How does your country react to mobile apps services?

[JP Schriefer 5,590]

I was wondering now if other countries around the world are reacting like Brazilian justice is doing being against some apps.
For example, the app Uber (that particular drive service) is in a lot of countries, but here the justice should ban it any time. Worse, the union of taxi drivers provides a terrible service. While politicians have their own drivers and luxury cars, they want us to continue using the terrible taxis and ban Uber.

Today justice here banned WhatsApp for at least 48 hours because it was requested by phone companies. It can last forever.

I just want to know if this kind of thing is happening only here, where big companies and selfish politicians do everything they want to do to their own pockets.

[AkemiAzula 280]

In the United Kingdom we have okay internet on mobiles, though unlimited data only comes with laptop wifi.

To my knowledge no popular apps have ever been banned here, although you sometimes hear in the Daily Mail about arguments for more tougher regulating regarding people like IS using apps, and the 'darknet'

[LexusInfernus 908]

Uber is sort of banned in the Netherlands as well. 

I'm kind of ambivalent about it though. Sure, the Taxi unions here are basically the mafia, if they go out of business because they are getting out competed I wouldn't mind. At the same time, I strongly dislike Uber and a lot of those other 'start ups' that follow the Silicon Valley model. They are pretentious and their idea of being better than everyone else is by basically avoiding or ignoring numerous laws. Yeah its cheap, but its also illegal and they take no responsibility when their avoidance of oversight and laws designed to protect customers results in a customer getting hurt or worse. 

[TekindusT 3,809]

Any user of these apps should know that nobody sells pennies for the dollar. If an Uber ride costs €5 and a taxi ride costs €20, it is obvious that the Uber driver doesn't have the expenditures the taxi driver covers with the other €15; namely paying taxes, licenses, permissions, etc.

Uber and Airbnb shake the foundations of the system because the ones that have always been there (taxis, hotels) have to learn how to do the same with less margin. The only place where margins can be cut is on the taxes and licenses, and this is a matter of the Bureaucracy that dictates how much these taxes and licenses are. And you know the wheels of Bureaucracy tend to turn reeeeeal sloooooow... If these apps are being banned it is because it is much easier to ban them than to change the entire taxi licensing system and to remove a couple of zeros to each taxi license. This money is needed for the upkeep of the private cars mentioned by the OP. The real world is living on the 21st century and the Bureaucracy is living still on the 20th. It will take still several decades for them to adapt.

Didn't the Europeans want free market? Free market it is. Now come the consequences.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

We don't do much in that area.  There are some conflicts going on in some cities (Montreal for example) over Uber.  It is an idea whose time has come, and cities want to mostly bring it under some sort of regulatory provisions.  Taxi regulations are being reconsidered.

Throughout history the world has found you can't suppress an idea.  "Epur si muove" -- Galileo Gallilei.

[LexusInfernus 908]

2 hours ago, TekindusT said:

Any user of these apps should know that nobody sells pennies for the dollar. If an Uber ride costs €5 and a taxi ride costs €20, it is obvious that the Uber driver doesn't have the expenditures the taxi driver covers with the other €15; namely paying taxes, licenses, permissions, etc.

Uber and Airbnb shake the foundations of the system because the ones that have always been there (taxis, hotels) have to learn how to do the same with less margin. The only place where margins can be cut is on the taxes and licenses, and this is a matter of the Bureaucracy that dictates how much these taxes and licenses are. And you know the wheels of Bureaucracy tend to turn reeeeeal sloooooow... If these apps are being banned it is because it is much easier to ban them than to change the entire taxi licensing system and to remove a couple of zeros to each taxi license. This money is needed for the upkeep of the private cars mentioned by the OP. The real world is living on the 21st century and the Bureaucracy is living still on the 20th. It will take still several decades for them to adapt.

Didn't the Europeans want free market? Free market it is. Now come the consequences.

Its not actually a free market when one party simply doesn't follow the law. Sure, I too can set up a hugely profitable business if I ignore all the worker safety laws, unions, pay less than the minimum wage while unloading all the risks unto my customers.  You got raped by your uber driver? Well thats to bad but Uber isn't responsible there. If you took an actual cab and you got raped well then there would be procedures you could use to make sure that driver gets whats coming to him. Got hurt because you hired some crappy home on Airbnb? Well again, Airbnb is not responsible for the state of the property its users put on their website. You should have gone to an actual hotel were you could sue them into oblivion if they in any way endangered your safety, but not like thats likely to happen, because hotels must pass health and safety inspections. 

There is nothing innovative about Uber or Airbnb, all they did was ignore rules that exist for customer safety, employee safety and to create an equal playing ground for everyone who operates on that market, and because of that manage to undercut everyone. Ban their asses until they play by the rules, and when they play by the rules, it will probably turn out that they aren't all that cheaper. 

[TekindusT 3,809]

That's what I was meaning. The difference between the taxi-price and the Uber-price can also be the difference between having some legal coverage or not in extreme cases. But it is clear that people are, every time more often, trading off this kind of risks for lower prices. There's always a trade off in any situation in which you have to decide between Service 1 and Service 2. I prefer having the capability of choosing between two or more services (legal or shady), which clearly differ in coverages and quality depending on how much I want to spend. As soon as the customer is aware of this trade off (which it's clearly another topic), I find nothing wrong on that. It might not be a market, but it allows the customer to choose in situations when you might not have a choice.

(BTW, I'm not in favour nor against of these kind of apps. Just used Uber or a service on the likes once in St. Petersburg and it wasn't me who ordered it.)

[Turjan 1,048]

My phone company today sent me a message that they would pay my first ride with Uber up to €20 if I install the Uber app. Which probably means that it isn't banned here.

[JP Schriefer 5,590]

I can understand your point of view. Traditional services generally have higher operating cost as taxis need to pay licenses among other things, as well as mobile phone companies. But what I mean is precisely that kind of vision must be overcome, our world needs to evolve towards the people as a whole feel better. The Uber is a simple, comfortable and cheap service. WhatsApp is a service with almost zero cost and practical, making millions of people depend on it daily to work or not. What's wrong to accept that such services must be accepted? When computers became popular I'm sure the typists were not angry and filed a lawsuit to ban. If taxi drivers are damaged to the point that they have to end this job, so be it. This is called progress.

[Neto Dari 220]

*The reason for the punishment of Whatsapp, in Brazil, was specifically judicial;

*The judge determines the punishment;

*The public interest has supremacy over any company that violates the laws of our country.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Some interesting points about avoiding little things like overheads like license fees, insurance, and even safety issues with these apps that simply communicate/match wants with services that may not be anything but shady.  Freedom is one thing, but abuse (licentiousness) is another.

[LexusInfernus 908]

14 hours ago, JP Schriefer said:

I can understand your point of view. Traditional services generally have higher operating cost as taxis need to pay licenses among other things, as well as mobile phone companies. But what I mean is precisely that kind of vision must be overcome, our world needs to evolve towards the people as a whole feel better. The Uber is a simple, comfortable and cheap service. WhatsApp is a service with almost zero cost and practical, making millions of people depend on it daily to work or not. What's wrong to accept that such services must be accepted? When computers became popular I'm sure the typists were not angry and filed a lawsuit to ban. If taxi drivers are damaged to the point that they have to end this job, so be it. This is called progress.

Uber is a cheap and comfortable service, until you get a creep as driver who proceeds to assault you. Its also cheap because it underpays its workers and simply ignores the laws. Now you can say that maybe some of the laws can be changed to be less of a burden to business, and that may certainly be the case for taxi services, but thinking that the law should be changed does not give anyone permission to just ignore the law completely. And don't forget, those laws were created for good reasons, they do serve a purpose and they still do. Just because some douchebro tech entrepreneur thinks he's above such mere mortal concerns because he build a mobile app and got some venture capitalist to invest billions into his idea doesn't make it so. 

Now I do recognize this topic stared with WhatsApp and there I do completely agree with you, its stupid to ban WhatsApp because it is more popular than texting and therefor siphons money out of the pockets of mobile service providers. WhatsApp on the other hand also doesn't have a business model that relies on simply pretending the law doesn't exist, it is an app that comes entirely from the new possibilities mobile internet has created. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Seems that the ban on whatsapp has been lifted.

The big Canadian cities are working with both the taxi people and uber to come to some kind of licensing saw off.  Because of reports of bad experiences with uber drivers in a few cases, this barrel of apples is being looked on with suspicion.  I think licensing may be a solution, but this will increase fees (cost to clients).