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Uber shuts operations in Nigeria and Uganda with immediate effect
- harkenugent 1mo ago[dead]
- jhogervorst 1mo agoAccording to some people on X, they shut down immediately, while rides were still active. Sounds like an unplanned (and quite crazy) action. https://x.com/gergelyorosz/status/2095256757178188113 https://x.com/gergelyorosz/status/2095256757178188113
- 1970-01-01 1mo agoThis is hilarious. They are legally kidnappers at this point. No reason to even stop the ride and let you get out for free.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- embedding-shape 1mo agoGiven Uber is one of the few companies who are lucky enough to have a separate page for all the controversies on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Uber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Uber), they also have their own fair of experience with police raids on their offices. They've also used "‘kill switch’ during raids to stop police seeing data" (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/10/uber-files-leak-reveals-global-lobbying-campaign https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/10/uber-files-leak...) before, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was some sort of legal "kill switch" or whatever that got triggered, so they can get rid of everything faster.
- bossyTeacher 1mo ago> They've also used "‘kill switch’ during raids to stop police seeing data If Uber wasn't a VC backed company, they would have been charged with destruction of evidence or similar.
- minraws 1mo agoThey likely were but Companies don't go to jail they pay fines
- abdullahkhalids 1mo agoShops and factories can be temporarily shut down if they don't comply with regulations. Businesses that require licenses like law practices may similarly have to stop operations. That is half of going to jail. Unfortunately, the growth potential that software industry generally provides has generally prevented governments for creating and enforcing similar laws for software products and such.
- johndhi 1mo agoHow does growth potential relate to legal enforcement?
- UnfitFootprint 1mo agoThe way everybody involved makes money
- abdullahkhalids 1mo agoIn the current system, political parties who do things that stop the economy growing are usually voted out, more than political parties that refuse to take action against nebulous criminal activity. That's why, for example, my city refuses to do anything to stop the factories in the city from dumping waste into the river.
- 1mo ago
- segmondy 1mo agoIt was planned. What's Nigeria and Uganda gonna do?
- xaxbxcxdxe 1mo agoIn some african countries getting the permanent full attention of the law is the equivalent of punishment for not paying bribes. You pay the "extra" or you spend 8h at the police station waiting to be processed. To get raided by police in a corrupt country is the highest moral praise you get for playing it by yhe book .
- alephnerd 1mo agoBolt (the CEE ridesharing app) is the primary player in Nigeria. In Uganda it's primarily a bunch of local startups.
- brazukadev 1mo agoLovely. That's tech creating good jobs. I hope Uber leave my country too.
- itake 1mo agoBolt lost their license in Thailand due to poor safety tech after a Bolt driver (that borrowed another account, didn't have a license) attempted to kidnap a school girl [0]. Bolt creates 'good' jobs for criminals, but I don't think that is what we want. [0] - https://www.khaosodenglish.com/tech/2026/05/12/bolt-tightens-safety-after-thai-student-ride-incident/ https://www.khaosodenglish.com/tech/2026/05/12/bolt-tightens...
- TZubiri 1mo agoWhat a nightmare, the kind of thing most founders fear, that their tech be used for evil and that they are responsible for aiding in that crime. (a nightmare for the actual victim too, no doubt)
- konimex 1mo agoIs Bolt a "new player" in Thailand? I know that in Indonesia both Maxim and inDrive is not that well-regarded because usually drivers that ride for both are drivers that are banned from Gojek and Grab for various reasons.
- EGreg 1mo ago[flagged]
- swimminglala88 1mo agowhy they do that
- tristanj 1mo agoIn developing countries, the taxi market is largely unregulated and Uber faces actual competition. Uber cannot compete on price in these regions.
- PunchyHamster 1mo agotheir only leg up in 1st world countries was largely going around any laws governing taxis
- tristanj 1mo agoI disagree, that was only true 15 years ago. In developed countries, ride hailing is highly regulated. Uber is one of the few companies willing to implement all the required rules and procedures.
- ttoinou 1mo agoCounterpoint : in Portugal they are regulated under TVDE, and Uber is competitive with Bolt
- aleksandrm 1mo agoThat's not a counterpoint.
- ttoinou 1mo agoYou’re right, maybe they don’t make good profits in Portugal
- wolvoleo 1mo agoEven in countries where taxis are regulated, sometimes Uber is more expensive but safer. Like in Romania. When I used to go there a lot the official taxis were mandated to offer such low standardized rates that there was a lot of scamming going on. One of my colleagues was basically abducted by a taxi driver (taken to a dangerous gypsy area and told they would kick him out of the car unless he paid them hundreds of euro). Uber was a lot safer because you have tracability on the driver, but more expensive too. And there weren't a lot of them. There were ways to get safe drivers in some cases by booking them through the yellow machines. But in the end the company hired private drivers for us. Though personally I would just use the metro and tram a lot too :P If you know where you're going it's not a dangerous place. Not sure if the taxi situation is still as bad there by the way. I would hope not.
- tristanj 1mo agoMakes sense, Uber's 30-50% cut is far too much. How can they compete with inDrive which only takes 10%. And on inDrive you set your own fare. Rides are 20-40% cheaper elsewhere, why would anyone pay extra for Uber?
- 486sx33 1mo ago30% is fair. Don’t like it start a cab company
- blovescoffee 1mo agoOne anecdote for a datapoint: Not sure if it's better now but I've lost a phone in an InDrive and I've lost an expensive bag in an Uber and it was significantly easier and less sketchy to get the bag back. I'm not a price sensitive rider so the insurance of a reputable 'comfort' tier Uber driver paid off. The InDrive driver made me get another ride to him then demanded $1000mxn (~$55usd) to return my phone. The Uber app had me pay ~$250mxn if I remember correctly and the driver promptly returned the bag.
- tristanj 1mo agoI have a controversial take: outside the US/Europe, Uber is mostly a tourist app. If you actually live in developing regions: 1) your income is much lower, and you are quite price sensitive. The Uber price premium (20-40%) hits much harder. 2) the Uber alternatives are noticeably cheaper for the exact same trip. Regarding your experience, if you were local, that inDrive driver likely would not have tried to extort $1000 MXN out of you. They saw you were a visitor and took advantage of you. In Nigeria or Uganda there are few tourists, so Uber cannot rely on a stream of price-insensitive travelers to fill their cars. It makes total sense why they struggled in (and gave up on) the local market there.
- mvdtnz 1mo agoYour take isn't controversial, it's just wrong. And you seem to be implying everywhere outside of USA and Europe is a developing region?
- hduto 1mo agoDriving for Uber in Lagos I suspect has to be very challenging
- melodyogonna 1mo agoUber was never really in Nigeria much, despite apparently being here a long time. I use ride-hailing a lot, and I've never used it because it is not available in my state, or in most states, for that matter.
- TZubiri 1mo agoI read that in Nigeria (may misremember), the fares set by uber were too low (possibly it was a long-tail country with some incorrect exchange rates), so the drivers and riders had a custom of agreeing to different fees, I believe it came to the point where drivers would share an image or a copypasta with the actual rates and would ask the passenger to accept before picking them up.
- oriettaxx 1mo agolucky you!
- 33MHz-i486 1mo agohas Uber had a positive ROI on the billions invested in it? I am pretty sure the return on the preferred price from the late rounds 10 years ago is basically zero. Net income has always been negative or close to zero. From a consumer perspective, in late stage cities, uber rides are the same or more expensive than old taxis, and the quality of vehicles is lower. what was it all worth?
- apsurd 1mo agoat $156B market cap someone sure is making money. I've no say in the manner in which they ran/run their business but judging a mega-corporation on lemonade-stand level accounting is a fool's errand.
- 33MHz-i486 1mo agothank for your lovely ad-homenim and downvote. truely a thoughtful intellectual debate on the merits of the premise.
- apsurd 1mo agodownvote isn’t personal. it takes more than one to become gray. Im trying to say it doesn’t matter what we plebs think about these massive entities. Maybe it should but if we’re talking creating (economic) value, they clearly are.
- lmm 1mo ago> at $156B market cap someone sure is making money. So 50x Pets.com or 2x Enron. > judging a mega-corporation on lemonade-stand level accounting is a fool's errand. Disagree. Unit economics matter and can help you cut through a lot of hype and nonsense. "Where's the money coming from?" is always a good question to ask. Sure, sometimes a megacorp loses money on each transaction and makes it up on float or whatever, but that's at least worth knowing if that's what's going on.
- apsurd 1mo ago
- esseph 1mo agoUS SOCOM also just pulled out of Nigeria. The rumor is that this is becoming politically sensitive, so the US DoW is turning things over to none other than Erik Prince (Blackwater, Xe, etc). Nigeria is an important source of minerals, for example: lithium. Africa is being hotly contested right now between ISIS, the US / West, China, and state-local political factions.
- Izikiel43 1mo agoFor lithium, isn’t South America and other parts of the world a better deal due to having the largest reserves and being more politically stable?
- esseph 1mo agoA lot of those places already have long term contracts and rights locked up.
- Robotbeat 1mo agoIn Nigeria: Lithium totally irrelevant compared to oil. I think people have this really weird idea that lithium is to electric cars as oil is to regular cars, but it’s literally like a factor of 50 less.
- esseph 1mo agoDatacenters need batteries too, and they're drawing a BUNCH of power these days. 1 rack can now easily use as much power as 100 US homes (120kw), with some rack designs pushing to 200 and 300kw.
- esseph 1mo agohttps://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/china-africa-and-the-geopolitics-of-lithium https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/china-africa-and-the-... China is on track to control around 81% of global spodumene refinery production by 2027.
- myko 1mo ago
- NamlchakKhandro 1mo agoDoes this mean that america is planning to bring democracy to uganda and nigeria?
- rsynnott 1mo agoSeems more likely to be due to Uber failing to really penetrate the market. There are a number of markets where they’re really a distant second to Bolt or a local thing or both, and at some point they presumably have to start rationalising.
- tabs_or_spaces 1mo agoIt feels like people are comparing Uber the brand in their own country and applying that to other countries * People assume that Uber is a big brand in Nigeria and Uganda, this might not be true * People assume that Uber is popular in these countries, this might also not be true
- ompogUe 1mo agoWonder how much this was influenced by both drivers and riders gaming the system. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IYaBPIwope0 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IYaBPIwope0