
French Uber drivers have created their own Uber - kawera
http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/3/9841562/french-uber-drivers-launch-app-vtc-cab
======
joshstrange
If the app works then great but I'm not about to herald this as some great
accomplishment. There is a reason Lyft/Uber completely steamrolled the taxi
industry (aside from skirting regulations that were arguably bad to start
with) and it's because they provided a 10000x better experience over calling a
taxi dispatcher and waiting for cab (if it even shows up). I hated using taxis
but Uber/Lyft changed all of that fixing all the problems with the taxi
industry.

Plain and simple the taxi industry had a monopoly, got lazy, didn't innovate,
and didn't give a shit about their customers. I relish watching them burn down
in the same way I enjoy watching Google Fiber trouce it's competition.

Now if drivers want to create an app to compete with Lyft/Uber then more power
to them, if they want to run it as a non-profit then great, just as long as
their app isn't a buggy/crashing POS then I'll use it but I'm not holding my
breath for that to happen. The best I saw from a cab company was a mobile
website that asked for your location and allowed you to dispatch a cab after
typing a short message. TWICE they never showed and once they didn't even read
the message as I had scheduled the cab for a specific time and they showed up
45min early and called to ask where I was...

~~~
kamaal
>>Plain and simple the taxi industry had a monopoly, got lazy, didn't
innovate, and didn't give a shit about their customers.

I take this another SV hubris in trying to look at every problem like they've
been working on it for a long time, or have better understanding than the
actual people working in that domain for decades.

The only reason Uber like companies can give you those rides for a cheap price
is not because there is some magic, or innovation happening there. Its because
they are burning billions of that VC money to subsidize your travel,
transportation is a very capital intensive business.

The day these companies are subject to the same tax rules as every body else
and have to work without those billions in the bank, it will be game over.
There is a reason why these airlines, logistics and transportation companies
are always scraping from bottom.

Its very hard to run these businesses if you play by fair rules and don't
cheat.

~~~
davidf18
>> The only reason Uber like companies can give you those rides for a cheap
price is not because there is some magic, or innovation happening there. Its
because they are burning billions of that VC money to subsidize your travel,
transportation is a very capital intensive business.

This is certainly _NOT_ the case in NYC where I live. Artificial scarcity of
taxis was created by the city government by limiting the number of medallions
to 13,000 and as a result, taxi medallions had cost $1.2 million. Much of taxi
fare went to paying for those $1.2 million medallions. Uber has offered lower
fees, offers greener rides and lower still fees through Uber pool where
passengers share an Uber than the taxi industry with a rating system so that
you know if you are getting a good driver. Now those $1.2 million medallions
are worth about $700K and many taxis are now not in use and the taxi companies
are declaring bankruptcy.

It is possible that if the government had not created the artificial scarcity
by limiting medallions Uber may not have gained traction.

~~~
sharemywin
So, what stops NYC from taxing Uber? That $15 billion is going to have to come
from somewhere.

~~~
bydo
The money already came from the sale of the medallions. It isn't a yearly fee,
which is good, since at 150m taxi rides per year, that would increase the
price of each ride by at least $100.

Though medallion sales also aren't worth anything near $15b, anyway -- the
1.2m figure is what medallion sales peaked at. Most sold for significantly
less in the past.

Normally very few new medallions come up for auction; the city knows their
value is in their scarcity. Though the current budget[1] accounts for some
$400m per year from medallion sales, mostly from the continuing rollout of
green/boro cabs, which, if coming from the rest of the system instead, would
still be a pretty significant fare hike per ride.

1:
[http://council.nyc.gov/downloads/pdf/budget/2015/taxi.pdf](http://council.nyc.gov/downloads/pdf/budget/2015/taxi.pdf)

~~~
sharemywin
they'll probably institute some kind of tax that if you have a medallion you
don't have to pay. Since all the Uber data goes through the internet all the
transactions can be tracked and taxed.

------
habosa
I use Uber a good amount (~10x a month) and while I like the service I just
don't see why everyone is so impressed with the company. Let's consider what
people like about Uber:

"It's so much more convenient to use an app than a taxi dispatch" \- totally
true. The taxi industry was definitely lazy. But now most Uber markets also
have a competitor to dispatch a taxi by phone (Flywheel, etc).

"The drivers are not (jerks|unsafe|scary|etc)" \- at this point half of the
smart taxi drivers have gone to Uber, there's not much of a difference in
driver quality.

I think the real thing that nobody else can do that Uber does is sell you a
cheap ride. Uber is cheaper than a taxi in almost every city (30% in my
experience). If taxis were 10% cheaper than Uber, I'd go to Flywheel
immediately. How did they achieve this low price? Simple: by ignoring laws,
not paying for expensive regulations, and passing more costs on to the driver.

This is not impressive to me. I could think of 10 industries that could easily
be 'disrupted' if you add the rule 'You're allowed to ignore all existing laws
and regulations'. I could provide you with a $20 massage ... assuming you
don't want a licensed massage therapist. How about a $10 light repair ...
assuming you don't want a real electrician.

You might respond: "but habosa, who cares? You're getting a good ride at a
lower price with more convenience". My frustration comes from the precedent
this sets. Uber says that if you have enough VC funding, you can make
lawbreaking and regulatory blindness a central pillar of a billion-dollar
company. There are a lot of people who have invested in credentials such as
taxi medallions (or the equivalent in other industries) because they didn't
have a hundred million dollars of VC funding to shake off the lawsuit. And
some Uber-like company can come into their space and instantly devalue their
investment. I don't believe the ends justify the means because soon there will
be an Uber we don't like, and there will be nothing we can do about it.

~~~
karmacondon
I was in complete agreement with you until the last sentence. "An Uber we
don't like" probably won't happen because if people don't like a service, they
won't use it. An unpopular business can rarely force itself on customers.

And it seems that the same is true of Uber itself. It's possible that the
existing laws and regulations aren't necessary. People seem to be able to
conduct themselves properly without being licensed and bonded. I consistently
hear more good things than bad things about Uber, and all of my personal
experiences have been positive. Whatever they're doing, it's working.

The same might not be true for an electrician or a massage therapist. As much
as I hate to say it (deep breath), the Free Market seems to be sorting this
out just fine. I'm not going full libertarian and suggesting we conduct social
experiments with the FDA or the fire department. But in some cases, maybe the
best way to figure out which regulations are really necessary is to ignore
them and see what happens.

~~~
habosa
By an "Uber we don't like" I mean "an uber that comes into your industry" (or
an industry of your family members, etc).

As far as The Free Market, I agree 100% that Uber provides a good service.
However I feel bad for the people who made investments in the taxi industry by
following the law and then had those investments completely devalued by a
lawbreaker with good PR.

A ton of america's certifications are not necessary, I'd bet. But the proper
method for removing those certifications is not to just ignore them with a fat
stack of money. One day that will go wrong.

Tangentally, I think AirBnb will one day get bitten by this. They're gonna
have some shady AirBnb burn down without a fire alarm or give a bunch of
people an infectious disease and everyone will realize why we have hotel
regulation. Again this is another service of which I am a happy customer, but
we are playing with fire.

------
SlashmanX
Every time I see an article about Uber or taxi drivers I feel thankful that I
live in a place where apps like Hailo exist. Every time I read the comments on
these types of articles I see people pointing out what the people want/need
and how taxi companies could make it work while thinking to myself "Hailo
already does this".

It was created by ex-taxi drivers too and every taxi driver I talk to speaks
very highly of them and how they manage to satisfy both drivers and
passengers. Hopefully they can manage to expand further

~~~
manuelflara
I'm not sure if Hailo works like MyTaxi, which is quite popular in Barcelona
(specially since Uber got banned). Personally, I don't like it. It's just an
app that replaces calling a taxi company. So yeah, better than calling, I
agree, but it's not as good a service as Uber. Why? Because you're dealing
with taxis. In Barcelona, you either live in a part of town where there are
taxis driving by your street all the time anyway, so why use it? Or, like me,
live somewhere where taxis don't really go as much. So when I use MyTaxi,
they're always quite far, and very often cancel the ride when I've already
been waiting for a few minutes, probably someone hailed them on the street. So
overall, not the awesome experience that Uber always has been for me.

~~~
SlashmanX
Hailo is actually available in Barcelona (as well as Madrid), and it deos
basically work as you describe. However, your issues sound very similar to how
it was in Dublin but they started expanding further and now they cover the
entire county and they're pretty damn good. There's even competitors over here
(Lynk is one I think), which is usually a great sign.

~~~
viscanti
If anything, I think the Hailo case shows that these drivers will have a tough
go of things. Hailo managed to get significant funding, had their own in-house
engineering team and still had to pull out of all of North America. It's a
difficult market to compete in (unless taxi manages to leverage their monopoly
status to keep new apps like Uber out).

------
Sarkie
"Created" vs "Rebranded"

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=592351321420775866...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=5923513214207758667)

~~~
scotty79
Uber vs this, looks like Apple vs Android (or PC many years ago).

What I mean is, to compete with Uber it's a good idea to build taxi calling
platform that all local taxi networks could adopt (and brand to some degree).
Same way that Google needed to create open platform that established mobile
manufacturers could participate in.

They will eventually adopt it because it brings customers (and they can't
adopt Uber), and customers will adopt it because they'll be able to use
central platform to call local taxi with all the conveniences of pre-defined
destinations and automatic payment.

I think the Uber is successful not because of price achieved by hiring non-
professional drivers with their non-professional cars and getting the price
down. I think they are successful because you no longer need to talk to the
driver or manually pay to get somewhere.

------
Maken
"Angry French Uber drivers have created their own Uber"

Now that's a misleading title. These guys seems perfectly reasonable, and it
is clearly an alternative platform that suits better their own interests than
Uber, not something done by an angry mob.

~~~
briandear
You've obviously not have spent much time around French taxi drivers and Uber
drivers. Not the must sedate group.

~~~
palmer_eldritch
I wouldn't want someone driving me to be sedated.

------
comboy
I still don't understand why Uber couldn't let drivers set their own fares. It
seems to me that it should create a healthy market that in the end would be
great outcome for consumers.

E.g. some hours are much less profitable for Uber drivers - so they set the
fare higher and thanks to that you can always find a driver when needed. On
the other hand, higher current fare works as an invitation for the new
drivers. It auto adjusts to drivers/users availability in given region.

~~~
jacquesm
Because Uber is using these people as a resource and allowing them to set
their own rates would cut in on Ubers margins.

Drivers provide capital goods (a vehicle) and work (as opposed to hiring a
bunch of employees which you'd have to pay even if there was no work) and they
provide these at a moments notice at Ubers discretion.

If Uber allowed drivers to set their own rates that would initiate a 'race to
the bottom' reducing the fares and thus Ubers percentage.

Because it is convenient to make these operators out to be independent
entities for legal reasons does not rule out Ubers desire to treat them as
unpaid employees for totally different reasons.

From Ubers persective _some_ independence is good, just enough to not assume
any responsibilities that go with operating a company like this but too much
independence (such as control over the rates) is a bad thing.

The 'new middlemen' have to ride a very fine line here to protect their income
stream.

A real free market is simply not in Ubers interest, they would like the prices
to stay as high as possible, basically what the market will bear.

~~~
halviti
>If Uber allowed drivers to set their own rates that would initiate a 'race to
the bottom'

Not necessarily, it could easily go both ways as it would create a market for
people that want to pay more for "better" drivers.. people with nice cars
(teslas and generally expensive automobiles) just to be seen in them or to
experience riding in them, drivers that pamper their clients with newspapers,
in vehicle entertainment, free water, etc.

~~~
mattzito
Right, but what would the UX look like for that? You're suddenly selecting
multiple options, filtering based on your criteria, then having to reselect
when there's not enough drivers that meet your criteria, etc. etc.

Part of the beauty of the uber experience is that (at least from a UX
perspective), it's very very frictionless. You make two, maybe three
selections and hit go, and you the car arrives.

~~~
JupiterMoon
Surely that is the point of the Uber exec etc categories?

~~~
mattzito
Right, but there's three or four of those and you can only select one. The GP
was describing filtering based on driver quality, on car style and model, etc.

That could easily balloon to a pretty large number of elements.

------
HappyTypist
This is called disintermediation. In short, unless you can convince at least
51% of the drivers to join your platform in a very short period of time, your
offering will be inferior (longer ETAs, lower earnings per hour for drivers)
due to the network effect. As times go on, your drivers will leave the
inferior platform. This is assuming that your app is at least good as Uber's.

~~~
aianus
There's not much of a network effect with taxis. Someone's going to build a
free aggregator so you can see which local service has the closest car and it
will become a commodity.

~~~
viscanti
The network effect was just explained above. The more drivers on the system,
the shorter the ETAs. The shorter the ETAs, the more riders want to use that
system. The more riders on the system, the less downtime between each ride for
drivers. New entrants have to subsidize the market (pay drivers more than they
make and give riders steep discounts) in an attempt to catch up.

Recent reports about Lyft burning hundreds of millions of dollars in a
relatively short amount of time, without gaining much market share most
places, shows just how high of barrier there is. Hailo pulled out of all of
North America this year for similar reasons. It's just really expensive to try
to subsidize your way to competing with the network effect.

~~~
sharemywin
from what I understand drivers still get on both systems. hard to call someone
a contractor if they can't work for other companies.

~~~
viscanti
Well, there's a difference between being able to work for multiple systems,
and having all or nearly all drivers actually doing that. Is there anything to
suggest that all or nearly all drivers actually do that? In SF i see most uber
drivers exclusively driving for Uber (but most lyft drivers seem to be on both
systems). That's an admittedly small sample size, so is there some evidence
that isn't accurate?

~~~
aianus
You don't need the drivers working for multiple systems, you just need the
users to be using an aggregator that connects to multiple providers, like
Kayak or Expedia do for flights.

Once the user is blindly choosing between providers based solely on price/ETA
then the established companies have no advantage anymore and the margins will
go to zero just like the airline industry.

------
48snickers
From the article: "The geolocalized app offers the same basic services as
Uber; users can hail black cars, rate their drivers, and drink free bottled
water."

Does the app also remove drivers with consistently low ratings from the
system? From where I stand, _that_ is the killer feature of Uber. In the early
days, I was happy to pay a premium to Uber not to put up with the typical crap
you get from cabbies in Los Angeles. For example, swearing the entire duration
of a cab ride from LAX to El Segundo or Manhattan Beach because they were
hoping to go for a longer ride.

I've never had an Uber or Lyft driver that was anything but pleasant to talk
to.

~~~
CydeWeys
The incentives don't seem to align for this. Why kick someone out of the
system and lose their 250 Euros/month?

------
AYBABTME
The main issue with "each their own app" is that as a person who travels, I'm
not going to install one-app-per-city. I'll just use Uber.

~~~
haswell
I'd love to see some kind of universal "Hailing" API. Something that would
allow a single app to coordinate rides wherever you go.

I travel as well, and really wish I didn't need to have an entire folder of
transportation apps on my phone.

But alas, I have a feeling that many services would not go along with this
because of direct competition in the same market area. And some probably just
aren't sophisticated enough to publish an API, much less adopt a centralized /
standardized interface.

But I can dream.

~~~
kawera
Yes, protocols, not platforms.

~~~
nathancahill
When was the last time a protocol had a unicorn valuation? I completely agree,
but it's not aligned with investor interest.

------
ucaetano
"Whereas Uber takes a 20 percent commission for every trip in Paris, VTC Cab
charges its drivers a monthly fee of €250"

So the drivers need to make at least €1,250/month for this model to be better
than Uber (for the driver)? Not to mention that it has a higher upfront cost.

Sounds like most drivers would rather pay 20% on whatever they make than pay
an upfront fee with no guarantee of revenue.

~~~
brohee
The typical Uber car lease is way over that, anyone not making at least that
shouldn't be a driver at all I guess...

~~~
diabeetusman
I'm sure there are plenty of drivers who drive for Uber to supplement their
income, not replace. If they already have a car, they only need to cover the
additional mileage/depreciation, not pay for the entire car lease.

~~~
forgetsusername
> _they only need to cover the additional mileage /depreciation, not pay for
> the entire car lease._

Don't forget the extra insurance required when you are using your vehicle to
transport passengers, commercially. Of course, not many people actually buy
it, which is essentially insurance fraud. Don't think so? Call your insurance
provider and ask their opinion.

------
repomies691
What's the user experience like? There is a lot of talk about these "worker-
own" apps/networks, however I very much doubt that they are able to compete
with the uber level of service in the longer run. You need lots of software
engineering etc skills to run this kind of service smoothly.

~~~
seivan
Exactly. Outsourcing your main tech stach isn't exactly competing with Uber.

It's easy to tell them apart. Which team has a properly restful API available
to the public.

~~~
LunaSea
It's amazing to me that you think that anybody (besides developers) will care
about REST API design rather than the service offered by the driver.

~~~
repomies691
I don't care about the REST API, but I care how well the app works etc. It
doesn't sound trivial to me. Showing the locations of the car and the customer
in real-time, routes in real-time, having all the communication systems
working all the time, the reputation system etc.

~~~
Q6T46nT668w6i3m
While I agree with conclusion, Uber, et al. doesn’t actually show real-time
locations and the communication system is error prone.

~~~
matwood
It looks like real time locations when I've taken uber, unless you mean not
real time as in slightly delayed time to get GPS, go to uber and then back to
my phone.

------
hackuser
It seems to me Uber's management openly disregards their workers (but tell me
if I'm wrong) and they openly disregard other social goods such as the law. I
see this in actions and occasionally in words too.

If Uber becomes the dominant service, which due to the network effect would be
the only place to find customers/drivers, what will they do to their workers?

There's no reason to think Uber will, out of the goodness of their hearts, do
any less than use their full market power to take as much as possible from
their workers.

~~~
LLWM
Uber wants to replace their drivers with self-driving cars. They've always
been very open about this.

------
ogrisel
I installed the app and the estimated trip prices seems from 1.5x to 2x more
expensive than for competing services.

------
jordanthoms
It's great that they are deciding to compete in the marketplace rather than
the courtroom.

It'll be interesting to see if the zero-commission model works for them though
- The 20% Uber takes is actually fairly reasonable (and much less than what a
traditional taxi company takes from their drivers) when you consider CC fees &
Collections, customer support costs, customer acquisition costs, marketing,
etc is all covered by that. Uber is spending huge amounts of money on growing
the customer base (which is good for drivers as they have a liquid market of
ride requests coming in all the time), and a service like this will most
likely not be able to invest as much in that since they don't have the
commission and investment to pay for it.

------
takee
> He says it costs more than $200,000 a year to maintain the app, which was
> developed by Multi Brains LLC, and his organization has begun buying ads on
> Google and Facebook.

That sounds a tad bit less (even assuming 250K, to account for "more than")
considering it includes salaries for >2 app developers, hardware/AWS costs and
marketing costs which seem to include Google and Facebook ads. What am I
missing here?

~~~
tristanj
Looking at their android app store page, Multi Brians LLC has built over a
dozen Uber clones
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=592351321420775866...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=5923513214207758667)
. The UI is very similar between the apps and I assume the backend is shared
so there's not much dev cost for an additional app.

~~~
kawera
I can easily see then offering an opt-in protocol for their clients allowing
users/travellers from one system to book rides in another system/city. Bingo!

Direct link: [http://taxistartup.com/](http://taxistartup.com/)

------
kennydude
App looks pretty nice which makes a change. Here (Newcastle, UK) a lot of taxi
companies have their own apps which are not even stable hence Uber is useful
(the only reason I actually use Uber)

------
joshmn
I bet they didn't think they had to run and operate a business.

The common thinking of "oh, it's in the app store, now I can sit back and
relax" is ludicrous.

------
CodeWriter23
I am most curious about how the numerous seasoned VCs who have poured money
into Uber, failed to recognize the thin barriers to entry for a would-be
competitor.

------
xorcist
How is this different from any other taxi app? Why is this their "own Uber"?

------
ape4
Add in Bitcoin for a lower barrier to entry for Uber-like services.

~~~
acveilleux
Bitcoin? Really? What kind of alternate reality do you live in that there are
millions of folks out there with:

(1) bitcoins

(2) the technical wherewithal to use them

(3) actually would consider doing so in a cab?

Bitcoins are exactly the opposite of credit cards, they are far from instant
and it's more then a swipe/touch/insert + a pin, signature or even nothing.

------
guinness74
With blackjack, and hookers.

------
dbg31415
Of course they did.

------
davidf18
The taxi drivers in Paris are much more likely to compete _if they think of
what the customer wants_ which is lower fares and a quicker ETA in a reliable
taxi. With the new app, since they are not paying the 20% fee of the Uber
drivers, they should undercut Uber by 20% thus attracting more customers and
making up in volume money they lose by having lower prices.

The VTC app should also implement the equivalent of Uber pool which is greener
than regular taxis while being able to offer customers even lower rates while
improving driver income.

NYC does have a taxi app for e-hailing called Arro which is able to compete
with Uber when Uber uses "Surge pricing" since the taxis don't charge surge
pricing.

~~~
CydeWeys
Agreed. I was flabbergasted when I got to that point in the article and it was
clear they were trying to compete with Uber by ... charging significantly
higher prices?! Good luck with that. They aren't charging 20% on every fare,
so if anything they should be lower.

------
fit2rule
And so goes the free market, in its most refined form .. how easy it is, after
all, to simply clone a service in some other language, some other framework,
and continue to deliver to customers.

What bothers me most is how the OS vendors are asleep at the wheel, again.
These kinds of services - "I am [here] and want [blah]" \- are broadly
applicable. "Word"-"Summoning" apps are a dime a dozen. Shouldn't this be a
builtin by now?

~~~
izacus
Why would everything have to be built-in? That just kills competition and
bloats the already large OSes.

~~~
fit2rule
Because users demand it, perhaps? I mean, stay with me, but I happen to think
Dropbox is a calamity that only was possible because of the Browser wars
taking out pretty much everyone, with the survivors basically going insane.
Peer-to-peer service discovery, built-in, should be a major feature by now. I
shouldn't need to worry about my Face-privacy; my portable computer has the
capability to handle that for me. If only someone would program it so.

------
baby
It's a non-profit => unfair competition

But they don't get the huge 20% commission on the ride? Well that's amazing.

Also looking at how much it cost them to maintain the app, if they have 1000
drivers subscribing for just a month they already have reached a turn over.

I just hope it offers the same kind of experience Uber does: drivers are
ranked, and thus can't act like taxi drivers.

PS: in Romania the rate/km is written on the cab. Even similar taxis can have
very different rates. Most people don't see that and get screwed afterwards.
In Vietnam they use fake counters and increase the price x10. I welcome any
solutions to these problems (and Uber is def. one)

~~~
marincounty
"I just hope it offers the same kind of experience Uber does: drivers are
ranked, and thus can't act like taxi drivers."

On Halloween, I saw this older Uber driver pick up/take home one groups of
drunks, and idiots all night. This driver had a black Uber approved SUV. One
passenger insisted on taking a 10 foot tree branch home to her destination.
She tried to stuff it into his new SUV, and ripped the headliner. The driver
offered her water. She then told the driver if he didn't get her home, with
her light saber she would leave him a bad review. He let her hold the branch
outside the SUV. Her light saber was scratching the new paint.

Passengers shouldn't be able to leave any remarks, unless their was a major
problem with the ride. People have gotten way to finicky, and think they have
a right to review every aspect of this sharing economy.

While I watched this guy smile, and open doors; I thought how would I handle
these people. I think it would be along the line, "Get in this 4 door Uber
approved chariot--that I'm still trying to pay off. Shut the F--- up, and I'll
take your drunk a-- home. If you keep quiet, I won't throw the mineral water
at you."

I guess I wouldn't get a good review?

~~~
baby
> Passengers shouldn't be able to leave any remarks, unless their was a major
> problem with the ride. People have gotten way to finicky, and think they
> have a right to review every aspect of this sharing economy.

You're one time anecdote won't replace my manes rides with french taxi drivers
who behave like thugs. I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in
France people were pretty happy about Uber mostly because of the way taxi
drivers behave.

~~~
briandear
Exactly. While there are obviously some decent drivers, as a group, they are a
slimy bunch both in the car as well as outside the car.. Committing violent
assaults during the Uber protests, throwing bricks, setting fires and just
being altogether distasteful.

On several occasions in Avignon, I pre-paid for taxi service to the train
station and during the first instance, the guy never showed, the second
instance the car arrived 30 minutes late. Still attempting to get the refund.

I've used Uber all over the world and never once have I had issues like this.
I have no sympathy for taxi drivers. They don't care about me when a freelance
client wants to underpay me, nor do I expect them to. I'm a big boy. If some
business condition arises that affects my livelihood, I don't go set fire to
the Prefecture, I adapt.

Driving a car for money is still a thing. Supply and demand exists. Thus the
market can solve this. The taxi crowd wants to distort the market to protect
their fiefdom. While that helps the special interest, it harms the overall
public.

~~~
baby
Well, I didn't say they should get underpaid though, everybody should be able
to live a good life imo.

The problem is that taxi drivers bought their license for tens of thousands of
euros thinking they could resell it for the same price or more later.

