[jontro]

I just do not see why uber can be disruptive AND follow the rules. Here in Sweden they are lobbying to get exception from the rules, i.e. not having a meter and not having price comparisons on the cars.

It's not hard to be disruptive if you break the rules

[_delirium]

Their beef with Sweden's regulation is odd, since Sweden has an extremely deregulated taxi market. Pricing is entirely set by the operator, subject to only two consumer-notification conditions that you note. You can charge whatever you want, but: 1) you must legibly advertise the price on the exterior of the car; and 2) you must have a meter which is inspected to ensure that you are actually charging the prices that are advertised. That's pretty similar to how, say, butchers are regulated: you can sell your meat for whatever you want, but must advertise the per-kilo price, and must use an official scale whose calibration has been validated. In the case of taxis, you must also have vehicle insurance that covers for-pay carriage of passengers, but that's just a basic road requirement (all drivers are required to have insurance that covers the kind of driving in which they're engaged).

Unlike NYC (for example), there isn't any kind of "medallion" system, government-regulated pricing, etc. And unlike London, there is no exam requiring drivers to have any particular knowledge. If anything the outcry from consumers is more often in the other direction, especially from tourists. Tourists who aren't aware that Sweden has completely deregulated taxi pricing are sometimes scammed into paying incredibly high fares, because there's nothing illegal about charging $500/km, as long as that's the stated price. (The fact that Sweden uses SEK instead of EUR helps this particular scam, since many tourists, especially those just arriving at airports, have no intuitive sense of what a SEK/km price means.)

[cromwellian]

But why require every car to have this bulky fixed function meter device when a smartphone app can do the job just as well?

Sometimes the rules themselves need to be disrupted.

[Xylakant]

> But why require every car to have this bulky fixed function meter device when a smartphone app can do the job just as well?

Can it? How can us be certain that the smartphone is actually the one that was in the car when the rate was approved? How does "fixed rate advertised on the outside of the car" match up with ubers surge pricing? Why does a rule that the majority of the population evidently feels comfortable with need to be disrupted?

I don't think disruption is necessarily a good thing. It can be, but it also can bring a ton of negative results.

[dalke]

"Just as well" in all factors? What's the audit trail for smartphone app? Can modifications to the app be detected, or the app replaced with a real-looking fake app which favors the driver? Might the driver have two smart phones, one with real app and another with a fake app, and choose one based on the likelihood of not being caught?

Those scenarios are much harder to pull off with a "bulky fixed function meter device" designed to be inspectable.

[bowlofpetunias]

Why replace something that works and can be systematically verified for something that will lead to all kinds of complications and may be outdated in 5 years?

Sometimes something that just works doesn't need to be disrupted.

[ZoFreX]

> when a smartphone app can do the job just as well?

Can it? GPS isn't to be relied upon, and a bad actor can mess with it pretty easily.