[pgeorgi]

In Europe it's not just the social security angle.

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.