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They already had a warning shot four months ago, when their license renewal was denied in favour of a temporary renewal for four months. This one is the next st

They already had a warning shot four months ago, when their license renewal was denied in favour of a temporary renewal for four months. This one is the next step in the process. Uber isn't magic - if there's pent-up demand for a company that fills Uber's boots, one will pop up. The issues TfL have with Uber aren't to do with the service they provide, it's failing to comply with TfL's administrative requirements. You could easily build a company that does what Uber does in London without the hate for local Government that is ingrained into Uber's culture - and there already are a number of minicab companies that do what Uber does, just minus quite as fancy an app.

UK-AL 9y ago
There have been few companies that have tried. Some mentioned in thread. They all had trouble working with tfl. One company licenced their software with an existing cab company in order to work with them. TFL started an investigation and unlicensed the previously legally licenced private taxi company for no stated reason. Make no mistake they are activity hostile against innovation that could make taxi travel cheaper and faster. https://blog.taxify.eu/2017/09/bringing-fairer-ride-hailing-to-london/ https://blog.taxify.eu/2017/09/bringing-fairer-ride-hailing-... I suspect anyone who looks like they could be the next uber would simply be shutdown.
- urbanj 9y ago
  Suck it up, Brexit cunt.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- vertex-four 9y ago
  Reading Taxify's side of the story alone reveals significant bias, and even that seems to suggest that what happened is that Taxify bought an existing company for its minicab license - which is practically bound to be a problem. Why couldn't they find a customer to sell their product to without acquiring that customer? The problem wasn't the app - it was the company bypassing the licensing process. Interestingly, their link suggesting that hundreds of private hire operators are in the process of being reviewed does not say what they think it says, and does not in fact contain any statistics for private hire operators being reviewed.
  - Pyxl101 9y ago
    Buying a company that owns an asset or holds a license is a reasonable way to obtain said asset or license. Nothing wrong with that.
    - twic 9y ago
      If you're talking about a license in the sense of a right, like a copyright or patent license, or a license to drill for oil somewhere, then yes. But this is a license in the sense of regulatory approval of a specific organisation, which is not something it's proper to buy and sell. You can't buy someone's driving license, gun license, medical license, license, etc.
      - eric_the_read 9y ago
        It's common in many parts of the US to buy a liquor license from an existing establishment.
        bsder 9y ago
        And generally there is a process that needs to be followed as well--public posting, public comment, etc. Any changes like operating hours, operating address, etc. means you have to go back to your council/commission. Liquor licenses rarely just transfer unless you bought the whole business and didn't actually change a thing.
      - ubernostrum 9y ago
        In the insurance field "acqui-license" deals, like "acqui-hire" in tech, are not impossible or even necessarily discouraged. Every US state has its own set of regulations for who can be issued a license to sell insurance, and usually it's easier from a bureaucracy perspective to maintain the license once you have it than it is to get a new one. So buying and selling of companies solely for their existing insurance licenses is a thing.
        stuaxo 9y ago
dbbk 9y ago
For sure, a lot of the value proposition of Uber could be seamlessly be replaced by a different company. However one thing that Uber has that is totally proprietary to them is their global mindshare. For example, when I go to the US, I use the Uber app whenever I can, because it's the exact same experience as at home and I know what I'm going to get. For travellers, this continuity of experience is great.
- vilmosi 9y ago
  Maybe so, but I didn't even bother using Uber in a country where all the guides recommended another app because it's more popular. Consumers aren't enterprise, they'll switch faster if they think they'll get a better deal.
- disordinary 9y ago
  I actively avoid Uber wherever I go because of that mind share and the negative connotations that it has. Not all news is good news.
zeveb 9y ago
> Uber isn't magic - if there's pent-up demand for a company that fills Uber's boots, one will pop up. The thing is, until Uber popped up, that pent-up demand simply wasn't being satisfied. The taxi monopolies and regulators were quite happy with their rents (in the economic sense of rent-seeking), and consumers suffered from it (I suspect that Uber & Lyft have prevented thousands of drunken-driving deaths). A lot of people give Uber's culture a lot of hate — but that corporate culture is what created a company which was able to satisfy millions of customers and save lives too. It's provided a colossal amount of economic value to the world (I also like to think that it's made visible the economic value the taxi monopolies & regulators have been invisibly destroying for decades). > there already are a number of minicab companies that do what Uber does, just minus quite as fancy an app. I think that app is the keystone of the whole experience. I can, anywhere I am, open that app and a car will come to pick me up and take me where I need to go. The car will be clean; the driver will be friendly; the service will be prompt and inexpensive. I can't get that experience if I have to install an app in each city, potentially give each app horrible permissions (e.g., to get a ride in Some City I have to give the car company access to my files, my contacts and my email) &c. I travel a lot, and the quality of the Uber rides I've gotten has just been head-and-shoulders above the taxi rides.
- markman 9y ago
  Yeah but a taxi driver can buy a home and put a kid through college, perhaps even take a vacation once a year. An uber driver may have 6 or 8 months of economic boom but eventually the house of cards will come tumbling down. It is exactly the type of company that is destroying the middle class. It is also the status quo of making a few people extremely wealthy. If you use uber you're just contributing to the decline of western civilization. That seems a bit melodramatic and believe me I'm the first guy to be looking for a deal and stick it to the bloated establishment but uber cuts all the necessary corners, sticks it to the drivers yet it's so popular because it's cheap.
  - Anderkent 9y ago
    A taxi driver in London can't buy a home on his own income, don't be ridiculous. An uber driver in London can put a kid through college (it's basically free). Both can take vacations. Anecdotally, uber showing up in London was when I started to use car transport in the first place. It didn't remove me from the customer pool of black cabs - I was never there; most of the time it's competing with the tube / a bus. I would guess the only significant customers moving from taxi to uber are business travelers - but those are rarely motivated by price, and rather it's the convenience of the app that appeals. GPS killed taxi drivers, not uber; the wage is catching up to the fact that almost anyone could drive a taxi nowadays.
SilasX 9y ago
>You could easily build a company that does what Uber does in London without the hate for local Government that is ingrained into Uber's culture - and there already are a number of minicab companies that do what Uber does, just minus quite as fancy an app. But that just begs, er, fully reduces to the question of ... why haven't they? Is a slick, user-friendly app really that much of a barrier? The article has tweets that are (nominally) from users who are freaking about being able to get a safe ride home late at night, so they at least believe there aren't good substitutes.
- taormina 9y ago
  Frankly, it happened in Austin. Lyft and Uber threw a hissy fit and the market was happy to fill in the gaps.
  - sol_remmy 9y ago
    > Frankly, it happened in Austin. Lyft and Uber threw a hissy fit and the market was happy to fill in the gaps. Good luck with that, the markets are not remotely comparable: Austin: 900k pop; In a red state known for low regulatory burden; No established mass transit to compete with; No established tax companies London: 8.8M pop; High regulatory burden; City's incentive: each Uber rider is a potential lost customer for the Underground; Taxi companies have influence with legislators
    - caoilte 9y ago
      The only incentive TFL has is to make travel as efficient as possible. The underground is way too crowded, but so are the roads (mainly because of taxis these days). This makes Uber a better bet than taxis (more efficient) buses better than both, bikes best of all and something in between a nirvana. However, none of that matters as long as Uber think they're above the law.
      - OJFord 9y ago
        > The only incentive TFL has is to make travel as efficient as possible. TfL has the incentive to follow London mayoral policy; the MoL has concerns beyond travel.
sol_remmy 9y ago
> You could easily build a company that does what Uber does in London without the hate for local Government that is ingrained into Uber's culture You act like Uber flaunting local flaws is a flaw for the company. Ignoring 10,000 different sets of local laws in all the localities Uber operates is what made them successful. It would have been impossible to expand as much as they had if the bothered dealing with the local bureaucrats, and they would have 10,000 sets of compliance to deal with.
- vertex-four 9y ago
  Indeed. Perhaps it would be difficult to replicate what Uber did in SF and other US cities without breaking regulations - but in London, their model is perfectly replicable, as evidenced by the fact that they were originally given a license by TfL.
  - sol_remmy 9y ago
    But here's an even better model: 1. Do a good job 2. Consumers use your service & rely on you 3. Wait for the government to try to shut you down 4. Consumers will back you 5. Government backs down & lets you do what you want
    - foldr 9y ago
      There's not going to be much public pressure on TfL to reverse this decision. Most Londoners don't use Uber, and there are plenty of alternatives.
      - henryaj 9y ago
        391,499 Londoners (and counting) beg to differ: https://www.change.org/p/save-your-uber-in-london-saveyouruber https://www.change.org/p/save-your-uber-in-london-saveyourub...
        foldr 9y ago
        How do you know that everyone who's signed it is a Londoner?
JBlue42 9y ago
>if there's pent-up demand for a company that fills Uber's boots, one will pop up. I think we saw that in Austin after Lyft/Uber were banned and people started the various Facebook and other groups to do the same thing. Not formal businesses, or even set charges.

UK-AL 9y ago

There have been few companies that have tried. Some mentioned in thread. They all had trouble working with tfl. One company licenced their software with an existing cab company in order to work with them. TFL started an investigation and unlicensed the previously legally licenced private taxi company for no stated reason. Make no mistake they are activity hostile against innovation that could make taxi travel cheaper and faster. https://blog.taxify.eu/2017/09/bringing-fairer-ride-hailing-to-london/ https://blog.taxify.eu/2017/09/bringing-fairer-ride-hailing-... I suspect anyone who looks like they could be the next uber would simply be shutdown.

urbanj 9y ago
Suck it up, Brexit cunt.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
vertex-four 9y ago
Reading Taxify's side of the story alone reveals significant bias, and even that seems to suggest that what happened is that Taxify bought an existing company for its minicab license - which is practically bound to be a problem. Why couldn't they find a customer to sell their product to without acquiring that customer? The problem wasn't the app - it was the company bypassing the licensing process. Interestingly, their link suggesting that hundreds of private hire operators are in the process of being reviewed does not say what they think it says, and does not in fact contain any statistics for private hire operators being reviewed.
- Pyxl101 9y ago
  Buying a company that owns an asset or holds a license is a reasonable way to obtain said asset or license. Nothing wrong with that.
  - twic 9y ago
    If you're talking about a license in the sense of a right, like a copyright or patent license, or a license to drill for oil somewhere, then yes. But this is a license in the sense of regulatory approval of a specific organisation, which is not something it's proper to buy and sell. You can't buy someone's driving license, gun license, medical license, license, etc.
    - eric_the_read 9y ago
      It's common in many parts of the US to buy a liquor license from an existing establishment.
      - bsder 9y ago
        And generally there is a process that needs to be followed as well--public posting, public comment, etc. Any changes like operating hours, operating address, etc. means you have to go back to your council/commission. Liquor licenses rarely just transfer unless you bought the whole business and didn't actually change a thing.
    - ubernostrum 9y ago
      In the insurance field "acqui-license" deals, like "acqui-hire" in tech, are not impossible or even necessarily discouraged. Every US state has its own set of regulations for who can be issued a license to sell insurance, and usually it's easier from a bureaucracy perspective to maintain the license once you have it than it is to get a new one. So buying and selling of companies solely for their existing insurance licenses is a thing.
      - stuaxo 9y ago

dbbk 9y ago

For sure, a lot of the value proposition of Uber could be seamlessly be replaced by a different company. However one thing that Uber has that is totally proprietary to them is their global mindshare. For example, when I go to the US, I use the Uber app whenever I can, because it's the exact same experience as at home and I know what I'm going to get. For travellers, this continuity of experience is great.

vilmosi 9y ago
Maybe so, but I didn't even bother using Uber in a country where all the guides recommended another app because it's more popular. Consumers aren't enterprise, they'll switch faster if they think they'll get a better deal.
disordinary 9y ago
I actively avoid Uber wherever I go because of that mind share and the negative connotations that it has. Not all news is good news.

zeveb 9y ago

> Uber isn't magic - if there's pent-up demand for a company that fills Uber's boots, one will pop up. The thing is, until Uber popped up, that pent-up demand simply wasn't being satisfied. The taxi monopolies and regulators were quite happy with their rents (in the economic sense of rent-seeking), and consumers suffered from it (I suspect that Uber & Lyft have prevented thousands of drunken-driving deaths). A lot of people give Uber's culture a lot of hate — but that corporate culture is what created a company which was able to satisfy millions of customers and save lives too. It's provided a colossal amount of economic value to the world (I also like to think that it's made visible the economic value the taxi monopolies & regulators have been invisibly destroying for decades). > there already are a number of minicab companies that do what Uber does, just minus quite as fancy an app. I think that app is the keystone of the whole experience. I can, anywhere I am, open that app and a car will come to pick me up and take me where I need to go. The car will be clean; the driver will be friendly; the service will be prompt and inexpensive. I can't get that experience if I have to install an app in each city, potentially give each app horrible permissions (e.g., to get a ride in Some City I have to give the car company access to my files, my contacts and my email) &c. I travel a lot, and the quality of the Uber rides I've gotten has just been head-and-shoulders above the taxi rides.

markman 9y ago
Yeah but a taxi driver can buy a home and put a kid through college, perhaps even take a vacation once a year. An uber driver may have 6 or 8 months of economic boom but eventually the house of cards will come tumbling down. It is exactly the type of company that is destroying the middle class. It is also the status quo of making a few people extremely wealthy. If you use uber you're just contributing to the decline of western civilization. That seems a bit melodramatic and believe me I'm the first guy to be looking for a deal and stick it to the bloated establishment but uber cuts all the necessary corners, sticks it to the drivers yet it's so popular because it's cheap.
- Anderkent 9y ago
  A taxi driver in London can't buy a home on his own income, don't be ridiculous. An uber driver in London can put a kid through college (it's basically free). Both can take vacations. Anecdotally, uber showing up in London was when I started to use car transport in the first place. It didn't remove me from the customer pool of black cabs - I was never there; most of the time it's competing with the tube / a bus. I would guess the only significant customers moving from taxi to uber are business travelers - but those are rarely motivated by price, and rather it's the convenience of the app that appeals. GPS killed taxi drivers, not uber; the wage is catching up to the fact that almost anyone could drive a taxi nowadays.

SilasX 9y ago

>You could easily build a company that does what Uber does in London without the hate for local Government that is ingrained into Uber's culture - and there already are a number of minicab companies that do what Uber does, just minus quite as fancy an app. But that just begs, er, fully reduces to the question of ... why haven't they? Is a slick, user-friendly app really that much of a barrier? The article has tweets that are (nominally) from users who are freaking about being able to get a safe ride home late at night, so they at least believe there aren't good substitutes.

taormina 9y ago
Frankly, it happened in Austin. Lyft and Uber threw a hissy fit and the market was happy to fill in the gaps.
- sol_remmy 9y ago
  > Frankly, it happened in Austin. Lyft and Uber threw a hissy fit and the market was happy to fill in the gaps. Good luck with that, the markets are not remotely comparable: Austin: 900k pop; In a red state known for low regulatory burden; No established mass transit to compete with; No established tax companies London: 8.8M pop; High regulatory burden; City's incentive: each Uber rider is a potential lost customer for the Underground; Taxi companies have influence with legislators
  - caoilte 9y ago
    The only incentive TFL has is to make travel as efficient as possible. The underground is way too crowded, but so are the roads (mainly because of taxis these days). This makes Uber a better bet than taxis (more efficient) buses better than both, bikes best of all and something in between a nirvana. However, none of that matters as long as Uber think they're above the law.
    - OJFord 9y ago
      > The only incentive TFL has is to make travel as efficient as possible. TfL has the incentive to follow London mayoral policy; the MoL has concerns beyond travel.

sol_remmy 9y ago

> You could easily build a company that does what Uber does in London without the hate for local Government that is ingrained into Uber's culture You act like Uber flaunting local flaws is a flaw for the company. Ignoring 10,000 different sets of local laws in all the localities Uber operates is what made them successful. It would have been impossible to expand as much as they had if the bothered dealing with the local bureaucrats, and they would have 10,000 sets of compliance to deal with.

vertex-four 9y ago
Indeed. Perhaps it would be difficult to replicate what Uber did in SF and other US cities without breaking regulations - but in London, their model is perfectly replicable, as evidenced by the fact that they were originally given a license by TfL.
- sol_remmy 9y ago
  But here's an even better model: 1. Do a good job 2. Consumers use your service & rely on you 3. Wait for the government to try to shut you down 4. Consumers will back you 5. Government backs down & lets you do what you want
  - foldr 9y ago
    There's not going to be much public pressure on TfL to reverse this decision. Most Londoners don't use Uber, and there are plenty of alternatives.
    - henryaj 9y ago
      391,499 Londoners (and counting) beg to differ: https://www.change.org/p/save-your-uber-in-london-saveyouruber https://www.change.org/p/save-your-uber-in-london-saveyourub...
      - foldr 9y ago
        How do you know that everyone who's signed it is a Londoner?

JBlue42 9y ago

>if there's pent-up demand for a company that fills Uber's boots, one will pop up. I think we saw that in Austin after Lyft/Uber were banned and people started the various Facebook and other groups to do the same thing. Not formal businesses, or even set charges.