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According to the nightly news. [1] Geneva will halt all uber taxis by tomorrow until all drivers have an employment contract as well as all back owed social sec

According to the nightly news. [1] Geneva will halt all uber taxis by tomorrow until all drivers have an employment contract as well as all back owed social security payments in the amount around 100-200 million is paid by Uber. The union estimates the total amount owed to drivers and state is around 500 million to 1 billion Swiss Francs. The Unia union is now urging other Kantons to join Geneva as the courts have ruled with in the next three months. [1] https://www.srf.ch/play/tv/redirect/detail/fcd14ac8-d82e-45d6-a812-0a72f904b2c2 https://www.srf.ch/play/tv/redirect/detail/fcd14ac8-d82e-45d...

Ekaros 4y ago
So will Uber try to exit Swiss market after this? And if they do how easy it is for the employees to get those wages?
- xkcd1963 4y ago
  Switzerland is a very lucrative market, I don't think they will leave.
  - EduardoBautista 4y ago
    Does Uber earn a profit in any market?
    - chrischen 4y ago
      There’s no reason their unit economics don’t work or else taxis before Uber would never have existed.
      - Ekaros 4y ago
        Big question with Uber is that can the live on the margins there is in taxi-business. Is there enough for them to extract as they currently spend money...
      - scarface74 4y ago
        Taxis didn’t employ hundreds if not thousands of people who had nothing to do with physically driving the car. I’m not saying none of the other employees are needed. But they do come with significant overhead.
        chrischen 4y ago
        If you understand how technology and software companies work then you should realize that one engineer supports thousands if not tens of thousands of customers. They could easily trim their R&D and software team if needed while still keeping their services running. It doesn't require significant engineering effort to support the operation of the Uber app in serving rides.
        scarface74 4y ago
        It always amazes me that random people on the internet know more about the staffing needs of a company than the people who work in the company.
        chrischen 4y ago
        The whole point of tech is that the software scales the ability to serve customers. Engineers exist for R&D, not necessarily to support operations. Take Netflix or Google for example. They can support massive engineer salaries because the fixed costs for every additional customer served does not scale linearly with engineers required to support them. Taxi companies cannot compete with Uber not just because of subsidies, but because their apps, experience, UI, all suck. They suck because they are doing by hand manually what Uber et al does with software. Look how universally reviled taxi companies are.
        scarface74 4y ago
        Taxi companies aren’t losing millions a quarter. By definition, there business model must be better.
      - Barrin92 4y ago
        Taxi companies don't have thousands of software engineers to pay. In fact the entire reason why there are so many taxi companies is because there's no benefit to scale. (same reason there's countless of very small or self-employed trucking businesses). Transport and driving is a high competition, low margin business, similar to say the restaurant industry. Putting a smartphone app on top of that economy doesn't change that fact. (the only thing that would turn it into an actual high margin technology business is full self-driving, which is why Uber itself once considered this it's 'only path to profitability').
        Ekaros 4y ago
        I'm rather doubtful about whole self-driving also. At least if there is more than let's say 2 players offering products. That will also be massively capital intensive area with drive to the bottom for lowest possible costs in competing between everyone.
        carlmr 4y ago
        Thousands of software engineers are cheap, because software scales. So if they still have a better app than the local taxis, they would still have an edge. At least in Germany the taxi apps are so crappy that you still need to call for a taxi most of the time, you then don't have a map where they know where to find you and you know where they are. Uber has that but no/few drivers in my area. I would use Uber if they had drivers, even if it was the same price as the taxis.
        chrischen 4y ago
        Software engineers are not part of the unit economics. They don’t have to get an engineer to write disposable code for each ride they serve…
    - llampx 4y ago
      If they plow all their revenue into a lossy self-driving program and exec compensation, they never have to turn a profit.
- franczesko 4y ago
  Why would they leave? What business model would that be, if the company's survival would depend on low employee wages? If that's the case, it shouldn't exist in the first place.
  - nextstep 4y ago
    Well, their business model will continue to work in all the other countries they operate in where they can avoid paying drivers a living wage.
    - throwaway_1928 4y ago
      What if Switzerland is just the first domino?
  - freeone3000 4y ago
    That's the gig economy!
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
908B64B197 4y ago
I wonder what was the previous medallion system like in Switzerland. Uber came from a very American context where there was an extremely exploitative and shady business model around taxis. Pre-Uber, either the driver rented the car to a middleman who rented the medallion from a rich owner, or said owner was selling and financing (most banks won't touch these medallions!) a medallion at a ridiculous interest rate to a driver that planned to use it as his retirement savings (an extremely volatile asset and not very liquid). The more I spoke to cab drivers the more it seemed their industry was a pyramid scheme aimed at helping established rent-seeker take advantage of often poor new immigrants. Uber brought a breeze of fresh air: Someone could simply buy a car, calculate the depreciation and it's value on the market (since unlike medallions cars are relatively liquid assets!) do rideshare and calculate their profits or loss. They can get out of the game at anytime, and they know exactly how much they are going to get for the car they have should they sell it. And I'm not even touching the usual pain points and often discriminatory practices of medallion drivers (refusing card payments, refusing rides to non-white passengers and to non-white neighborhoods...).

Ekaros 4y ago

So will Uber try to exit Swiss market after this? And if they do how easy it is for the employees to get those wages?

xkcd1963 4y ago
Switzerland is a very lucrative market, I don't think they will leave.
- EduardoBautista 4y ago
  Does Uber earn a profit in any market?
  - chrischen 4y ago
    There’s no reason their unit economics don’t work or else taxis before Uber would never have existed.
    - Ekaros 4y ago
      Big question with Uber is that can the live on the margins there is in taxi-business. Is there enough for them to extract as they currently spend money...
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Taxis didn’t employ hundreds if not thousands of people who had nothing to do with physically driving the car. I’m not saying none of the other employees are needed. But they do come with significant overhead.
      - chrischen 4y ago
        If you understand how technology and software companies work then you should realize that one engineer supports thousands if not tens of thousands of customers. They could easily trim their R&D and software team if needed while still keeping their services running. It doesn't require significant engineering effort to support the operation of the Uber app in serving rides.
        scarface74 4y ago
        It always amazes me that random people on the internet know more about the staffing needs of a company than the people who work in the company.
        chrischen 4y ago
        The whole point of tech is that the software scales the ability to serve customers. Engineers exist for R&D, not necessarily to support operations. Take Netflix or Google for example. They can support massive engineer salaries because the fixed costs for every additional customer served does not scale linearly with engineers required to support them. Taxi companies cannot compete with Uber not just because of subsidies, but because their apps, experience, UI, all suck. They suck because they are doing by hand manually what Uber et al does with software. Look how universally reviled taxi companies are.
        scarface74 4y ago
        Taxi companies aren’t losing millions a quarter. By definition, there business model must be better.
    - Barrin92 4y ago
      Taxi companies don't have thousands of software engineers to pay. In fact the entire reason why there are so many taxi companies is because there's no benefit to scale. (same reason there's countless of very small or self-employed trucking businesses). Transport and driving is a high competition, low margin business, similar to say the restaurant industry. Putting a smartphone app on top of that economy doesn't change that fact. (the only thing that would turn it into an actual high margin technology business is full self-driving, which is why Uber itself once considered this it's 'only path to profitability').
      - Ekaros 4y ago
        I'm rather doubtful about whole self-driving also. At least if there is more than let's say 2 players offering products. That will also be massively capital intensive area with drive to the bottom for lowest possible costs in competing between everyone.
      - carlmr 4y ago
        Thousands of software engineers are cheap, because software scales. So if they still have a better app than the local taxis, they would still have an edge. At least in Germany the taxi apps are so crappy that you still need to call for a taxi most of the time, you then don't have a map where they know where to find you and you know where they are. Uber has that but no/few drivers in my area. I would use Uber if they had drivers, even if it was the same price as the taxis.
      - chrischen 4y ago
        Software engineers are not part of the unit economics. They don’t have to get an engineer to write disposable code for each ride they serve…
  - llampx 4y ago
    If they plow all their revenue into a lossy self-driving program and exec compensation, they never have to turn a profit.
franczesko 4y ago
Why would they leave? What business model would that be, if the company's survival would depend on low employee wages? If that's the case, it shouldn't exist in the first place.
- nextstep 4y ago
  Well, their business model will continue to work in all the other countries they operate in where they can avoid paying drivers a living wage.
  - throwaway_1928 4y ago
    What if Switzerland is just the first domino?
- freeone3000 4y ago
  That's the gig economy!
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

908B64B197 4y ago

I wonder what was the previous medallion system like in Switzerland. Uber came from a very American context where there was an extremely exploitative and shady business model around taxis. Pre-Uber, either the driver rented the car to a middleman who rented the medallion from a rich owner, or said owner was selling and financing (most banks won't touch these medallions!) a medallion at a ridiculous interest rate to a driver that planned to use it as his retirement savings (an extremely volatile asset and not very liquid). The more I spoke to cab drivers the more it seemed their industry was a pyramid scheme aimed at helping established rent-seeker take advantage of often poor new immigrants. Uber brought a breeze of fresh air: Someone could simply buy a car, calculate the depreciation and it's value on the market (since unlike medallions cars are relatively liquid assets!) do rideshare and calculate their profits or loss. They can get out of the game at anytime, and they know exactly how much they are going to get for the car they have should they sell it. And I'm not even touching the usual pain points and often discriminatory practices of medallion drivers (refusing card payments, refusing rides to non-white passengers and to non-white neighborhoods...).