8 ms·

Uber to quit Colombia after judge says it doesn’t compete fairly

92 points by whoisjuan 7y ago

jeltz 7y ago
Anyone knows any details of the ruling? This article mentions nothing about the actual court case.
- smoe 7y ago
  It basically boils down to Uber considering themselves a tech company while Colombian law sees them as a transportation company that must obtain licenses and oblige to regulations around ride fees and such. More detailed article in Spanish https://www.eltiempo.com/tecnosfera/apps/taxistas-demandaran-tambien-a-beat-cabify-y-didi-446406 https://www.eltiempo.com/tecnosfera/apps/taxistas-demandaran...
  - anticensor 7y ago
    They tried the same trick as anywhere else, then. And it is unsurprising that they failed.
    - smoe 7y ago
      We will see. To me what Uber is currently doing smells a bit like a PR stunt. Especially with all the appeal to emotion in their communication to the users and trying to get them riled up on social media. e.g. https://twitter.com/Uber_Col/status/1215681583253991424 https://twitter.com/Uber_Col/status/1215681583253991424 All while, their appeal to the order from December is still pending a decision from a higher court.
      - Jeff_Brown 7y ago
        The judge ordered them to stop operating.
        smoe 7y ago
        Did they? I honestly don't know since I don't use them. To my knowledge the ruling to stop was mid December and the decision of the higher instance is expected within weeks.
        Jeff_Brown 7y ago
        I'm no longer sure. I'm looking at this passage: "Así lo cree Nicolás Alviar, el abogado representante del icónico caso contra Uber ante la Super Intendencia de Industria y Comercio, que en primera instancia ordenó el cese de operaciones de la aplicación de movilidad compartida en Colombia." Either that says the Super Intendencia ordered the service shut down, or it says that Alviar (the lawyer playing offense) caused it to happen. https://www.eltiempo.com/tecnosfera/apps/taxistas-demandaran-tambien-a-beat-cabify-y-didi-446406 https://www.eltiempo.com/tecnosfera/apps/taxistas-demandaran...
  - jeltz 7y ago
    I think I agree with the Colombian judge then, but I live in a country where Uber is regulated just like any other taxi company.
adt2bt 7y ago
I recently honeymooned in Colombia and my wife and I used Uber in Bogotá. If I recall correctly, it was never exactly ‘legal’ but still quite common and cheap. I wouldn’t be surprised to see another local company (Rappi perhaps?) try to enter the ride hailing market there in response. Unfortunately for taxi drivers, I don’t know if protectionist policies will do anything but prolong their slow decline.
- rowanseymour 7y ago
  It's been the same situation in Ecuador for a while. In some cities it's tolerated, in others the police have cracked down by calling Ubers and handing out large fines when the car arrives. I'm sympathetic to the taxi drivers.. but Uber is considered significantly safer. There's also InDriver and Cabify but they are less popular.
  - Jeff_Brown 7y ago
    And Beat and Didi. But the reputation system on Uber is better, both for drivers and for riders. I'm sad to see it go.
- smoe 7y ago
  The case against Uber was led by a local company providing among other things an app to hail normal taxis. It wasn't just some politicians decision. Personally I never saw the big appeal of Uber and co anymore as soon as such apps starting to come around (which is since at least 2014 in Colombias major cities)
- hannibalhorn 7y ago
  Rappi does have a competing app called Beat, but Didi is definitely where's it at here. Significantly cheaper than Uber (assume they're subsidizing it quite a bit.) My wife uses Didi to go to uni on days she has pico y placa and pays barely more than a bus would cost, which is kinda crazy.
  - dasc24 7y ago
    My guess is maybe Didi, Beat and Waycali would face the same fate as Uber? They're all basically Uber.
xiphias2 7y ago
It's said to see Uber go, I really liked using it in Colombia (taxis as well, when it was more comfortable for me). I just wish that 20 year old cars would be banned from being used as Uber/Taxi cars there. A taxi tried to rob me in Santa Marta, but luckily the girl I was with knew that if the driver asks me to lock my door and leaves the front right door open, it's a sign that he wants to rob us.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  > A taxi tried to rob me in Santa Marta, but luckily the girl I was with knew that if the driver asks me to lock my door and leaves the front right door open, it's a sign that he wants to rob us. I'm curious, what happened next?
  - xiphias2 7y ago
    Nothing special, after he locked the child lock, we unlocked it, jumped out, and found another taxi. He wanted to rob us with a friend of his, not alone. Also I already knew that it's not worth going to the police, as they prefer not to do anything.
- duxup 7y ago
  >asks me to lock my door and leaves the front right door open, it's a sign that he wants to rob us. How does that work?
  - acollins1331 7y ago
    Probably by using the child lock you can't get out the back but someone else can come in the front and stick you up.
    - duxup 7y ago
      OH, man I hadn't thought of that good point.
    - amelius 7y ago
aloknnikhil 7y ago
Uber is essentially a Bring-Your-Own-Hardware for taxis. It's sort of "decentralizing" the taxi service, if you will. And laws seem to be antiquated for such a model. I wonder how decentralization of the tech industry, next, would play out if the laws are not written with that in mind. How do you tax a platform that offers, say, AWS but with commodity hardware? How do you ascertain data privacy laws in such a case?
fierro 7y ago
Of any country I've visisted, Uber is the least necessary in Colombia. The taxi system is extremely fair and safe, albeit cash only right now. It's highly regulated and you can count on predictable, transparent, fair rates. When I took an Uber at the Medellin airport, a guy saw me waiting at the curb and called my name, explaining that he would drive me to my actual Uber. I hopped in, and he drove me a mile or two outside the airport to a lot where all the real Ubers were waiting. We switched cars, and presumably he got some small kickback, then returned to the airport to smuggle people to their Uber. It was a pretty interesting experience; the police at the airport readily fine Ubers that pick up passengers and know the cars by license plate.
- remote_phone 7y ago
  The posted article directly contradicts you. It says most Colombians are afraid to take taxis because of how unsafe they were.
  - FloresHernandez 7y ago
    I've visited Colombia several times on several cities and unless you're taking illegal cabs you never feel unsafe. The legal cabs are pretty clearly marked. Uber could give you an extra layer of safeness as you're basically recording your ride, but that does not mean the cabs are unsafe there. Having said that, if I had to take a taxi to take me to my Uber, I will really feel unsafe.
    - Jeff_Brown 7y ago
      How do you distinguish legal cabs? I live here, and locals tell me half of Bogotá's 40,000 taxis have fake taxi licenses. Nobody's ever told me you can tell them apart. Even the police and politicians here use Uber.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - woah 7y ago
    The posted article has no source for that claim.
jessaustin 7y ago
If the nation weren't Colombia, would the headline have been "...judge rules..." or even "...court rules..."? "Says" is a pretty low-status verb. I don't suggest that Colombian judges should get more respect from headline-writers, but I would suggest that they should get the same respect as North American judges.
- xvedejas 7y ago
  No. I went to news.google.com and searched "judge says". While the article above was one of the top results, all the other of the top ten results were stories in various parts of the US, with "judge says" used in the same way. It seems that to the extent the neutral verb "says" shows any respect, Colombian judges do get the same respect as North American judges in the eyes of headline writers.
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    I'm not so certain. A slightly more empirically valid investigation than yours disagrees [0]. Whatever, I'm glad all the "anti-PC" reflexive downvoters had a chance to do their thing. [0] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=%22judge%20says%22,%22judge%20rules%22 https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=%22judge%2...
cowpig 7y ago
As someone whose business is based in Colombia and has lived here for two years, this article and the comments section are totally out of touch. In Colombia, the ride-sharing app market is competitive. I personally prefer EasyTaxi and Beat over Uber here. The former works with the existing taxi system, and the latter is similar to Uber, except that the cars aren't universally 30 years old and also it's legal. It's as if the world outside of Silicon Valley startups just doesn't exist in the minds of ~~Uber PR~~ Bloomberg and Hacker News commenters. Maybe it's a broader part of American media messaging to imply that the world will suffer badly if a US corporation were to fall. But in an ideal, healthy economy companies should be exiting markets regularly.
- Shorel 7y ago
  I disagree with you. The article says the truth about taxis in Colombia. “Millionaire ride” has been a thing for decades, and it still happens. The competition from Uber made taxis improve so much, that I fear a return to the norm, before Uber, where taxis would ask 50k COP for a ride that should only cost 20k COP and so on. Also, Beat are next in line for these lawsuits.
  - cowpig 7y ago
    I've been ripped off by taxis twice in Bogota, though never in any other city and never one of these boogeyman "millionaire rides" The first time was my very first taxi in Colombia: I arrived at the airport and naively thought the guy asking me if I needed a taxi was being helpful. Little did I know, that was code for "are you new around here" and then he not only charged me 70k for a 23k ride, but also stole my harmonica and then came back 15 mins later having "found" it and asking for a reward. I was blindsighted. The second time, the guy took me from the airport though some ridiculous route around the city and when he arrived asked me for about 3x the actual cost. I gave him what the ride should have cost, he followed me into where I was going and I just ignored him; he left. I've had bad taxi experiences in other countries, but I concede Colombia, or at least Bogota (I lived in Medellin over a year and never had a problem) has some very unethical drivers. OTOH, I have never had, nor heard of, any problem with a driver that came via EasyTaxi, Beat, or any of the other apps that compete with Uber. I also think it's in the country's best interests to push foreign rent-seeking companies out of the country. If Beat gets hit with these lawsuits my opinion will change.

92 points by whoisjuan 7y ago

jeltz 7y ago

Anyone knows any details of the ruling? This article mentions nothing about the actual court case.

smoe 7y ago
It basically boils down to Uber considering themselves a tech company while Colombian law sees them as a transportation company that must obtain licenses and oblige to regulations around ride fees and such. More detailed article in Spanish https://www.eltiempo.com/tecnosfera/apps/taxistas-demandaran-tambien-a-beat-cabify-y-didi-446406 https://www.eltiempo.com/tecnosfera/apps/taxistas-demandaran...
- anticensor 7y ago
  They tried the same trick as anywhere else, then. And it is unsurprising that they failed.
  - smoe 7y ago
    We will see. To me what Uber is currently doing smells a bit like a PR stunt. Especially with all the appeal to emotion in their communication to the users and trying to get them riled up on social media. e.g. https://twitter.com/Uber_Col/status/1215681583253991424 https://twitter.com/Uber_Col/status/1215681583253991424 All while, their appeal to the order from December is still pending a decision from a higher court.
    - Jeff_Brown 7y ago
      The judge ordered them to stop operating.
      - smoe 7y ago
        Did they? I honestly don't know since I don't use them. To my knowledge the ruling to stop was mid December and the decision of the higher instance is expected within weeks.
        Jeff_Brown 7y ago
        I'm no longer sure. I'm looking at this passage: "Así lo cree Nicolás Alviar, el abogado representante del icónico caso contra Uber ante la Super Intendencia de Industria y Comercio, que en primera instancia ordenó el cese de operaciones de la aplicación de movilidad compartida en Colombia." Either that says the Super Intendencia ordered the service shut down, or it says that Alviar (the lawyer playing offense) caused it to happen. https://www.eltiempo.com/tecnosfera/apps/taxistas-demandaran-tambien-a-beat-cabify-y-didi-446406 https://www.eltiempo.com/tecnosfera/apps/taxistas-demandaran...
- jeltz 7y ago
  I think I agree with the Colombian judge then, but I live in a country where Uber is regulated just like any other taxi company.

adt2bt 7y ago

I recently honeymooned in Colombia and my wife and I used Uber in Bogotá. If I recall correctly, it was never exactly ‘legal’ but still quite common and cheap. I wouldn’t be surprised to see another local company (Rappi perhaps?) try to enter the ride hailing market there in response. Unfortunately for taxi drivers, I don’t know if protectionist policies will do anything but prolong their slow decline.

rowanseymour 7y ago
It's been the same situation in Ecuador for a while. In some cities it's tolerated, in others the police have cracked down by calling Ubers and handing out large fines when the car arrives. I'm sympathetic to the taxi drivers.. but Uber is considered significantly safer. There's also InDriver and Cabify but they are less popular.
- Jeff_Brown 7y ago
  And Beat and Didi. But the reputation system on Uber is better, both for drivers and for riders. I'm sad to see it go.
smoe 7y ago
The case against Uber was led by a local company providing among other things an app to hail normal taxis. It wasn't just some politicians decision. Personally I never saw the big appeal of Uber and co anymore as soon as such apps starting to come around (which is since at least 2014 in Colombias major cities)
hannibalhorn 7y ago
Rappi does have a competing app called Beat, but Didi is definitely where's it at here. Significantly cheaper than Uber (assume they're subsidizing it quite a bit.) My wife uses Didi to go to uni on days she has pico y placa and pays barely more than a bus would cost, which is kinda crazy.
- dasc24 7y ago
  My guess is maybe Didi, Beat and Waycali would face the same fate as Uber? They're all basically Uber.

xiphias2 7y ago

It's said to see Uber go, I really liked using it in Colombia (taxis as well, when it was more comfortable for me). I just wish that 20 year old cars would be banned from being used as Uber/Taxi cars there. A taxi tried to rob me in Santa Marta, but luckily the girl I was with knew that if the driver asks me to lock my door and leaves the front right door open, it's a sign that he wants to rob us.

Fnoord 7y ago
> A taxi tried to rob me in Santa Marta, but luckily the girl I was with knew that if the driver asks me to lock my door and leaves the front right door open, it's a sign that he wants to rob us. I'm curious, what happened next?
- xiphias2 7y ago
  Nothing special, after he locked the child lock, we unlocked it, jumped out, and found another taxi. He wanted to rob us with a friend of his, not alone. Also I already knew that it's not worth going to the police, as they prefer not to do anything.
duxup 7y ago
>asks me to lock my door and leaves the front right door open, it's a sign that he wants to rob us. How does that work?
- acollins1331 7y ago
  Probably by using the child lock you can't get out the back but someone else can come in the front and stick you up.
  - duxup 7y ago
    OH, man I hadn't thought of that good point.
  - amelius 7y ago

aloknnikhil 7y ago

Uber is essentially a Bring-Your-Own-Hardware for taxis. It's sort of "decentralizing" the taxi service, if you will. And laws seem to be antiquated for such a model. I wonder how decentralization of the tech industry, next, would play out if the laws are not written with that in mind. How do you tax a platform that offers, say, AWS but with commodity hardware? How do you ascertain data privacy laws in such a case?

fierro 7y ago

Of any country I've visisted, Uber is the least necessary in Colombia. The taxi system is extremely fair and safe, albeit cash only right now. It's highly regulated and you can count on predictable, transparent, fair rates. When I took an Uber at the Medellin airport, a guy saw me waiting at the curb and called my name, explaining that he would drive me to my actual Uber. I hopped in, and he drove me a mile or two outside the airport to a lot where all the real Ubers were waiting. We switched cars, and presumably he got some small kickback, then returned to the airport to smuggle people to their Uber. It was a pretty interesting experience; the police at the airport readily fine Ubers that pick up passengers and know the cars by license plate.

remote_phone 7y ago
The posted article directly contradicts you. It says most Colombians are afraid to take taxis because of how unsafe they were.
- FloresHernandez 7y ago
  I've visited Colombia several times on several cities and unless you're taking illegal cabs you never feel unsafe. The legal cabs are pretty clearly marked. Uber could give you an extra layer of safeness as you're basically recording your ride, but that does not mean the cabs are unsafe there. Having said that, if I had to take a taxi to take me to my Uber, I will really feel unsafe.
  - Jeff_Brown 7y ago
    How do you distinguish legal cabs? I live here, and locals tell me half of Bogotá's 40,000 taxis have fake taxi licenses. Nobody's ever told me you can tell them apart. Even the police and politicians here use Uber.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- woah 7y ago
  The posted article has no source for that claim.

jessaustin 7y ago

If the nation weren't Colombia, would the headline have been "...judge rules..." or even "...court rules..."? "Says" is a pretty low-status verb. I don't suggest that Colombian judges should get more respect from headline-writers, but I would suggest that they should get the same respect as North American judges.

xvedejas 7y ago
No. I went to news.google.com and searched "judge says". While the article above was one of the top results, all the other of the top ten results were stories in various parts of the US, with "judge says" used in the same way. It seems that to the extent the neutral verb "says" shows any respect, Colombian judges do get the same respect as North American judges in the eyes of headline writers.
- jessaustin 7y ago
  I'm not so certain. A slightly more empirically valid investigation than yours disagrees [0]. Whatever, I'm glad all the "anti-PC" reflexive downvoters had a chance to do their thing. [0] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=%22judge%20says%22,%22judge%20rules%22 https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=%22judge%2...

cowpig 7y ago

As someone whose business is based in Colombia and has lived here for two years, this article and the comments section are totally out of touch. In Colombia, the ride-sharing app market is competitive. I personally prefer EasyTaxi and Beat over Uber here. The former works with the existing taxi system, and the latter is similar to Uber, except that the cars aren't universally 30 years old and also it's legal. It's as if the world outside of Silicon Valley startups just doesn't exist in the minds of ~~Uber PR~~ Bloomberg and Hacker News commenters. Maybe it's a broader part of American media messaging to imply that the world will suffer badly if a US corporation were to fall. But in an ideal, healthy economy companies should be exiting markets regularly.

Shorel 7y ago
I disagree with you. The article says the truth about taxis in Colombia. “Millionaire ride” has been a thing for decades, and it still happens. The competition from Uber made taxis improve so much, that I fear a return to the norm, before Uber, where taxis would ask 50k COP for a ride that should only cost 20k COP and so on. Also, Beat are next in line for these lawsuits.
- cowpig 7y ago
  I've been ripped off by taxis twice in Bogota, though never in any other city and never one of these boogeyman "millionaire rides" The first time was my very first taxi in Colombia: I arrived at the airport and naively thought the guy asking me if I needed a taxi was being helpful. Little did I know, that was code for "are you new around here" and then he not only charged me 70k for a 23k ride, but also stole my harmonica and then came back 15 mins later having "found" it and asking for a reward. I was blindsighted. The second time, the guy took me from the airport though some ridiculous route around the city and when he arrived asked me for about 3x the actual cost. I gave him what the ride should have cost, he followed me into where I was going and I just ignored him; he left. I've had bad taxi experiences in other countries, but I concede Colombia, or at least Bogota (I lived in Medellin over a year and never had a problem) has some very unethical drivers. OTOH, I have never had, nor heard of, any problem with a driver that came via EasyTaxi, Beat, or any of the other apps that compete with Uber. I also think it's in the country's best interests to push foreign rent-seeking companies out of the country. If Beat gets hit with these lawsuits my opinion will change.