
Uber is ending its services in Denmark - aedron
http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-ending-services-in-denmark-2017-3
======
legulere
Uber's business model simply cannot survive in sensibly regulated markets when
they have to follow the regulations.

Uber is probably better than taxi services in markets that lack basic
safeguarding regulations or have questionable regulations like restricted
tradable taxi medallions leading to high prices. But this is not the case in
many places around the world.

~~~
onion2k
_Uber 's business model simply cannot survive in sensibly regulated markets
when they have to follow the regulations._

Uber could follow the regulations, charge approximately the same as a taxi,
and still make a moderate profit. There's nothing about Uber's business model
that says they have to be cheapest or have a monopoly. The only reason they
choose not to do that is ambition (or greed if you're being less generous to
them).

This is just Uber showing governments around the world that they're willing to
leave a market entirely if they don't get their own way. Uber are betting on
their customers becoming vocal opponents of the regulation and lobbying their
government to change the law in order to allow Uber back without the rules,
and for other governments to become fearful of enforcing their regulations in
case they anger Uber's customers too. It might work. On the other hand, maybe
people aren't actually that bothered about which particular ride company they
use, and Uber's strategy won't work. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

~~~
hocuspocus
> Uber could follow the regulations, charge approximately the same as a taxi,
> and still make a moderate profit.

That's what they're doing here in Berlin and I really wonder if they make a
profit, especially when the competing apps are also funded by deep pockets
that don't necessarily try to make direct profits.

~~~
Cthulhu_
That's the real problem - Uber has a load of investor money they can use to
artificially keep a low price, establish their name, push competition out of
the market by undercutting, etc. Until they start to want to make real money.

~~~
M_Grey
Unfortunately they're going to have to do a _lot_ of establishing to change
the associations with that name, now. Short of Kalanick being struck by a
freak bolt of lightning, that seems unlikely to happen. Far from it, a place
that toxic is going to keep bleeding over time.

~~~
mynewtb
I assure you that you could ask 100 people in Berlin and no one would have any
idea what you are talking about.

~~~
M_Grey
Between Applebaum, Waymo, and the crash that got the Waymo suit mentioned in
every article about the crash for a couple of days... well, maybe they'll hear
about it sooner or later. Certainly any Uber competitors must be sitting in a
room with their marketing departments and thinking about how to capitalize on
this, once they're past the "Hand them lots of rope and give them space,"
phase.

------
aedron
For some reason, Uber in Denmark was never cheaper than taxis. And this
despite that practically every taxi here is a high-end Mercedes (and priced
accordingly). So Uber skirted regulations and were _still_ not cheaper than
the overpriced and politically protected taxi services. Can't say that I am
going to miss them. Shame though, because the taxi services here badly needs
competition.

~~~
doppel
My experience is that Uber was roughly ~20% cheaper overall.

The good outcome is that the taxi companies ramped up, got out a decent app
(with most of the features from the Uber app) and we got discussion and even
law changes about how Taxis operate (though not necessarily all for the
better).

~~~
distances
Finland got some updates to taxi law, too, and Uber stays illegal (drivers
will be prosecuted for providing an unlicensed taxi service). Sounds like a
fair outcome.

------
tyingq
Seems a reasonable decision by Uber to pull out..."mandatory fare meters" is a
bit over the top. But, given the current PR tide, they can hardly afford any
more headlines that even sound negative on the surface. They must be dying for
a positive piece to be written.

~~~
kalleboo
Grocery stores are required to have validated scales to measure produce, how
is it "over the top" for taxis to have validated meters to measure distance?

~~~
wayn3
it is over the top. when I go to a store and buy 2 bananas, i dont really give
a shit about whether the scale is validated. I want those two bananas and if
the scale says its 2.19, and im fine with that, do I really care whether the
scale showed the correct weight? Seriously?

With uber, its the same thing. I want to go a place. The app says it'll be X.
Do I give a shit about a meter? Probably not.

This kind of regulation is retarded.

Its about "fraud". I cant be defrauded by a scale. Maybe that was different
100 years ago when this kind of regulation came up. I don't know. I wasn't
there. But when Im in a supermarket looking at a piece of produce that I want
to purchase and the device that figures out the price says its X dollars, I
don't really care how it arrived at that price. I want to buy the thing, or I
don't. God forbid it fucks me out of the 2 cents 10 extra grams would cost. Oh
lord.

I'd certainly pay a premium to be able to actually get a ride instead of
waiting for a fucking taxi with a pissed off driver for an hour.

~~~
arghIdontwantto
would you care if every transaction you did on your bank account also fucked
you out of 2 cents?

We (me in Portugal but a lot of Europe as well) have laws to prevent this kind
of fraud. Gas stations, scales in supermarkets, etc all have to be 'validated'
every year to make sure no funny business is going on. If you end up fucking
up, the fines can/will probably make you close shop.

You may not care, but if for each litre of petrol the station sells, it
pocketed one cent, we are talking thousands of euros fraud per day. If most
shops do this, the customers are being defrauded of millions.

You still think it is ok?

~~~
tyingq
I think it's okay in this case, with taxi meters. The Uber app shows you the
route and cost before you commit to it. And, you can verify the calculation
with other free tools if you want. A meter in the taxi is actually less
useful. It accurately measures distance, but doesn't tell you if the driver
took the shortest route.

~~~
mikewhy
Taxi charges continue while the car is at rest. So the shortest route doesn't
mean much if the traffic is barely moving.

------
tokai
What is really remarkable about this is that the current minister of transport
is a huge supporter of Uber, and his party have again and again explicitly
promulgated their support for the company and their business model.

So it is a huge failure for Uber that they couldn't stay in the Danish marked,
even with partial endorsement of the Danish government. The problem for Uber
is that their business model is clearly illegal in Denmark, and so
incompatible with Danish law that even a benign government can't help them.

~~~
rmchugh
The problem for Uber was that this benign government didn't have a
parliamentary majority for the new law without the Danish People's Party who
are not particularly interested in supporting Uber or its business model.

------
petermonsson
The government did as much as they could while preserving tax revenues (the
new law deregulates the industry). There have been plenty of cases where older
meters were hacked back in the 90's. Not requiring meters and seat sensors
would have made cheating easy.

------
ohstopitu
One thing that was awesome about Uber, was that you could go into a city
internationally and just use one app (instead of installing new apps every
city or multiple apps for one city!)

The taxi game is becoming more like the Social Media game where you have
multiple platforms like Fb, Twitter, Snapchat etc each doing it's own thing.

While that's great, I have 10 different apps on my phone just to deal with
Social Media.

BTW I am not suggesting that Uber not be regulated or anything of the sort,
but just that, if all taxi companies start having their own apps, I won't
install any (from a registration, security and ease of use point of view).

~~~
mysterydip
From this comment and others, it seems to me there's a business to be made
creating a unified app that all taxi services can integrate with. It seems
like a large momentum to overcome, but faced with extinction via uber/lyft/etc
might be the catalyst to make it happen. Priceline et al made something
similar happen to the hotel industry, so it seems possible.

~~~
Sargos
This already exists and ironically Uber is leading the charge.
[https://www.uber.com/ride/ubertaxi/](https://www.uber.com/ride/ubertaxi/)

It's very, very hard to get taxi monopolies onboard with something like this
though. That's why Lyft/Uber had to forcefully enter the markets like they've
done. The market is too corrupt for something standardized like priceline to
take hold.

------
shaqbert
Not surprising. In highly regulated markets such as Denmark, Uber has always
had a hard time. In the early days they played the "ask for forgiveness card",
but being a gigantic operation now, that does not fly anymore.

In my home country Germany, Uber also essentially retreated and only has a
token presence at very few cities, as the regulatory environment just does not
allow the Uber economics to work.

So focusing on the markets where regulation is soft or where Uber has leverage
to change regulation is the winning strategy here.

------
ProAm
Uber's end game, if they cannot get autonomous cars to market before they run
out of runway, is to license their technology to taxi's and other
transportation firms. There is still a lot of money on the table for them, but
probably not in their current vision for the company.

------
nurkhz
beyond the article, sad to see even businessinsider.com blocks ad-block. what
a tragedy.

------
kevinmannix
I'm sure there's much interesting discussion to be had over Uber's decision to
leave Denmark. Unfortunately due to the advertisement banner covering 40% of
the screen, I was only able to read 60% of this article.

------
disiplus
Its popular to hate on uber right now, but we need uber and i hope it
survives, the same as we needed airbnb. I had a car crash recently, and while
waiting for my car to be fixed had to relay on public transport and taxis. One
is slow, allot of time not available, other is unreliable ( they promise you a
taxi but it never comes because thy took somebody else) and expensive.

With regular taxis the supply is limited, they will rather make smaller number
of rides per day for bigger price. And that is what everybody in monopolistic
position will do ( see Intel when AMD is weak, or any other example ). I dont
think we should enable them to do that.

There probably needs to be some kind of regulation, government wants those
taxes, but lets not cheer for uber to die.

If uber withdraws everybody will lose.

~~~
csydas
I disagree.

We need alternatives or modernization to current transit systems and
companies; we don't need Uber.

I'm living abroad at the moment in St. Petersburg Russia, and the local taxi
company's response to Uber was basically to clone Uber. People here are just
as ready to summon a Yandex taxi or one from the multiple other taxi services
publicly available as they are to use Uber. My last experience with a Yandex
taxi was seamless - driver was to our location in a few minutes, fare was ~
500 RUB (little under $10), no tip expected, and they made exceptions for us
having multiple stops for different people.

There is nothing unique or special to Uber except the huge amount of hype and
VC money behind them - just like we saw in the US with Austin, TX, Uber's
model is easily replicable and scalable for local companies.

Uber is throwing its weight around and finding out that it really doesn't
carry as much weight as it thinks it does, and pretty soon investors and other
transit companies are going to start to capitalize on this.

~~~
onebyzero
As a local, this may solve your problem in St. Petersburg. But what if i am a
traveller and regularly travels b/n different places in the world. Do i need
to keep track of every taxi service? That will be painful. It does not mean
that i support Uber as a company. I support for their global transport model.
We will help you go from Point A to Point B without much hassle wherever you
are in this world. That's why, if Uber dies, no one will again dare to attempt
to solve this amazing problem. I am really surprised with different
regulations in different countries for such a beautiful solution which they
are offering. That's really a pity. :/

~~~
madsbuch
A global transport model would be nice. But it _should not_ rely on a single
operator. Instead it should be based on a standard (like HTTP, etc) such that
_all_ taxi companies are independent and able to live up to national
standards.

