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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 t

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.
- ForrestN 12y ago
  I understand, these are all interesting points. But neither explains the anxiety; if everyone is happy with current service, why would the unions even care? Why aren't they confident that the service will fail on its own?
  - bane 12y ago
    Because they aren't. Any competition, even a failed one, will eat into your bottom line. And in the case of Uber, it's easy to make the political case that it shouldn't be allowed since it's a foreign entity and that means money will leave the country. From the Union's POV, it means that there will now be non-Union drivers out and around.

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.

ForrestN 12y ago
I understand, these are all interesting points. But neither explains the anxiety; if everyone is happy with current service, why would the unions even care? Why aren't they confident that the service will fail on its own?
- bane 12y ago
  Because they aren't. Any competition, even a failed one, will eat into your bottom line. And in the case of Uber, it's easy to make the political case that it shouldn't be allowed since it's a foreign entity and that means money will leave the country. From the Union's POV, it means that there will now be non-Union drivers out and around.