
France Says It Will Ban Uber’s Low-Cost Service in New Year - MaxQuentero
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/16/business/international/france-says-it-will-ban-ubers-low-cost-service-in-new-year.html?_r=0
======
corin_
In my (only a few days) experience with UberPop in Paris... it was horrible.
I've used Uber (various service types) in a few cities, and most of all use
them regularly in London. I think I'm close to adding them to my list of
companies I just don't want to give business to, but that's a whole other
barrel of worms.

I spent a week in Paris last month, and while I'd normally ignore an UberPop
level, my hotel was down a straight road to the place I was going every day
that week, and with UberPop I exactly hit the minimum (€4), whereas paying
more than double that I felt guilty enough to walk the 10-15min..

I don't think I've ever had such consistently bad experiences with any taxi
service, be it modern or old, global or local. All the UberPop drivers had no
GPS, or GPS that didn't work. All had trouble finding me to collect, despite
Uber's seemingly straight-forward system. I had to give directions (not just
"my hotel's round the next corner", but directions for full longer journeys),
luckily my French is _just_ good enough...

After a few trips I stopped trying to save money and went back to UberX and
UberBerline. All sorted after that (a couple of language-caused issues, but
that's my fault for being English in Paris and not speaking French as well as
I'd like!)

~~~
aetherson
What's the difference between UberPop and UberX?

~~~
santacluster
UberPop are unlicensed taxis in private cars masquerading as ride-shares.
Which they obviously aren't, since the paying client decides the destination.

I would be surprised if UberPop is still in operation anywhere in Europe by
the summer of 2015. It's patently illegal on multiple fronts.

Some governments are open to providing a regulatory framework (one that covers
safety and consumer protection), especially in places where the taxi market is
dysfunctional, but Uber's "fuck your laws, we'll do it anyway" attitude is
extremely counterproductive in that respect.

UberX is a professional limousine service, and in most places they operate
they abide by the rules. (Which also means they're not particularly cheaper
than regular taxis.)

~~~
HackinOut
I am a consumer (of UberPop among other transport solutions) and I am
(genuinely) not understanding: agreed it's not ride-shares, but why is there
laws that make non-ride-shares so complicated? UberPop is simple, for the
driver, the consumer and it drives the costs down, this sounds really nice to
me.

If it's only about safety and consumer protection, well shouldn't it be a
consumer choice anyway? (agreed it's easy for me, a male above 30 to tell
this... and despite the bad experiences I also had in Paris with UberPop
although my drivers had GPSes - one had 2 of them, was confused as hell and
should certainly be looking more at the road) Just like I do when I choose
real ride-shares (i.e. not UberPop. We have blablacar in France for example
which is hitchhiking through the internet).

It seems that, in France, politics made a huge mistake coming up with
horrendously expensive (apparently 200k to 300k EUR) taxi licenses and now
some people are at risk to pay for those mistakes, namely people who have
recently invested in one of this license. Cause even if UberPop is banned, VTC
(Vehicule de Tourisme avec Chauffeur) are now legal and make those licenses
quite useless (or at least the investment isn't nearly as justified as
before).

It's obvious to me that the law have to go in the direction of new technology
or the consequences will be quite disastrous. I agree that Uber's attitude
seems a bit harsh but I would thanks them for any induced (political) changes
in the direction of technology.

EDIT: didn't know the adverb "patently" was not referring to patents, thanks
dminor for teaching me english :) (I'm french obviously :/)

~~~
jcfrei
The idea behind regulating personal transportation, aka taxis is because of
the big external effects. If there was a free, unregulated market for taxis,
obviously fares would be much lower and there would be much more taxis on the
streets. However this in turn decreases the experience for the individual
passenger (more traffic leads to longer rides) and much more importantly
causes traffic lags for all other users of the road - most notably for the
transportation of goods. So while a completely liberated taxi market might
work out for the passengers (especially outside of rush hours) it most likely
won't work out for the economy at large. This is an inherent problem when you
have a liberal market (transportation) which uses a publicly owned good (the
streets) which can't be priced appropriately (or only in a limited way - see
London).

~~~
cromwellian
But doesn't fewer taxis also mean longer waiting times to _get_ a taxi, and
encourage an increase in private car ownership, replacing taxis on the road
with private drivers driving themselves?

Won't one Uber driver replace many cars on the road, especially as the price
is driven down, the cost of using Uber makes owning a car less appealing in
many locales?

Rather than ban Uber, they could just implement taxes, just like Uber
implements real time surge pricing. The tax could be tied to congestion. Uber
would pass these onto consumers, prices would rise, and presumably demand for
drivers would equalize with how much time and money people collectively would
be willing to pay.

~~~
jcfrei
I agree; real time surge pricing for congested roads would be _the optimal
solution_. But just imagine the outcry in the population when you try to
implement road charges for all inner city roads. This is another example of an
economically perfectly sound concept which is in many parts of the world
politically completely unfeasible (at least for the moment). On top of that,
couldn't you argue that transportation is a basic human right? If so, you
would have to either discriminate against the poor or adjust the rates based
on income, which again makes this a politically very hot and difficult topic.

~~~
drivingmenuts
> real time surge pricing for congested roads would be the optimal solution.

Except where people are too poor to afford surge pricing, even though they may
need to travel just as much as anyone else.

Libertarianism is great right up to the point where you actually need
something you can't afford, like medical care or travel to a job. Then it's
pretty much a big FU because you're not profitable.

~~~
SilasX
This comes up every time someone suggests pricing a scarce good (either with
Pigovian taxes or privatizing a scarce resource), but it has an easy solution:
[p]rebate everyone the amount of tax they would pay for poverty level
consumption of the resource. That preserves all of the incentives to cut back
on a marginal unit, without penalizing someone for being poor.

Facing economic realities doesn't mean keeping staying with systems that
rewards the wrong thing.

------
cpplinuxdude
Man. As a Parisian, I don't know what to think of this. Our public transport
is quite good, but there's pretty much nothing running at night, apart for
Taxis, and Parisian taxis are a rip off.

France can be quite reactionary when it comes to think like this, and it's a
shame. Wish they'd thought of ways to incorporate this technology and
democratise the system as opposed to a good old knee-jerk.

~~~
murbard2
After World War II, communists, who had been on the right side of the
conflict, got enormous power. This eventually percolated in the education
system, and now France is left with a few generations that have been force fed
progressive propaganda from an early age.

Combine that with a more ancient bend for Jacobinism and technocracy and you
have the current situation. Very powerful unions who can lock down reform, and
a population who polls to the left of Cuba in terms of political opinions.

Ce pays est foutu.

~~~
mahouse
If you have to choose between a conspiration of communists and jacobinists,
and normal people that just disagree with you...

~~~
icebraining
Communists aren't normal people?

~~~
mahouse
Not that the person I replied to was treating them as such.

I'm a socialist myself so I feel sympathy for a communist, even if I don't
agree with him.

~~~
murbard2
Of course they are normal people, that's what makes it terrifying. Communism
killed hundred of millions of people. And yes, the French communist party
supported Stalinism for a _long_ time.

~~~
megalodon
Communism - the utopian ideology - didn't kill hundreds of millions of people,
because it has never existed. It has been used several times as a means to
reach power, after which the dictator(ships) have chosen to either adopt it to
his/their own liking (Stalinism, Marxist-Leninism, Trotskyism, <insert>ism) or
practically abolish it as is the case with modern-day China. Fully developed
communism is supposed to (alas, probably never will) be 'a stateless,
classless and moneyless society, structured upon common ownership of the means
of production.' [1]

That's about as far from Stalinism you can get.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism)

------
boothead
I went to Paris the other weekend, and my first interaction with the taxis
system was when some scumbag tried to gouge me 100 euro for a 6 km taxi ride).
Contrast that to pulling out my phone and ordering an Uber which cost me 20
euro.

------
aikah
> “Currently, those who use UberPop are not protected in case of an accident,”

Well,the truth is,it's up to the driver to get insured properly. Which is a
huge problem,since the proper insurance cost a lot of money.Most drivers using
UberPop would just be violating the law here.

At the same time,i'm pretty sure UberPop doesnt check if drivers follow all
law requirements,because they wouldnt find enough drivers for the service.

~~~
georgemcbay
Same basic family of loopholes as Airbnb and other "sharing economy" services.

Shift legal liability for regulation following to the end provider, ignore the
fact that very many of your providers are almost certainly breaking laws
and/or contracts (eg. leases) and hope nobody notices until you're big enough
to be a difficult target.

Seems to be a pretty effective model here in the US.

~~~
agumonkey
Personally, this taught me that with time we all forgot what was provided by
old platforms. It's a strange feeling. RyanAir for instance, provides 20$ air
tickets... but you can't have more than 1 luggage, and you won't get served
food, toilets aren't free, etc etc. Makes you realize that older companies
prices aren't complete fluff, but we just forget what's included in their
service. Until we need them.

Same for new 'disruptive' startups. You don't pay as much as a Taxi, but it's
a random guy, may have insurance, may know how to drive safely, etc etc..
Seems like ensuring all this features to be stable is what drove the cost high
in the first place.

Cycles.

~~~
Xylakant
In general I agree with your sentiment, but toilets are indeed free on ryanair
flights.

~~~
agumonkey
Weird, I'm sure I've heard RA's boss saying they would bring down prices below
10 euros by making it optional. Maybe CEO humour :)

~~~
jarek
They say that kind of stuff because there's no such thing as bad press for
Ryanair so it ends up as free brand marketing. They also "considered" lay-down
or standing-only flights at one point as I remember.

~~~
rmc
Almost certainly it's regulation that's forcing them to have seats.

They keep the toilets free because they are probably smart enough to know that
enough of their customers hate them that they'd piss on the aisle and the
clean up costs would be too much.

~~~
jarek
> Almost certainly it's regulation that's forcing them to have seats.

Evil big government keeping disruptive businesses down again. Probably due to
regulatory capture by the seat cartel...

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bernardom
> The Thévenoud Law would require all drivers who chauffeur paying passengers
> to have a license, obtainable after 250 hours of training, and to have
> appropriate insurance, just as with normal taxis.

250 hours!!! What in the world do they need that kind of training for? To
operate a car? Are they doing The Knowledge like in London?

------
pvnick
Anytime a disruptive company appears which successfully provides the same or
superior service to customers than the established players at a lower cost,
the knee-jerk reaction is to squash it using the powers of government. We see
the same reaction to Tesla across the United States (although their cars can
hardly be described as "lower cost").

What upsets me is the commentary I read on Hacker News: "I don't like Uber, I
personally had bad experiences with their drivers, and their cut-throat
business practices rub me the wrong way. They deserve to be banned." Wtf?
That's not the disruptive spirit of Silicon Valley, it's the reactionary
cowardice of close-minded politicians.

~~~
aikah
> That's not the disruptive spirit of Silicon Valley

Well,disruption shouldnt mean,"the hell with the law".San Fransisco might
tolerate that,but all the world isnt San Fransisco.

Nobody denies the taxi industry has issues.But in some countries this
"disruptive" behavior doesnt last very long.

Other Uber services are still legal in France.They didnt outlaw Uber,just Uber
services that violate french laws.

Sorry,but this whole "disrupt" thing is bullshit,especially when on the short
run it's just new middlemen trying to replace the old ones.

We've seen it today in Australia,with Uber raising price x4,the challengers
are no better than the old guard,it's just a power struggle.

------
zobzu
One of the big issue with taxis is that this is a monopoly and a few powerful
people have a lot to gain (not the drivers, obviously).

Same problem everywhere in the world right now (the opposing company being
Uber or another one does not matter. if you don't like Uber it does not
matter. it affects the principle itself)

------
grej
“Not only is it illegal to offer this service but additionally for the
consumer there is a real danger,” French interior ministry spokesperson
Pierre-Henry Brandlet told iTELE, questioning drivers’ inadequate insurance.

Many of the justification for these bans do seem to focus on the perception of
inadequate insurance for the drivers. I wonder if Uber's next move will be to
ask the drivers (in the markets that require it) to procure some type of
commercial insurance. The catch for them is that they may not be able to do
that through the company without putting themselves even more at risk in the
ongoing class action lawsuit on its classification of drivers as contractors
vs. employees. It will be very interesting to see how it all plays out.

~~~
watwut
Will they be able to compete on price if they do that? Commercial insurance is
usually more expensive.

~~~
rmc
"Will they be able to compete on price?"

Sounds like the current low prices are the result of cutting corners and not
having adequate insurance. Which makes me side against Uber here.

~~~
prostoalex
Yeah [http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/understanding-the-
econom...](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/understanding-the-economics-of-
uber)

There's no economy of scale that's typical of technology companies here - Uber
drivers are not able to buy cars cheaper in bulk, get a better deal on gas, or
buy commercial insurance at much cheaper rates. Hertz or Avis have a better
cost structure than Uber.

The price advantage comes from skirting the regulation on taxi medallions
(only relevant for a few large markets like NYC) and skirting commercial
insurance requirements.

------
yawz
I hate this "management by banning" approach.

I've never used UberPop so I cannot comment on its quality as a service.
However because it is working, governments should take this as an indication
that there's something wrong with the taxi system and the system is ripe for
being disturbed by this type of ideas.

Can you blame someone for wanting to pay less for the same service (getting
from A to B)? If it is the licensing system that makes the taxis expensive
then it should be reviewed. Banning is lack of management.

------
applecore
Finding a taxi in Paris at night can be an ordeal, so besides regulating the
competition, what's the rationale behind banning a low-cost, on-demand
alternative?

~~~
chippy
>“Currently, those who use UberPop are not protected in case of an accident,”
he added. “So not only is it illegal to offer the service, but for the
consumer, it’s a real danger."

~~~
wuliwong
This really confused me as the article ended with " On its French driver
recruiting website, it assures applicants that they do not need any insurance
beyond what is standard for their vehicles. All UberPop trips are covered by
commercial liability insurance with a $5 million per accident maximum, it
says, that covers any damage or injuries caused by the driver." So which is
it?

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pbreit
So, what's the answer? A new, much thinner set of regulations governing
Uber/Lyft-style transportation? Sort of what AirBnB got in San Francisco?
Surely governments should enable what is clearly a fantastically better
situation for both riders and drivers.

------
hnnewguy
Banning products and services in demand by every day people has a long history
of working out.

~~~
illumen
Banning dangerous and illegal services is fine if the providers don't clean up
their act.

~~~
hnnewguy
> _Banning dangerous and illegal services is fine_

Things that are banned are always described as "dangerous and illegal".

~~~
illumen
Not true. Many times dangerous operators are legitimately shut down for
breaking the law, or hurting people. It's called regulation and justice.

Even Uber uses it on their own drivers. If the drivers get too many bad
ratings they don't allow the driver to keep working for them.

Uber has gotten too many bad ratings, and France is shutting them down.

~~~
wuliwong
That is a very naive point of view. Governments don't work like Yelp or Hacker
News or something. There are people that represent or have the support of
powerful lobbies which make things change. In this case, the taxi union. The
article even talks about this move being in response to threats by the taxis.
"With Paris taxis threatening to create traffic chaos on Monday with a go-slow
action to protest the ride-booking company, an Interior Ministry spokesman
said that Uber’s low-cost service, UberPop, would be prohibited in France as
of Jan. 1."

------
drzaiusapelord
I think these uber wars are going to be interesting from a historical
perspective. We're kinda seeing which governments are unusually protectionist
and resistant to change. No surprise France, Netherlands, and Spain are on
this list. Considering those countries have fairly weak to poor economic
growth, one would think a bit of economic liberalisation would go a long way.
That's the funny thing about protectionism, it keeps voters happy (cab
lobbies, unions, etc) but it tends to kill innovation, the economy, and job
growth. How do these countries expect to improve their situation? More deficit
spending and EU bailouts like Greece?

How companies like Uber are treated may be a canary in a coalmine situation
for hurting economies. If companies like Uber can't be allowed to compete,
then who will? Who will make the new jobs and create new value?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I'm not sure that enforcing existing laws and closing loopholes that allow
illegal taxi services to pretend to be ride sharing is "protectionist".

~~~
drzaiusapelord
That language is a little loaded. These aren't taxis. Taxis are cars that sit
and take fares from the street. They take up room, add to traffic, etc. This
more like requesting a car service, which is pretty common in big cities. Taxi
regulation being used to stop it is a sign of corruption, not law enforcement.

I think there are regulatory hurdles to be crossed here, but a wholesale
banning of the service is extreme, short-sighted, and anti-business.

------
nraynaud
Remember all the ad hoc US regulatory hurdles that ultimately killed the
Concord rentability to protect the local incumbent. And that was not a better
radiotaxi, that was flying faster than the speed of the sound.

------
oelmekki
So, it's only uberpop that is banned, and one can still use uberX ?

~~~
pyb
Yes

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bmmayer1
"Parisian taxi associations had brought the case against Uber, accusing it of
unfair competition"

"Unfair competition" is apparently the newest word for "competition."

~~~
gaius
Just as disruption is the new word for pocketing the money you would have
spent on complying with the law, as profit.

------
lectrick
"unfair competition" seems like a ridiculous anti-consumer reason to kill
something, especially considering the expense of Paris taxis

------
weddpros
It's mostly a matter of lobbying... Public safety, assurance, etc... if it
were the problem, they'd ask drivers to show their assurance card to
customers, and warn customers. But if they only want to ban Uber so satisfy
taxi drivers, any excuse will do.

The French press even mentions that Uber was banned in India after a driver
raped a client. What's the point? FUD. Will they ban every profession with at
least one raper in it?

Btw, french politicians were convicted of rape too... lol

------
badave
It's pretty obvious that its company v. consumer these days. Its a war
throughout the world - businesses can easily corrupt public servants in all
walks of life. Is there a way to eradicate corruption?

