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I use Taxis several times a week (in Germany). A lot of the drivers are already complaining about their income. Most of them are below the minimum wage, which w

I use Taxis several times a week (in Germany). A lot of the drivers are already complaining about their income. Most of them are below the minimum wage, which will come in 2015. And a lot expect their company to shut down business. When I ask them about their opinion about Uber, many of the drivers speak positively about such an alternative. It would allow them to work without the need of a concession and to keep more money of the margin. But they also demand the same standards for such an alternative. I prefer the Taxi (and my employer would not allow Uber in the first place), because of insurance and other minimum standards demanded by regulation (federal, country and town (via concessions)). So I see a conflict, that is not just about Uber, but about the working conditions and the income in general. If Uber is allowed to work at lower limitations than the Taxi businesses, it will be a distortion of competition. It would make more Taxi companies to go out of business, which already struggle to keep their business and to pay their employes wages above the minimum (today and 2015). So yes! Uber drivers must maintain the same standards as Taxi businesses, if they offer a commercial service.

gioele 12y ago
> If Uber is allowed to work at lower limitations than the Taxi businesses, it will be a distortion of competition. Let's stop talking about "competition". The issue here is "the regulations". Are they too broad? Or too narrow? Or ineffective? Or inadequate? Or just fine? It Uber is allowed to work at lower limitations than the Taxi businesses, then either the Taxi business is too regulated (then some regulations should be dropped) or Uber is taking shortcuts somewhere damaging the costumers or the workers (the reason why the regulations exist in the first place). I think that, if the current regulations are justified (and this is to be seen place by place), then there is no other outcome other than Uber becoming simply yet another Taxi company, maybe the one with the nicest website.
- einrealist 12y ago
  Its both - competition and regulation. If one company does not follow them, but others do, then you have a distortion of competition. The difficulty is in to tell whether Uber is operating like a Taxi company or not. They certainly operate on a different model than the usual Taxi business. So that's why Uber ignored the laws until someone cried foul. Btw. I think the business is regulated fairly. The income is not. Most difficulties are with the concessions and the natural oligopols around them.
davidw 12y ago
> It would make more Taxi companies to go out of business Ignoring the rest of the debate, there's nothing that says that the current taxi companies should always be around. Competition means companies go out of business too. Sometimes things change and what was once an optimal number of taxi companies is now too many. One of the nice things about some countries in Europe is that there are systems in place to protect workers when that happens. That's as it should be: protect the people, but not the company. Italy gets this completely backward in a lot of cases - they'll try and keep a company afloat to "protect jobs", and it just makes things worse and worse.
- yebyen 12y ago
  Come on, you just cherry-picked the one part of his argument that didn't conflict with what you had to say. I'll grant you that you started by admitting that... He's not just talking about protecting existing jobs, he's talking about an existing regulated market that bends to meet standards that are dictated for financial and safety. Uber came in and ignored those regulations. Those companies have insurance, which means he can use them in his business, and Uber he cannot use because they are not operating within the legal framework. If the taxi companies all go out of business, where will the law abiding business customers that need to work with insured vendors all go? There is a reason for the legal framework to exist, and it's not only to protect existing entrenched business interests.
  - davidw 12y ago
    > cherry-picked There are a lot to both sides - it's a big, complex debate. I wanted to focus on one thing I felt was not a good argument at all.

gioele 12y ago

> If Uber is allowed to work at lower limitations than the Taxi businesses, it will be a distortion of competition. Let's stop talking about "competition". The issue here is "the regulations". Are they too broad? Or too narrow? Or ineffective? Or inadequate? Or just fine? It Uber is allowed to work at lower limitations than the Taxi businesses, then either the Taxi business is too regulated (then some regulations should be dropped) or Uber is taking shortcuts somewhere damaging the costumers or the workers (the reason why the regulations exist in the first place). I think that, if the current regulations are justified (and this is to be seen place by place), then there is no other outcome other than Uber becoming simply yet another Taxi company, maybe the one with the nicest website.

einrealist 12y ago
Its both - competition and regulation. If one company does not follow them, but others do, then you have a distortion of competition. The difficulty is in to tell whether Uber is operating like a Taxi company or not. They certainly operate on a different model than the usual Taxi business. So that's why Uber ignored the laws until someone cried foul. Btw. I think the business is regulated fairly. The income is not. Most difficulties are with the concessions and the natural oligopols around them.

davidw 12y ago

> It would make more Taxi companies to go out of business Ignoring the rest of the debate, there's nothing that says that the current taxi companies should always be around. Competition means companies go out of business too. Sometimes things change and what was once an optimal number of taxi companies is now too many. One of the nice things about some countries in Europe is that there are systems in place to protect workers when that happens. That's as it should be: protect the people, but not the company. Italy gets this completely backward in a lot of cases - they'll try and keep a company afloat to "protect jobs", and it just makes things worse and worse.

yebyen 12y ago
Come on, you just cherry-picked the one part of his argument that didn't conflict with what you had to say. I'll grant you that you started by admitting that... He's not just talking about protecting existing jobs, he's talking about an existing regulated market that bends to meet standards that are dictated for financial and safety. Uber came in and ignored those regulations. Those companies have insurance, which means he can use them in his business, and Uber he cannot use because they are not operating within the legal framework. If the taxi companies all go out of business, where will the law abiding business customers that need to work with insured vendors all go? There is a reason for the legal framework to exist, and it's not only to protect existing entrenched business interests.
- davidw 12y ago
  > cherry-picked There are a lot to both sides - it's a big, complex debate. I wanted to focus on one thing I felt was not a good argument at all.