In an interview in an Italian paper today, Uber basically pled guilty as charged, and promised to change. In the same way in this Forum in another thread, people agreed that Starbucks cannot come to Italy and use its American business model. Italy is a different country. The rulings against Uber have all cited moral grounds, because Italy has different customs from the USA. Starbucks may not put the corner bar out of business, but Uber has aggressively worked to put Italian taxi drivers out of business.
http://www.repubblica.it/economia/20...-C6-P7-S1.6-T1
Headline
"Il responsabile per il Sud Europa: "Il modello americano qui non sta funzionando. Si possono studiare degli ammortizzatori per compensare le licenze comprate a caro prezzo"
"Head of Uber for Southern Europe: The American model doesn't function here. We should study to find a way to ease the blow and compensate taxi drivers who have to pay a very high price to get a license to drive."
(Note: A Uber driver just gets a cursory background check and vehicle inspection, and is on their way, while a licensed taxi driver has to take classes, pass an exam, and has to pay an extremely large sum for their license, depending on the city. In Rome it is over 230,000 euros, and a driver makes about 3,000 euros per month).
Paraphrased excerpts of the interview follow:
ROMA. The Tribunal of Justice meets in Rome on May 5th, when the fate of Uber in Italy will be decided. The protests against unfair competition started in Milan in March 2013, and was supposed to finish today at midnight, with Uber being banned. Last Friday the court granted them an appeal to operate pending the May decision. Everyone has been silent about the fact that Uber continues to lose billions of dollars a year and has been deeply in the red for years. (Note: in essence, Uber takes money from investors and uses the investors' money to subsidize the rides, thereby keeping them cheap enough to put taxis out of business. Uber's losses are usually greater than 100% of their revenue, and have shown no sign of declining over the years.)
Charles Loret, a 34 year old Spaniard who heads Uber for Southern Europe said, "It's a paradox that a country flooded with tourism where it is important to reduce traffic has chosen not to resolve the problem, and is defending the interests of a few, giving a blow to the quality of life to all."
The same thing happened in Barcelona. "But there we increased the cost of the licenses to our drivers to make it more equitable and in the next few months we will launch a new service there. Italy runs the risk of remaining behind."
Uber has often been accused of ignoring the rules, but in the past year he says the company has changed a lot, especially in Europe. "When countries ruled against Uber and banned us, it was due to our own mistakes. We wanted to use the same model that we used in the USA. We made a lot of mistakes, but now in Spain and in Italy we are working to carry out our activities while taking into account licensed taxi drivers. The same in France.
"The Courts of Justice will make decisions on the merits. The decree of Milleproroghe (a deal made a few years ago by which Uber agreed to work with the Italian government to establish working rules that were fair to Italian taxi drivers, but this never happened.) stabilized things so that all of Uber in Italy doesn't have to return to the garage. It is not right to just claim Uber is unorthodox."
Still, May 5th may stop them. "If that happens, we will search for a new way to return to the market. The mobility sector must evolve, the citizens want it. This isn't just about Uber, it's about embracing new models, augmenting competition, reducing traffic, pollution, and costs. In Spain and in Portugal the government didn't try to blackmail us. Italy has to decide if it wants to remain in the past."
In San Francisco, where Uber and Lyft are strongest, the major taxi company, Yellow Cabs, is now on the brink of bankruptcy. "In San Francisco the prices have fallen 70% and more people use drivers now. We created jobs and furnished a service to the citizens. The difference is that in Italy we still have the time to manage the situation correctly. What does it matter if the car is white, yellow, or black? What matters is that all drivers can work and make a salary to support their family. I'm sure there's a way to resolve the problem of how Italian taxi drivers pay an extremely high price for a license to be a driver. In expanding markets we can study how countries helped absorb the shock in Mexico and in Australia."
In the last few months Uber has had to face multiple accusations of sexism from an ex-employee Susan Fowler, top managers have been thrown out, and there was the Grayball scandal (For years Uber engaged in a worldwide program to deceive local authorities by modifying their app in areas where they were under investigation, or had been banned. If someone they thought was investigating them used their app to call a car, the app would show those little cars seemingly driving towards them, but no such car would come. Uber was able to somehow identify the people who were investigating them in cities and countries throughout the world. The scandal was exposed when several employees leaked documents to the media, and it was found that Uber had modified their app to thwart investigators in Portland (where Uber was banned), and many other cities including Boston, Paris, Las Vegas, Austin, Philadelphia, Tampa, and in Australia, China, South Korea, India, Kenya, and in many other countries.)
"When I joined Uber 3 years ago, we grew very quickly, and it's not easy to control everything. We took a lot of bad steps, as with what happened with Susan Fowler. Those mistakes will not be repeated. We are trying to identify the responsible people so that this doesn't happen again. This is an opportunity for us to reflect and improve, and develop into a company that can produce profits and operate anywhere, including in Italy."