[ivanstojic]

We easily claim the opposite for other companies (Apple, Facebook, Google) and other countries (mostly Asian fabrication centers). Why do we have such a strong belief that Uber USA != Uber Germany?

(Edit: I'm Croatian and fairly well aware of how taxis work in Europe)

[tomgp]

Taxi services in Germany pre-Uber weren't perfect but they weren't the disfunctional rackets you see in the States. Uber "succeded" in Europe by undercutting existing farily decent service providers with subsidised fares. Those subsidise seem to have dissapeared and at least in London Uber is now in my experience no cheaper and significantly less reliable that the older firms which have survived.

[creato]

I didn’t ride in cabs that much (US) but I never had the dysfunctional racket experiences described in this thread. They didn’t show up once, but that has happened with Uber too.

edit: And Uber charged me a fee to cancel the no-show ride and I had to call and argue with them to take the charge off.

[Gwypaas]

Taxi in Europe is hugely dependent on country. Take Sweden, anyone can start a taxi company as long as you have a capital reserve of €5000 per vehicle, some requirements on equipment and insurance and a taxi drivers license for anyone who is driving, nothing hard to get. There haven't been anything similar to medallion systems and what not since it was deregulated in 1990.

Uber Pop got kicked out in a couple of months with Uber having to pay the social security costs of the employees. Now it's just an aggregator of Taxi companies, same with Bolt. The possible margin is minuscule since the drivers change apps depending on which pays the best. Often having both open.

For the companies themselves it's an extremely cutthroat business. From what I have heard the only chance to make any money is to own about 50 cars and have all maintenance in house. Otherwise it's just a fools attempt at being independent.

[fomine3]

I suspect taxi regulation is strong on every developed country and different.