I have to wonder about this quote:

> As a new entrant we're bringing much-needed competition to a market that hasn't changed in years.

What does a San Francisco startup knows about the taxi situation in Berlin? Uber has often been well received in cities where taxi service is inefficient, but are berliners really unhappy with the service? Does Uber know that taxis in Berlin are used mostly by tourists, and therefore are not that hard to catch?

Maybe Uber has spent a lot of time researching the German market, or maybe they are following Walmart steps[1] in applying US notions to a foreign market. But after living in Berlin for a year, I have to wonder: if Uber's free-for-all approach clashes against Germany's love for paperwork, whose fault is it?

[1] http://www.dw.de/worlds-biggest-retailer-wal-mart-closes-up-...

To all who think passenger safety equals insurance: you are wrong. Passenger safety is much more.

Passenger safety is mainly 3 topics, which are all have to be fulfilled: 1. The car has to be in proper technical conditions. 2. The driver is trained to be allowed to drive people around for business purposes. Higher standards apply, then for regular driving behavior. 3. Insurance, insurance of the passenger as well as insurance of third party. As for commercial drivers, they do much more millage and as such it is much more likely, that something happens.

For (1): a commercially driven vehicle makes much more millage, as such it is required to visit inspection every year, while for regular vehicle in Germany it is only every other year.

For (2): drivers with a commercial license to drive people around are required to have regular medical check-ups. Also wrong behaving while driving is judged much hard, mostly twice the amount and double the points. That means, they can easily loose their license. That way, there should be a commercial pressure on them to drive safely.

By the way, Uber does not compete only with Taxi service. Their drivers don't need a taxi license at all. Because, in Germany there are besides of Taxi additional licenses for such business. The are a number of such services, that operate within legal bounds since tens of years. The only difference between the "cool" start-up Uber is, that those have no shiny App and you have to know there phone numbers. That said, there are also services, which have an App, like http://www.mydriver.de/fahrdienst/berlin

The main problem besides safety is also, that Uber promotes and supports moonlighting/illegal work. Because their argument is, that they provide only ride sharing. BUT, if that whould be true, then why promote a new ride sharing service called UberPool? If Uber would provide real ride sharing, as they argue, then they would only start UberPool and not UberX and UberPop.

But with UberPool there is the problem for them, they will compete with lots of other ride sharing companies, which operate in Germany since years and which are well established, like Blablacar, Flinc and others.

TL/DR: If Uber would operate within the well established business practices and requirements, nobody would complain. But they don't want, because they want to be cheap on the back of actively ignoring all requirements.

From what I read in other articles (e.g. http://www.golem.de/news/fahrdienst-app-uber-macht-in-berlin...), Uber insures the drivers, but with a lower maximum payout for damages of 3.5 million. The mandatory minimum for car liability insurance is 7.5 million for damages against persons in Germany.

The bigger picture here is the trend of local governments desperately pushing against a tide of ever more pervasive globalisation.

The simple reason something like Uber will win is business travellers expect to show up in any city and for it to work. If it doesn't that's not a mark against the Uber-like, it's a mark against the city. People do not want one app per city or country, but one which works everywhere. This is beyond the scope of any government to get near.

The thing is Uber are slimy in the way Napster were taking the piss a bit, but it's clear the space is there for someone to come in and clean up.

I wonder if "insurance for a cut" is a thing. Basically apply the credit card model to insurance for cabs. Insurance company takes X% of all rides for providing the proper insurance needed for said rides.

Keeps the barriers to entry low (giving up a cut is easier when you just do a couple of customers on the side than having higher fixed costs) and would probably allow a smart insurance company to make a nice bundle of money.

It's true that Uber follows a liberal interpretation of existing regulations and this gives rise to legitimate concerns about fairness of its competition with the incumbents. Nevertheless, the new model does offer some benefits over the old way of doing things. The two that come to mind first:

Utilization of resources. As a society we have a lot of cars. It seems reasonable to increase their utilization instead of setting aside a dedicated pool for taxi services.

Regulatory upgrade. The existing regulations and licensing regimes were meant to increase safety and quality of service, but did that at the cost of reduced competition, increased prices and granting disproportionate privileges to the incumbents. Some of the same very goals like trust, safety and quality have now been achieved by Uber and the like without the same costs thanks to the reputation and review systems long employed in the internet. This is clearly desirable.

I wish Uber engaged in more German-style consensus-seeking with the authorities, regulators and the incumbents instead of going for an all-out war. Change is clearly overdue in the taxi services, but the way it happens is just as important.

I've used taxis in four major USA metro areas fairly extensively: Chicago, San Francisco, NYC, and South Florida (Ft. Lauderdale / Miami).

NYC is mostly OK, although drivers are sometimes hard to understand. Chicago was a step below, but still OK.

South Florida and SanFran were the worst. Dirty, awful, dangerous drivers.

All of those cities are very expensive, often have trouble with credit cards, and didn't have a good way to hail a cab other than calling at the time.

I can see why Uber in theory makes sense in those environments. I remember when Uber launched in Europe I got an email from someone there asking about Edinburgh (where I live). My response is that I don't see Uber doing well in Edinburgh.

Right now, in Edinburgh, I can hail a cab with an app that lets me specify my route or drop a pin where I'm at for pickup. I can see the cab on the map driving towards me. I get an automatic ringback on approach. I can pay with stored cc information or corporate account. Cabs are impeccably clean, inexpensive, and the drivers are really great. They are all trained in First Aid and most are highly accessible (you can specify if you need accessibility on booking). They will help you with luggage, engage in chat, and it's a really great experience.

There are also private hire companies that compete with the cabs. There is some tension there as those cars don't offer or require the accessibility of cars and training to their drivers, and they're on the same meter. I almost never use them. The black cab cars are really great to get in and out of particularly with luggage.

So to sum up, Uber just isn't going to do that well here in my estimation.

Passengers have the inalienable right to choose the level of safety they feel comfortable for a price, and no goverment should confiscate that right.

That's the essence of free markets.

"The Berlin authority said passengers may not be covered by insurance because they aren't traditional cabs."

Well, figure it out. Seems like something that could be answered with a phone call to an insurance company. It probably would have taken less time than banning Uber.

If they had and the answer was "no, they're not" it would be an easy fix.

I'm probably reading into it, but this is a pretty shaky excuse.