Originally Posted by
Perche
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.
Just another perspective to consider: I don't think Italy's taxi companies (at least in the large cities) are as bad as they are in large US cities. In Italy, they're mostly fairly priced and the drivers are pretty good, BUT there's a convenience issue that Uber addresses and is why they still get traction in Italy. Personally, here's what I want, and why I use Uber. Others can weigh in. I want to:
- Hail from an app
- Pay with a credit card, 100% of the time if I desire
- Know when I'm getting picked up
- Know what it will cost, within a couple of euro
Uber does all of that, and to me, those are bigger differentiators than lower fares. Uber could charge 10% over the cab fare in any given city and I'd still prefer it. I know Italy is different, but it's still a modern country and they need to get on board with that. I'd be very happy if Uber struck a regulatory compromise to not undercut fares, but I suspect the taxi companies will still flip their .... and continue to protest because they don't want to invest in convenience/tech enhancement, nor pay Uber to license their platform.