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by bkor
3996 days ago
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> This makes me cynically think that the source of all this recent noise about the issue is hardball political tactics Above attitude is pretty poor. There are many reasons why Uber(Pop) is not acceptable from a European perspective. In various countries in Europe the attitude is more about employees and social security. E.g. if I read the article I just arguments for customers and companies. But who is going to pay taxes? Who is protecting the employees? With UberPop Uber actively tries to either break laws or skirt them. E.g. they're contractors, but they won't work with the government to ensure that the employees/contractors pay their taxes. Social security requires taxes to be paid. Ensuring that this happens requires cooperation and cross checks. Airbnb is similar. Assume it is not their responsibility. Such attitudes totally conflict. I work in an international company, following local laws is standard business practice. It's not a "OMG difficult". If it is too difficult, do it anyway. In most articles I see Uber described as a "ride-sharing" company, while it is a taxi company. IMO there's a heavy pro Uber bias including the usual assumptions that the taxi situation is the same all over the world. |
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There are laws and there's a US company ignoring these laws, with more money than is good for them (much larger and powerful than "Uber's powerful and connected opponents" that the GP spoke of). That matches every stereotype of US companies that try to force the American Way onto Europe.
I can't think of many ways to make it easier for the media to produce a scandal (which is how they make their money).
And to some degree it looks plausible: Uber is larger than most of the incumbents (I'm pretty sure that they're larger than any of the existing taxi companies in Germany). They're handed injunctions against the way they operate all the time. They don't seem to care to work within the legal framework (There might have been options in Germany - but they require some amount of good will by elected officials, something that probably dried up by now), but simply want to destroy it.