The reaction to UberPop in France has been shameful. Taxi drivers have been attacking UberPop drivers for weeks, following and harassing them. They even posted videos of themselves attacking UberPop drivers and their cars on youtube on facebook.<p>The latest outburst of violence saw taxi drivers blocking access to airports in Paris forcing passengers to walk the remainder of the way. Overturning and torching cars that looked like they might be Ubers. There was even a video of taxi drivers on a bridge on the "periphérique", the motorway that goes around Paris, dropping bricks on cars underneath.<p>The government instead of punishing them bowed down almost immediately ...<p>Part of the problem is that striking is sacrosanct in France. If you're striking you can get away with almost anything like kidnapping your employer and holding him hostage or blocking a major port for days on end (MyFerryLink strikes) ...
Uber POP has been against the law for one year now, this was bound to happen. Even if what the Taxis did is insanely wrong and should be condemned, Uber POP is illegal according to the french law and even trendy tech startups have to obey the law.<p>It's now up to all the actors to find a way to make this work.
For those who want a TLDR :<p>UberPOP is LEGAL in France, nobody has shut down UberPOP.<p>HOWEVER :<p>- A driver who wants to drive for UberPOP can do that, BUT it has to follow the french laws which means: paying a specific amount of taxes on their revenue, getting a 250 hours training, paying for a specific insurance<p>Of course, driving legally for UberPOP in France IS NOT PROFITABLE at all.<p>Uber can't have it both ways. It cannot fix prices for rides and expect legal drivers to work and make a profit with these prices.<p>Other services such as private limousines can continue, they are legal, as long as drivers operate legally.<p>UberPOP business model cannot work in France. But they are free to provide and distribute their app. The app is legal.
My major complaint about uber is how it externalises its costs. Things like insurance. The risk profile is not the same when carrying passenger as for private travel. When an uber driver decides to forgo getting the correct insurance they are pushing their extra risk on to me and the rest of the people in the private travel insurance pool.<p>More long term uber shares a lot of similarities to napster. The music industry was never able to unscramble the egg after napster and the taxi industry is in the same position. Of course if you are an investor in uber your investment probably has the same long term value as napster.
I'm surprised nobody has yet commented on WHY they are shutting down tonight.<p>From [1]: "We have decided to suspend UberPOP starting tonight [...] first and foremost to <i>protect our drivers</i> ." - Thibaud Simphal, CEO Uber France<p>Translation: "this is supposed to be a developed country with the rule of law, but the police is not capable of doing its job (or willing), so we're giving up".<p>Another pearl: "Since the first of January, only 215 new VTC [licenses for private cars, the so called "legal" way of becoming an UberX] licenses were given out in the whole of France, even though during the same period, we had over 25,000 applicants at Uber to become a VTC driver."<p>That's a 0.86% success rate. I'm sure those 215 cars were the absolute limit the market (of ~60 million inhabitants, with 400,000 passengers already using UberPOP) could bear and that the decision is not at all politically motivated.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2015/07/03/uber-annonce-la-suspension-d-uberpop-en-france_4669011_3234.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2015/07/03/uber-annon...</a>
I really dislike the protectionist barriers that exist to keep competition away from taxis, pharmacies, etc... but the people that are currently in those jobs often got themselves into a massive amount of debt to buy a license.<p>We should get rid of the old system, but we cannot simply tell the people who invested 100,000+ Euros into a license that it's just become worthless. Should those people just kill themselves?
>> Part of the problem is that striking is sacrosanct in France.<p>Yea, like complaining about other country's problems is sacrosanct in the USA.<p>Taxi drivers in Europe have to pay exorbitant amounts of money and go thru a gauntlet to be able to make a living.<p>Uber, imho, steals that living away in a very real way...
pg nailed it yesterday on Twitter: "Uber is so obviously a good thing that you can measure how corrupt cities are by how hard they try to suppress it." <a href="https://twitter.com/paulg/status/222462460978937856" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/paulg/status/222462460978937856</a><p>Edit: actually I meant this tweet from yesterday: <a href="https://twitter.com/paulg/status/616683543830339584" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/paulg/status/616683543830339584</a> which had the other one embbeded