Uber’s No-Holds-Barred Expansion Strategy Fizzles in Germany

There are a lot of reasons why Uber doesn&#x27;t really work in Germany, most of them listed here already. One I&#x27;d like to add is, at least from my experience in Berlin, taxis here are already what you&#x27;d get by paying the premium for &quot;Uber Black&quot; — Mercedes E-Class, super clean, super comfortable, driven by professionals and not very expensive. This is a world of difference from, say, Australia, where the taxis are dirty, unsafe, and driven by a workforce that has a big stimulant drug-use problem (of course this is a generalisation, but I&#x27;ve caught enough taxis in Australia to come across all of this a few times, and it&#x27;s certainly not uncommon).<p>In other words, there are places like Australia that desperately need Uber and the competition it brings to taxi companies. Germany doesn&#x27;t have this need, and Uber doesn&#x27;t bring much to the table compared to what is already available.

Taxis in Germany are just different. From someone who has lived in both SF and Berlin recently, here is the summary:<p>Berlin: almost all taxis are Mercedes E-Class. super clean, drivers are very friendly, interesting to talk to, seem educated. they drive calmly and professionally. the experience makes you feel good and I always tip generously.<p>SF: taxis are nasty. I don&#x27;t want to touch anything inside the car, the seats are covered in plastic &quot;puke&quot; covers, the seat belts are hard to use, the driver claims he does not take credit cards even though he has a credit card machine. he might refuse to take you to certain areas, just cause. sometimes the drivers themselves are dirty, they smell like they haven&#x27;t showered in a week, they are eating while driving. the car smells like pot or cigarette smoke. I feel bad for the drivers, they look like they are just barely getting by, and they are often angry and drive extremely aggressively. I guess when you are just scraping by financially as a taxi driver in SF, every second counts. I&#x27;m always surprised we didn&#x27;t get into an accident.

You can make as much fun as you want about Germans not setting foot on the lawn because it&#x27;s verboten, but law (and order) is really a thing here.<p>When a company openly breaks the law (and is even smug enough to brag about it), most of the people take a strong dislike to it.<p>Intentionally breaking the law, in order to quickly get too big too punish seems to work in the US sometimes, because &quot;evil government&quot;. In Europe you&#x27;re in for a lot of trouble, because &quot;evil corporation&quot;.

The main reason Uber is flopping hard in Germany:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.taxi.eu&#x2F;en&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.taxi.eu&#x2F;en&#x2F;</a><p>It&#x27;s been around since ca. 2011 and for the passenger side offers the same ease-of-use as Uber does, but results in rides with real taxis along with all the protections, insurances and guarantees they involve.<p>For no extra cost.

Another thing I&#x27;d like to point out: &quot;The company has argued it can add thousands of new jobs to Germany if it is allowed to operate freely&quot;<p>Since the social net is still pretty strong, there is maybe less pressure to add jobs no matter the cost.<p>And we as a society need to talk about which jobs are even worth existing. I&#x27;m not saying that Uber driver is necessarily a bad job, but &quot;because jobs&quot; is only one important part of the argument. The other parts are &quot;what kind of job?&quot;, &quot;what wages?&quot;, &quot;what kinds of externalities?&quot;, sometimes even human dignity.

I&#x27;ve said it elsewhere, but I&#x27;ll say it again: Uber&#x27;s endgame is not in the disruption of the taxi industry. They are really a logistics company. Once the regulations catch up with them, they will be providing a logistics service for taxis (and possibly for trucking and deliveries). They are disrupting the antiquated software &#x2F; infrastructure involved in the dispatching and operations of taxis. The initial competition with taxis is a temporary way of forcing them to adopt the new software &#x2F; infrastructure.<p>In Germany the logistics of taxi management are already far beyond what we see in the US. The value proposition is lower for both rider and driver. It would be interesting to learn about the companies involved in that market. (Who makes the dispatching radios, software vendors, profit margins, etc.)

Just a remark on credit cards in Europe: yes, they are less common than in the US. However, this is mostly because Europeans use &quot;EC cards&quot; instead, which mostly work like debit cards except that they are issued by the banks themselves without an intermediary like Visa or Mastercard.

The only thing Uber has a problem with is encouraging people to play taxi with their private car using private insurance. That&#x27;s not allowed for very good reason, the other services they offer work fine.<p>The taxi market is heavily but well regulated. As a consumer Uber offers no improvement apart from potentially temporarily lower prices in the short term.

It doesn&#x27;t surprise me in the least. Germany is a country of insane regulations and rules. They absolutely love paperwork - all the Germans apologized to me when I first moved here and set everything up - and have a very strict way of operating. The American way of doing things, as the article briefly mentions, is very different. I&#x27;m not saying it is better or worse, just different. This is a cultural thing that doesn&#x27;t magically change overnight. I know I still get annoyed at how different things are sometimes compared with back in North America, but that is the way things operate here and you have to learn to play the game otherwise you will lose.<p>The credit card thing is also true too. Cash is king here and I routinely see people with hundreds of Euros of cash like it is nothing. I always see people paying for groceries with 100 Euro notes. Furthermore, I know Germans are much more concerned with personal security and privacy that there is also going to be a push back about having to share personal information with an American company.<p>Also I live in Frankfurt, and, to be honest, I have no idea why people even use taxis. To get from the Hauptbahnhof to practically anywhere in the city is only a &lt; 20 minute U-Bahn ride. Also, the public transportation in Europe tends to be insanely good and efficient so a ride-sharing app will also have to compete with this as well.