The Off Topic Topic

[MadImmortalMan]

Aircraft selfie:

They combine to form Superion. 

[Ideologue]

 

[Syt]

A court in Frankfurt has issued a provisional injunction against Uber to cease operations in Germany, because they don't have a license to transport passengers (transporting passengers as a business is - like many things - tightly regulated in Germany). The order follows complaints by the taxi lobby who have been very unhappy with Uber breaking into their market.

[Tamas]

A court in Frankfurt has issued a provisional injunction against Uber to cease operations in Germany, because they don't have a license to transport passengers (transporting passengers as a business is - like many things - tightly regulated in Germany). The order follows complaints by the taxi lobby who have been very unhappy with Uber breaking into their market.

Yes it must be very horrible for taxi drivers, since Uber is more transparent and offers clearer option for the customer, and no cash transactions means not being funny with the taxman.

Fucking medieval guilds and their influence on the government. And I am pretty sure this is all sold as protecting the little man, when it is the customer, the little man, who is being screwed over.

[Syt]

Tbf, taxi rates are mostly set by the cities in Germany, as taxis are considered kinda, sorta an extension of public transport.


Airbnb is facing similar issues. The hotels and "official" bed & breakfasts are very unhappy, as they have to pay a special fee (basically a tourism tax) for running their business, but people offering airbnb don't.

[Tamas]

Tbf, taxi rates are mostly set by the cities in Germany, as taxis are considered kinda, sorta an extension of public transport.


Airbnb is facing similar issues. The hotels and "official" bed & breakfasts are very unhappy, as they have to pay a special fee (basically a tourism tax) for running their business, but people offering airbnb don't.

Yes in all cases it is flexibility offered by new technologies fighting the old ways. In these cases the old ways allowed local and wider government to keep a tighter control and thus tax and regulate and influence. So of course they help the "old establishment" fight progress.

[Syt]

Oh, I agree that it's the growing pains of something new replacing the old. You see a similar fight between Amazon and traditional publishers. I don't mind those discussions and ideally it leads to more competition.

I do have a problem with established providers of a service feeling threatened by a new model, and instead of examining why that new model is so popular and why the customers move over there and what can't be learned from it, their immediate instinct is to try and cut the newcomer down to size or get rid of it entirely.

I'm not overly worried about (temporary) quasi-monopolies, as long as there's still avenues for innovators to take over. MySpace was big. Facebook is bigger. Something else will eventually replace it. Nokia used to rule the mobile phone market, Blackberries were the norm for business cell phones. Now Apple and Samsung are ruling. There'll be someone else after them. Etc.

[Syt]

In other news, it seems that the prices for Netflix in Austria will be between 7.99 and 11.99, depending on how many devices you want to use and whether you want 4k resolution programs. There's scheduled to be a big presentation in Vienna on the 17th of the month.

House of Cards will not be available, because they sold the rights here to a cable channel.

[MadImmortalMan]

Uber>>>>>>>>>Taxi


AirBNB>>>>Hotel


That medallion shit they have for taxis is satan. A million dollars just to run a car? Absurd.

[Tamas]

Yes we agree. Taxi companies should have nothing to fear from Uber, all they would need to do is adopt a similar system or join it, and their established companies would give them an immediate edge over single-car Uber users.

I think in this particular case it is because the daily operation for taxi drivers has been pretty much in the gray zone, in terms of how much fares made visible to the tax authority, how often clueless customers were screwed over etc. Uber removes the possibilities for these, hence the outrage.

[Eddie Teach]

Taxi drivers are poorer than the vast majority of their customers.

[Tamas]

Taxi drivers are poorer than the vast majority of their customers.

So? the guy serving you your food is probably poorer than you, not to mention the guy cleaning up the office after you, etc.

Government, if it really needs to pick a side, should be on the side of the majority in these cases. Competition offered by Uber and AirBNB and all others is great to everyone but the people getting new competition. Which mean 99.99% of citizens benefit from it. Yet the government takes the other side. Not really a free-market thing to do now is it?

[Eddie Teach]

I was mainly taking issue with referring to habitual taxi passengers as "the little man".

[Josquius]

Taxi drivers are poorer than the vast majority of their customers.

So? the guy serving you your food is probably poorer than you, not to mention the guy cleaning up the office after you, etc.

Government, if it really needs to pick a side, should be on the side of the majority in these cases. Competition offered by Uber and AirBNB and all others is great to everyone but the people getting new competition. Which mean 99.99% of citizens benefit from it. Yet the government takes the other side. Not really a free-market thing to do now is it?

Cheaper != better.
Sure, taxi driver licensing systems have elements of trying to control the market and keep the jobs of taxi drivers secure, but a big part of its reason for existence is also to make sure people who are out there doing the job are capable of doing it and aren't going to get anyone killed.
There's no clear cut answer to which side is in the right on this one.

[Liep]

I'm under the impression that Airbnb and Uber providers don't pay tax. At least the ones I know who make money via Airbnb does not, small sample, sure, but I've no shame in generalizing here.