I'm surprised nobody has yet commented on WHY they are shutting down tonight. From [1]: "We have decided to suspend UberPOP starting tonight [...] first and fo

I'm surprised nobody has yet commented on WHY they are shutting down tonight. From [1]: "We have decided to suspend UberPOP starting tonight [...] first and foremost to protect our drivers ." - Thibaud Simphal, CEO Uber France Translation: "this is supposed to be a developed country with the rule of law, but the police is not capable of doing its job (or willing), so we're giving up". Another pearl: "Since the first of January, only 215 new VTC [licenses for private cars, the so called "legal" way of becoming an UberX] licenses were given out in the whole of France, even though during the same period, we had over 25,000 applicants at Uber to become a VTC driver." That's a 0.86% success rate. I'm sure those 215 cars were the absolute limit the market (of ~60 million inhabitants, with 400,000 passengers already using UberPOP) could bear and that the decision is not at all politically motivated. [1] http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2015/07/03/uber-annonce-la-suspension-d-uberpop-en-france_4669011_3234.html http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2015/07/03/uber-annon...