14 ms·

Seoul Moves to Ban Uber, Plans Own App

68 points by cjdulberger 12y ago

mbesto 12y ago
UPDATE: Uber Monday evening called Seoul city government’s earlier statement a sign that it lags behind in adopting what it called an innovation in transportation. “Comments like these show Seoul is in danger of remaining trapped in the past and getting left behind by the global ‘sharing economy’ movement,” the statement said. An Uber spokesman in Seoul denied that the service was illegal as Uber is “a technology company that connects drivers with passengers” and doesn’t directly run a taxi service with rented cars. Anyone know where we can get this statement? Taken out of context (which is most likely was), this reads like Uber is just a bunch of whiney rich kids and makes me like Uber less. I presume they would write something that talks about the economics of Uber for a city like Seoul. For example, saying Seoul can leverage existing technology (drive costs down) and increase economics (more people in the city and more jobs for drivers).
- buro9 12y ago
  > An Uber spokesman in Seoul denied that the service was illegal as Uber is “a technology company that connects drivers with passengers” and doesn’t directly run a taxi service with rented cars. I'm not sure any definition of a taxi service requires renting cars. It just requires connecting vehicles to passengers, at a time and place the passenger defines. Uber don't half come out with some rubbish when they're trying to skirt around some narrowly worded local policy or law.
  - UK-AL 12y ago
    Yeah, but don't forget what this is. Taxi Drivers complaining that barriers to entry are being removed, so fares remain artfically high.
    - k-mcgrady 12y ago
      >> "Taxi Drivers complaining that barriers to entry are being removed, so fares remain artfically high." Anytime I've read about Uber or the few times I've used it myself it is much more expensive than a taxi. They aren't coming in to drive fare prices down.
      - aianus 12y ago
        UberX is cheaper than taxis
UK-AL 12y ago
" threatened the livelihood of licensed taxi drivers" - At least they admit who they're protecting. And not some made up "protecting the consumer" argument.
- antsar 12y ago
  To be fair, the full sentence was: "South Korea’s capital city said on July 21, 2014 it planned to ban the smartphone car-hailing service Uber, saying it raised passenger safety issues and threatened the livelihood of licensed taxi drivers."
abduhl 12y ago
“Comments like these show Seoul is in danger of remaining trapped in the past and getting left behind by the global ‘sharing economy’ movement,” the statement said. You know, I don't particularly like the "sharing economy" movement. The whole thing seems predicated on deregulation of industries that I honestly think should be regulated. Airbnb acts, essentially, as a parent company for a hotel chain without any of the actual power or responsibility of the traditional holding company. Uber/Lyft act as car dispatchers without any of the power or responsibility of traditional taxi/limo companies. The ability of these companies to outcompete traditional companies on price in their spaces is due to their choice to not follow regulations as much as possible. The reasoning Uber gives in the article for not being in violation of the law sounds suspiciously like the reasoning given by escorts ("You're paying for my time"). If this trend continues we will see additional disregard for regulation with more and more absurd reasoning ("We aren't breaking the law on regulation because we are simply a technology company that connects your phone with another phone who happens to be in the possession of a guy in a car and whatever happens after that is between two consenting adults"). How far can this race to the bottom go before our search for low costs starts to war with our sense of personal safety and social responsibility? As an aside, I use Uber pretty regularly in any city where it's available simply because I generally don't have the local taxi numbers. Does this make me a hypocrite? Probably.
- BrianEatWorld 12y ago
  Instead of viewing them as a race to the bottom, perhaps it would be better to think of them as shining a light on the current systems. Just because they aren't regulated now, doesn't mean they can't be in the future. In a way, they offer another chance at regulating areas that have entrenched interests and decades of poor regulation that prevent efficient solutions from emerging today.
  - abduhl 12y ago
    The only light these companies shine is that of capitalism. Why should we believe that they will be regulated meaningfully in the future and that the regulations won't just serve to bring them into the fold of existing regulations? What is to stop the next "innovator" from coming in to the same space and repeating the same argument about <insert timeframe> of poor regulation preventing efficient solutions? How does re-regulation do anything but protect these companies that have essentially ignored the law? As I said, where does our search for low costs end up battling our sense of personal safety and social responsibility?
eeho 12y ago
The Overall Taxi experience (or all of public trans for that matter) in Seoul is much, much better & cheaper than anywhere in the US. It's usually pretty easy to catch a cab, and when you can't you can get a "call taxi" and have it arrive in a Uber-esque time. I'm not sure if anyone in Korea would pay the premiums that people pay in NYC/SF, especially if taxis get a comparable app.
- bane 12y ago
  Yeah, the taxi service in Seoul is among the best I've ever experienced (if you can get over the language barrier and sometimes grumpy drivers). Fast, cheap, ubiquitous. Several tiers of service, bullet taxis, company taxis, self-owned, deluxe. For some tiers, drivers have to have 5-10 years of accident free driving - in Seoul that's remarkable. Here's an example fare: $2.50 to pickup and go 2km, about $.70 a km after. Gangnam to Gyeongbokgung palace (across most of the city and over a major river) will run you about $15. A trip from Brooklyn to Harlem, about the same distance and complexity, is likely to run $30-40. Uber will run you $40-50.
  - cbhl 12y ago
    Just curious, how much does a McDonald's Big Mac cost in Seoul?
    - bane 12y ago
      A big mac meal in Seoul runs about $6. I think the sandwich is about $4. I wouldn't know offhand since I've only ever eaten once at a McDonald's in Korea, and that was 8 years ago. Here's a relatively good list of costs in Korea. $1 ~ 1,000 Won. http://www.eslsouthkorea.net/cost-of-living-in-korea.html http://www.eslsouthkorea.net/cost-of-living-in-korea.html
- sksksk 12y ago
  Something interesting that I found was that in different cities, the price proposition changes. For example, in London, Black Cabs are generally considered decent but expensive, so Uber is priced cheaper than black cabs, but slightly more expensive than mini cabs. In Delhi, the prices are far higher than anything you can hail on the street, but cheaper than calling a town car service.
kyllo 12y ago
Seoul has an army of taxi drivers, probably a surplus of them, and the fares are already quite low. It's a massive city of 10 million people and you can get a cab from one end to the other for the equivalent of about $30 USD. Most rides cost $10-20. Good cab service is essential there, and my theory is that it's due to the extremely high rate of alcohol consumption among the working population. I can't really imagine the Uber business model being attractive in that city because the existing taxi service is so strong.
- ForrestN 12y ago
  This is very interesting, thank you for the perspective. Clearly it must be somewhat popular if the government feels it necessary to step in and stop them. Is that assumption wrong?
  - kyllo 12y ago
    Well the taxi drivers in South Korea are unionized, and labor unions have a lot of political power there. I have no doubt that as soon as they caught wind of Uber, they lobbied the government to pass legislation banning it.
  - bane 12y ago
    The taxi service in Seoul is quite well regulated. Fares are cheap and drivers have to have rather incredible safety records (for Seoul) to operate - like 5-10 years of no-accident driving. Uber wants to skirt all around that and rely on crowd sourced reviews to ferret out drivers and unscrupulous fare charging. Can the average Seoul taxi driver be grumpy? Sure. On Uber that would get him bad reviews and get him kicked out. But average Seoul taxi guy also has more than 3/4 of a million safe driving miles on him as well. It's also hard to explain, but unlike NYC style taxis, which are grimy and uncomfortable, Seoul drivers actually keep their cars clean and well serviced. I'd argue that the main reason that the Seoul city government wants to keep Uber out (in favor of a domestic service analog) is that it keeps money patriated and in domestic industries. 0% of the money taxis operate off of leaves Korea. While with Uber, some percentage is likely to.
danso 12y ago
> The city added that it will launch in December an app that will provide similar features to Uber for official taxis, such as geo-location data on cabs nearby, information about them and their drivers, as well as ratings. I don't know what the state of labor unions is in South Korea, but I think the reason why an app described as such is typically discouraged in municipalities is because the ratings systems could be seen by the union as unfairly punitive or arbitrarily gamed...similar to the protest some teachers unions have against testing schemes and bonus pay for meeting benchmarks. And of course, doesn't the Uber app allow drivers to see the ratings of various passengers? An app that would show real-time location and other info about cabs, as well as being able to hail them, would be very nice for any taxi system. I'd think it's the other stuff, such as ratings, that could only be palatable by drivers and users under a privatized context.
bane 12y ago
If there's one place that doesn't need an uber, it's Seoul. Perhaps one of the best cities on the planet to hail a taxi. Cheap, ubiquitous, safe and surprisingly highly regulated for safety and fares. If you've never been to Korea, one thing that pops out immediately is the uniformly very high level of service quality nearly everywhere as compared to the U.S. or Europe. You can already order just about anything you can imagine to be personally delivered just about anywhere you are for next to nothing. Taxis there are similar and the prices are so low it's a wonder that the drivers can even feed themselves. The fares barely seem to cover the cost of fuel. I've never had a taxi show up late when I called for one, and there are so many you can usually hail one almost on demand. The taxis are always clean, unlike NYC. More importantly, the number of stories I've heard of drunk people leaving purses or phones behind, and having them returned the next day, is remarkable. Sure you get the occasional surly driver, and language can be a problem, but that's anywhere, even with Uber drivers. And for $10-15 a ride across most of the city, Uber isn't pushing down anybody's prices. If there's one place that can revolutionize their own taxi service and offer on-demand pickup via apps, it's going to be Seoul. Uber's statement about Seoul is garbage. If there's an example of a modern, efficient, "smart" city, anywhere on the planet, it's there. Compared to London and D.C. at least, transport in Seoul is one of the best planned utopian paradises you can imagine and it gets remarkably better every year. The Seoul city government is right to crush it out of existence.
- carbocation 12y ago
  If I accept what you've written at face value (which I do), then it also strikes me that Seoul is one city where the emergence of Uber would have little impact on the taxi industry. But if Uber actually does have a significant impact, then it seems that the people want something that they are not currently being offered. Seems like a good experiment, not something that should be shut down.
  - bane 12y ago
    You do have a point. I'd add that the historic pattern in Korea is to be allergic to foreign companies doing business there. Things like trade protectionism is a very political strong thing there because it keeps money inside the country. Sending <whatever percentage of a ride goes to Uber> outside of the country, when the alternative is to just update the very well done and current taxi system is a political non-starter. I'd be highly surprised if they were ever allowed to operate. If Uber was allowed to go, I'd imagine some kind of tight regulation or high taxes on Uber service to make it less competitive than the normal service.
nlh 12y ago
Preface: I'm a huge fan of Uber & AirBNB and use (and love) both extensively. That being said, I have to say I'm impressed/shocked/in awe of their respective strategies. One of their biggest innovations isn't necessarily their use of tech (which is huge of course), but the adoption of their regulatory strategy, which is basically: "Screw the law. We'll do what we want, get people to love us, then appeal to the masses / out-lobby the politicians when the governments attempt to enforce the law" I bet most attempts to start AirBNB/UberX/Lyft (in their current form) would have been met by "Sure, great idea, but it's totally against the law, and you'll get shut down." And that would have stopped most people. So, I suppose, kudos to the respective founders for taking a different (and bolder) approach. Like it or not, it seems to be working through sheer brute force.
- Loughla 12y ago
  Honest question; If a chemical start-up took the same approach - make an awesome product and ignore all safety and health regulations - what would you think?
  - Jach 12y ago
    You mean like Soylent? (They've had FDA approval as a food since January, but plenty of people wanted it before then without worrying about an official stamp saying there aren't any health risks.)
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
- avz 12y ago
  Sharing a ride or renting a property is a high risk proposition and humans have traditionally relied on trust networks and connections like families and friends to find good customers and providers. I think the true innovation of the sharing economy is using technology to scale up these trust networks with rating and reviews to the level required by a modern city. These mechanisms have of course been known for a long time in the internet, but sharing economy realized its full value for renting and sharing rather recently.
bredman 12y ago
"So the government can have a monopoly in a space" - always a good reason to ban a successful private enterprise.
nichochar 12y ago
I actually think this is a fair idea. I think France (my country, but any other country too) should aim to do the same. People don't realize how much of france's (and other countries) economy goes to american companies, when we perfectly well have the ability to make as good or better companies locally.
vegancap 12y ago
Kind of seems petty when there's already a perfectly viable solution out there. Why not give the consumer the choice, take the risk and compete like a real business; real people would have to.
oldspiceman 12y ago
Now we need Uber to start offering flights in Korea. It's impossible to book a flight in Korea unless you go through Air Busan. Why? Because they all require you to use Internet Explorer and a Korean Credit Card. On the flip side, you can cancel Air Busan flights for only $1. In Japan you can cancel flights at no cost.
tpae 12y ago
I spent a year in Korea working on startups. The tech scene there is terrible, there's 4 major companies that pretty much does everything. SK, Samsung, Daum, and Naver. I went to BeLaunch conference in 2013 (similar to TC Disrupt in U.S.), and a person from SK came up to our booth and started taking down notes. 4 weeks later, they launch the exact same product.

68 points by cjdulberger 12y ago

UPDATE: Uber Monday evening called Seoul city government’s earlier statement a sign that it lags behind in adopting what it called an innovation in transportation. “Comments like these show Seoul is in danger of remaining trapped in the past and getting left behind by the global ‘sharing economy’ movement,” the statement said. An Uber spokesman in Seoul denied that the service was illegal as Uber is “a technology company that connects drivers with passengers” and doesn’t directly run a taxi service with rented cars. Anyone know where we can get this statement? Taken out of context (which is most likely was), this reads like Uber is just a bunch of whiney rich kids and makes me like Uber less. I presume they would write something that talks about the economics of Uber for a city like Seoul. For example, saying Seoul can leverage existing technology (drive costs down) and increase economics (more people in the city and more jobs for drivers).

buro9 12y ago
> An Uber spokesman in Seoul denied that the service was illegal as Uber is “a technology company that connects drivers with passengers” and doesn’t directly run a taxi service with rented cars. I'm not sure any definition of a taxi service requires renting cars. It just requires connecting vehicles to passengers, at a time and place the passenger defines. Uber don't half come out with some rubbish when they're trying to skirt around some narrowly worded local policy or law.
- UK-AL 12y ago
  Yeah, but don't forget what this is. Taxi Drivers complaining that barriers to entry are being removed, so fares remain artfically high.
  - k-mcgrady 12y ago
    >> "Taxi Drivers complaining that barriers to entry are being removed, so fares remain artfically high." Anytime I've read about Uber or the few times I've used it myself it is much more expensive than a taxi. They aren't coming in to drive fare prices down.
    - aianus 12y ago
      UberX is cheaper than taxis

UK-AL 12y ago

" threatened the livelihood of licensed taxi drivers" - At least they admit who they're protecting. And not some made up "protecting the consumer" argument.

antsar 12y ago
To be fair, the full sentence was: "South Korea’s capital city said on July 21, 2014 it planned to ban the smartphone car-hailing service Uber, saying it raised passenger safety issues and threatened the livelihood of licensed taxi drivers."

abduhl 12y ago

“Comments like these show Seoul is in danger of remaining trapped in the past and getting left behind by the global ‘sharing economy’ movement,” the statement said. You know, I don't particularly like the "sharing economy" movement. The whole thing seems predicated on deregulation of industries that I honestly think should be regulated. Airbnb acts, essentially, as a parent company for a hotel chain without any of the actual power or responsibility of the traditional holding company. Uber/Lyft act as car dispatchers without any of the power or responsibility of traditional taxi/limo companies. The ability of these companies to outcompete traditional companies on price in their spaces is due to their choice to not follow regulations as much as possible. The reasoning Uber gives in the article for not being in violation of the law sounds suspiciously like the reasoning given by escorts ("You're paying for my time"). If this trend continues we will see additional disregard for regulation with more and more absurd reasoning ("We aren't breaking the law on regulation because we are simply a technology company that connects your phone with another phone who happens to be in the possession of a guy in a car and whatever happens after that is between two consenting adults"). How far can this race to the bottom go before our search for low costs starts to war with our sense of personal safety and social responsibility? As an aside, I use Uber pretty regularly in any city where it's available simply because I generally don't have the local taxi numbers. Does this make me a hypocrite? Probably.

BrianEatWorld 12y ago
Instead of viewing them as a race to the bottom, perhaps it would be better to think of them as shining a light on the current systems. Just because they aren't regulated now, doesn't mean they can't be in the future. In a way, they offer another chance at regulating areas that have entrenched interests and decades of poor regulation that prevent efficient solutions from emerging today.
- abduhl 12y ago
  The only light these companies shine is that of capitalism. Why should we believe that they will be regulated meaningfully in the future and that the regulations won't just serve to bring them into the fold of existing regulations? What is to stop the next "innovator" from coming in to the same space and repeating the same argument about <insert timeframe> of poor regulation preventing efficient solutions? How does re-regulation do anything but protect these companies that have essentially ignored the law? As I said, where does our search for low costs end up battling our sense of personal safety and social responsibility?

eeho 12y ago

The Overall Taxi experience (or all of public trans for that matter) in Seoul is much, much better & cheaper than anywhere in the US. It's usually pretty easy to catch a cab, and when you can't you can get a "call taxi" and have it arrive in a Uber-esque time. I'm not sure if anyone in Korea would pay the premiums that people pay in NYC/SF, especially if taxis get a comparable app.

bane 12y ago
Yeah, the taxi service in Seoul is among the best I've ever experienced (if you can get over the language barrier and sometimes grumpy drivers). Fast, cheap, ubiquitous. Several tiers of service, bullet taxis, company taxis, self-owned, deluxe. For some tiers, drivers have to have 5-10 years of accident free driving - in Seoul that's remarkable. Here's an example fare: $2.50 to pickup and go 2km, about $.70 a km after. Gangnam to Gyeongbokgung palace (across most of the city and over a major river) will run you about $15. A trip from Brooklyn to Harlem, about the same distance and complexity, is likely to run $30-40. Uber will run you $40-50.
- cbhl 12y ago
  Just curious, how much does a McDonald's Big Mac cost in Seoul?
  - bane 12y ago
    A big mac meal in Seoul runs about $6. I think the sandwich is about $4. I wouldn't know offhand since I've only ever eaten once at a McDonald's in Korea, and that was 8 years ago. Here's a relatively good list of costs in Korea. $1 ~ 1,000 Won. http://www.eslsouthkorea.net/cost-of-living-in-korea.html http://www.eslsouthkorea.net/cost-of-living-in-korea.html
sksksk 12y ago
Something interesting that I found was that in different cities, the price proposition changes. For example, in London, Black Cabs are generally considered decent but expensive, so Uber is priced cheaper than black cabs, but slightly more expensive than mini cabs. In Delhi, the prices are far higher than anything you can hail on the street, but cheaper than calling a town car service.

kyllo 12y ago

Seoul has an army of taxi drivers, probably a surplus of them, and the fares are already quite low. It's a massive city of 10 million people and you can get a cab from one end to the other for the equivalent of about $30 USD. Most rides cost $10-20. Good cab service is essential there, and my theory is that it's due to the extremely high rate of alcohol consumption among the working population. I can't really imagine the Uber business model being attractive in that city because the existing taxi service is so strong.

ForrestN 12y ago
This is very interesting, thank you for the perspective. Clearly it must be somewhat popular if the government feels it necessary to step in and stop them. Is that assumption wrong?
- kyllo 12y ago
  Well the taxi drivers in South Korea are unionized, and labor unions have a lot of political power there. I have no doubt that as soon as they caught wind of Uber, they lobbied the government to pass legislation banning it.
- bane 12y ago
  The taxi service in Seoul is quite well regulated. Fares are cheap and drivers have to have rather incredible safety records (for Seoul) to operate - like 5-10 years of no-accident driving. Uber wants to skirt all around that and rely on crowd sourced reviews to ferret out drivers and unscrupulous fare charging. Can the average Seoul taxi driver be grumpy? Sure. On Uber that would get him bad reviews and get him kicked out. But average Seoul taxi guy also has more than 3/4 of a million safe driving miles on him as well. It's also hard to explain, but unlike NYC style taxis, which are grimy and uncomfortable, Seoul drivers actually keep their cars clean and well serviced. I'd argue that the main reason that the Seoul city government wants to keep Uber out (in favor of a domestic service analog) is that it keeps money patriated and in domestic industries. 0% of the money taxis operate off of leaves Korea. While with Uber, some percentage is likely to.

danso 12y ago

> The city added that it will launch in December an app that will provide similar features to Uber for official taxis, such as geo-location data on cabs nearby, information about them and their drivers, as well as ratings. I don't know what the state of labor unions is in South Korea, but I think the reason why an app described as such is typically discouraged in municipalities is because the ratings systems could be seen by the union as unfairly punitive or arbitrarily gamed...similar to the protest some teachers unions have against testing schemes and bonus pay for meeting benchmarks. And of course, doesn't the Uber app allow drivers to see the ratings of various passengers? An app that would show real-time location and other info about cabs, as well as being able to hail them, would be very nice for any taxi system. I'd think it's the other stuff, such as ratings, that could only be palatable by drivers and users under a privatized context.

bane 12y ago

If there's one place that doesn't need an uber, it's Seoul. Perhaps one of the best cities on the planet to hail a taxi. Cheap, ubiquitous, safe and surprisingly highly regulated for safety and fares. If you've never been to Korea, one thing that pops out immediately is the uniformly very high level of service quality nearly everywhere as compared to the U.S. or Europe. You can already order just about anything you can imagine to be personally delivered just about anywhere you are for next to nothing. Taxis there are similar and the prices are so low it's a wonder that the drivers can even feed themselves. The fares barely seem to cover the cost of fuel. I've never had a taxi show up late when I called for one, and there are so many you can usually hail one almost on demand. The taxis are always clean, unlike NYC. More importantly, the number of stories I've heard of drunk people leaving purses or phones behind, and having them returned the next day, is remarkable. Sure you get the occasional surly driver, and language can be a problem, but that's anywhere, even with Uber drivers. And for $10-15 a ride across most of the city, Uber isn't pushing down anybody's prices. If there's one place that can revolutionize their own taxi service and offer on-demand pickup via apps, it's going to be Seoul. Uber's statement about Seoul is garbage. If there's an example of a modern, efficient, "smart" city, anywhere on the planet, it's there. Compared to London and D.C. at least, transport in Seoul is one of the best planned utopian paradises you can imagine and it gets remarkably better every year. The Seoul city government is right to crush it out of existence.

carbocation 12y ago
If I accept what you've written at face value (which I do), then it also strikes me that Seoul is one city where the emergence of Uber would have little impact on the taxi industry. But if Uber actually does have a significant impact, then it seems that the people want something that they are not currently being offered. Seems like a good experiment, not something that should be shut down.
- bane 12y ago
  You do have a point. I'd add that the historic pattern in Korea is to be allergic to foreign companies doing business there. Things like trade protectionism is a very political strong thing there because it keeps money inside the country. Sending <whatever percentage of a ride goes to Uber> outside of the country, when the alternative is to just update the very well done and current taxi system is a political non-starter. I'd be highly surprised if they were ever allowed to operate. If Uber was allowed to go, I'd imagine some kind of tight regulation or high taxes on Uber service to make it less competitive than the normal service.

nlh 12y ago

Preface: I'm a huge fan of Uber & AirBNB and use (and love) both extensively. That being said, I have to say I'm impressed/shocked/in awe of their respective strategies. One of their biggest innovations isn't necessarily their use of tech (which is huge of course), but the adoption of their regulatory strategy, which is basically: "Screw the law. We'll do what we want, get people to love us, then appeal to the masses / out-lobby the politicians when the governments attempt to enforce the law" I bet most attempts to start AirBNB/UberX/Lyft (in their current form) would have been met by "Sure, great idea, but it's totally against the law, and you'll get shut down." And that would have stopped most people. So, I suppose, kudos to the respective founders for taking a different (and bolder) approach. Like it or not, it seems to be working through sheer brute force.

Loughla 12y ago
Honest question; If a chemical start-up took the same approach - make an awesome product and ignore all safety and health regulations - what would you think?
- Jach 12y ago
  You mean like Soylent? (They've had FDA approval as a food since January, but plenty of people wanted it before then without worrying about an official stamp saying there aren't any health risks.)
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
avz 12y ago
Sharing a ride or renting a property is a high risk proposition and humans have traditionally relied on trust networks and connections like families and friends to find good customers and providers. I think the true innovation of the sharing economy is using technology to scale up these trust networks with rating and reviews to the level required by a modern city. These mechanisms have of course been known for a long time in the internet, but sharing economy realized its full value for renting and sharing rather recently.

bredman 12y ago

"So the government can have a monopoly in a space" - always a good reason to ban a successful private enterprise.

nichochar 12y ago

I actually think this is a fair idea. I think France (my country, but any other country too) should aim to do the same. People don't realize how much of france's (and other countries) economy goes to american companies, when we perfectly well have the ability to make as good or better companies locally.

vegancap 12y ago

Kind of seems petty when there's already a perfectly viable solution out there. Why not give the consumer the choice, take the risk and compete like a real business; real people would have to.

oldspiceman 12y ago

Now we need Uber to start offering flights in Korea. It's impossible to book a flight in Korea unless you go through Air Busan. Why? Because they all require you to use Internet Explorer and a Korean Credit Card. On the flip side, you can cancel Air Busan flights for only $1. In Japan you can cancel flights at no cost.

tpae 12y ago

I spent a year in Korea working on startups. The tech scene there is terrible, there's 4 major companies that pretty much does everything. SK, Samsung, Daum, and Naver. I went to BeLaunch conference in 2013 (similar to TC Disrupt in U.S.), and a person from SK came up to our booth and started taking down notes. 4 weeks later, they launch the exact same product.