I'm a huge fan of Uber & AirBNB and use (and love) both extensively.<p>That being said, I have to say I'm impressed/shocked/in awe of their respective strategies. One of their biggest innovations isn't necessarily their use of tech (which is huge of course), but the adoption of their regulatory strategy, which is basically:<p>"Screw the law. We'll do what we want, get people to love us, then appeal to the masses / out-lobby the politicians when the governments attempt to enforce the law"<p>I bet most attempts to start AirBNB/UberX/Lyft (in their current form) would have been met by "Sure, great idea, but it's totally against the law, and you'll get shut down." And that would have stopped most people.<p>So, I suppose, kudos to the respective founders for taking a different (and bolder) approach. Like it or not, it seems to be working through sheer brute force.
> <i>The city added that it will launch in December an app that will provide similar features to Uber for official taxis, such as geo-location data on cabs nearby, information about them and their drivers, as well as ratings.</i><p>I don't know what the state of labor unions is in South Korea, but I think the reason why an app described as such is typically discouraged in municipalities is because the ratings systems could be seen by the union as unfairly punitive or arbitrarily gamed...similar to the protest some teachers unions have against testing schemes and bonus pay for meeting benchmarks.<p>And of course, doesn't the Uber app allow drivers to see the ratings of various passengers?<p>An app that would show real-time location and other info about cabs, as well as being able to hail them, would be very nice for any taxi system. I'd think it's the other stuff, such as ratings, that could only be palatable by drivers and users under a privatized context.
I spent a year in Korea working on startups. The tech scene there is terrible, there's 4 major companies that pretty much does everything.<p>SK, Samsung, Daum, and Naver.<p>I went to BeLaunch conference in 2013 (similar to TC Disrupt in U.S.), and a person from SK came up to our booth and started taking down notes.<p>4 weeks later, they launch the exact same product.
Now we need Uber to start offering flights in Korea. It's impossible to book a flight in Korea unless you go through Air Busan. Why? Because they all require you to use Internet Explorer and a Korean Credit Card. On the flip side, you can cancel Air Busan flights for only $1. In Japan you can cancel flights at no cost.
I actually think this is a fair idea. I think France (my country, but any other country too) should aim to do the same.
People don't realize how much of france's (and other countries) economy goes to american companies, when we perfectly well have the ability to make as good or better companies locally.
Kind of seems petty when there's already a perfectly viable solution out there. Why not give the consumer the choice, take the risk and compete like a real business; real people would have to.
" threatened the livelihood of licensed taxi drivers" - At least they admit who they're protecting.<p>And not some made up "protecting the consumer" argument.