[kd5bjo]

> Uber bypassed it by saying "we're a tech company" and left it to the drivers, making the enforcement of the law a lot harder.

The original loophole that Uber used was San Francisco’s different regulations between taxis and limo companies: The latter are less regulated but are allowed to accept prebooking, and not street hails. Uber realized that ordering a ride via a phone app is more convenient than trying to hail a passing taxi in many cases and can be served by a limo company instead.

[buran77]

Not very familiar with the situation across the pond but in much of Europe the expectation from companies providing commercial transportation services are far higher than just booking method:

- Drivers need a different, more expensive license or attestation that needs to be renewed periodically;

- Car needs a more expensive commercial insurance that covers all passengers and cargo, to a much higher payout, not just the driver like most Uber drivers have;

- Car needs to be inspected far more often to ensure it's roadworthy and can stand that driving regime for the future;

- Prices are regulated because the taxi service is seen as closer to public transport than to personal one. So you don't see price fluctuations more than you'd see for the bus;

- They need an authorization to serve an area (meaning they were checked according to local regulation);

- The company is responsible for its employees in many ways;

- And more.

A restaurant's kitchen has higher requirements than your private one which makes owning and operating a commercial kitchen far more resource intensive than a private one. There's no "kitchen sharing" where you can sell food straight from your private kitchen, "infirmary sharing" where you can pretend you're a doctor or a hospital room, or "legal office sharing" where you can pretend to be a lawyer without meeting all the requirements imposed on those sectors.

This is the loophole Uber exploited. Replace "car" with "house/room" and you get AirBnB. When they had enough of a head start they started complying with some regulation, while still acting like they're a different kind of service for what other regulation is concerned. They want to live on the border and pick and choose what applies to them, something no other commercial service is allowed to do. Except all the other disruptors who raise enough money to afford some fines while they still operate in a grey area. Cost of doing business.

[kd5bjo]

These are per-city rules in much of the US, but the limo companies that Uber was originally subcontracting to had to meet similar requirements in San Francisco as what tou describe. Booking is just the test that was used to determine which set of regulations apply to any given compan. For example, taxi supply was artifically constrained by a medallion system, but there was no such limit on the number of limos allowed to operate.

(Past tense b/c I don’t live there anymore and am not up-to-date with current developments)

They certainly have used the loophole you describe extensively, but that started later, once they were sure there were no repurcussions for the limo dodge.

[darkcha0s]

Uber didn't only become big because of the success in the US. When they scaled their operations, they had enough capital to disregard local laws (Berlin comes to mind), where they simply paid the fines with the capital it had raised, allowing to create a brand and household name. Thats what allowed them to become common everywhere; now that they are regulated, they have quasi no advantage over any ride sharing (even taxi) companies.

[buran77]

This is why fines should increase for repeat offenders to the point where they quickly become unmaintainable as "cost of doing business". They should also always be higher than the estimated profit generated by the offending behavior.

[smallnamespace]

This encourages offenders to establish many small nominally independent franchises so offenses are distributed.

[mabbo]

> There's no "kitchen sharing" where you can sell food straight from your private kitchen, "infirmary sharing" where you can pretend you're a doctor or a hospital room, or "legal office sharing" where you can pretend to be a lawyer without meeting all the requirements imposed on those sectors

I definitely remember someone trying the kitchen one. Forgetting the name of that startup now, but it's been tried.

And given how badly America treats health care and law, I suspect the other two are in stealth mode right now.

[buran77]

I'm sure startups will try anything if they think they can make some money out of it. So do investors. The problem is such an endeavor just has to make more money that you put into it, not necessarily be a sustainable or above board business. They're not disrupting the sector they operate in, they're disrupting the way they can operate outside of the law and be agile enough to not get pinned down by it.

They'll try something, squeeze as much money as they can from wherever they can, see if "the cost of doing business" is low enough that they can even pursue the shady business model as a standard operating procedure, or else at least survive and grow until they can go semi-legit. They will rely on the fact that authorities have inertia so it takes time until someone catches up to their shenanigans, investigates them, comes with a decision, then they can fight for a while, delay the inevitable until they they're cornered, restructure their operations a bit, and the chase starts again. Companies like Uber are still shady businesses that in many countries operated outside the law for more time than they operated within its boundaries. But they gave deep pockets and where there's money, there's a way.

Not that much different from organized crime businesses that start off as being one stop shops for anything regardless of law and regulation, and may eventually be spun out into semi-legitimate businesses with more or less above board practices.

[mtnGoat]

I think it is being tried by the guy that started Uber.

CloudKitchens is the one Kalanick started, there are probably others.

[mabbo]

The one I'm remembering had people "host a dinner" that you had to pay to get into. And somehow that made it not a restaurant, so you didn't need to have a commercial kitchen (hint: this isn't legal).

Kalanick's recruiters reached out to me about CloudKitchens and I straight up said that no, I do not want to work for that guy.

[buran77]

It appears that CloudKitchens explicitly caters (no pun intended) to restaurants and commercial kitchens. So establishments already ostensibly having all the required authorizations according to existing regulation. There's no part that seems to encourage private individuals to start delivering food from their personal kitchen.

Uber for a long time did exactly that. Saying "we're just a tech company" is like ThePirateBay, YouTube, or The Silk Road saying "we just store and transfer blobs of unidentified data between completely anonymous users". You are responsible for what happens on your platform especially if you are encouraging people to break the law by giving them tools explicitly for this and paying them. They could have easily asked "upload evidence of x, y, z which allows you to provide the service in this particular geofenced region".

[emteycz]

What's the difference from calling by phone, also served by many limo companies?