Taiwan cracks down on Uber, offers rewards for turning in drivers

[Santander]

http://time.com/4632430/taiwan-uber-fines/

Great news!

[CatoMinor]

Yay, another victory for state sponsored lesser service for higher prices!

[Beet]

Great news!

[ag]

I will not travel to Taiwan again until they restore Uber to its rightful place! (and, yes, I have been to Taiwan )

[Santander]

I will not travel to Taiwan again until they restore Uber to its rightful place! (and, yes, I have been to Taiwan )

Why didn't you say so earlier? We're going to spend all this money building a wall and all we had to do was ban Uber?

[ag]

I will not travel to Taiwan again until they restore Uber to its rightful place! (and, yes, I have been to Taiwan )

Why didn't you say so earlier? We're going to spend all this money building a wall and all we had to do was ban Uber?

I mean, if you make life in the US very unpleasant for everyone, I am, surely, not going to come

Actually, as it is, you have gone down that way quite a bit by electing Trump. I have just come back from saying good bye. I am planning to be spending much more time in Canada during the next 4 years. Alas, I have some elderly family members in NYC that I would still like to visit on occasion. If not for that, I would simply stay out as long as the SOB is in the White House.

[Cory]

Yay, another victory for state sponsored lesser service for higher prices!

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

How about just regulating Uber the same way normal taxi services are like so many US states have done?

[Intell]

Great news!

[Devout Centrist]

Yay, another victory for state sponsored lesser service for higher prices!

[ag]

How about just regulating Uber the same way normal taxi services are like so many US states have done?

Many places regulate taxis in such a way as to make it really not worthwhile for Uber to enter if it is going to be subject to the same regulations. I mean, regulated Uber barely makes sense in NYC - and then, mainly, because there are no taxis outside of Manhattan and taxis in Manhattan are regulated even more insanely. I have just been staying in Jersey, right across the river: it is incredible how much better the service is is there. In comparison with, say, Jersey City, Staten Island (even in its most urban parts near the ferry) a) is an Uber desert and b) is attrociously expensive. Why does it have to be the case that getting from Hoboken to JC is so much cheaper and easier than moving a few blocks in Brooklyn?

Hoboken and  Jersey City are, really, just NYC neighborhoods for all practical purposes. There seem to be no problems with letting Uber run there the way it runs in Jersey. In fact, there is not even a problem in letting the same Jersey Uber drivers cross the river with passengers - but gods forbid if they would start picking fares there.

Anyway: how about just regulating taxis a bit less?

[ag]

Having used Uber now in many different parts of the world I must say that the "unregulated" or "underregulated" uber is nearly always more convenient, more comfortable, safer and cheaper than the local taxis. If a government's objective is to ensure that residents and visitors travel with maximal comfort and least disruption for everybody else, it should plead with Uber to enter - not ban it.

Taiwan is especially a case in point. Back in the pre-Uber age I remember how much of a linguistic nightmare every cab ride was. Despite the ubiquity of English everywhere, most cab drivers in Taipei would not even recognize Latin characters - forget about understanding an address spoken by a foreigner (one guy wound up calling his son to serve as an interpreter). With Uber one would only need to punch the same address into the familiar application on one's own phone. And I am not even talking about the safety of not having to use cash and ability to insist on your own route in an unfamiliar city despite the language barrier, and the ability to get a car in an area where few cabs venture, etc., etc.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Anyway: how about just regulating taxis a bit less?

Yay!!

Oh wait...


Hmm, let's think about it twice before setting a one more civil war in this country...

Seriously though, just find a bloody common regulating, that's the bloody same activity.

In France the taxi status has been so insanely protected and hard to aquire that u would, more or less, understand the insanity going on about it, but if French could also figure out that ears can be useful to listen each other in order the brain can have a sensitive signal eventually starting something more or less looking like a process relative to what we could call smartness, and thus, through that magical process, beginning to, very eventually, try to, who knows, begining to find, oh, who f**king knows, constructive!, and, fair!, things that could look like...solutions...it would be just F**KING FINE!

And really there are serious and very realistic possibilies to deal with all of that here, on both the short and longer run.

Having used Uber now in many different parts of the world I must say that the "unregulated" or "underregulated" uber is nearly always more convenient, more comfortable, safer and cheaper than the local taxis. If a government's objective is to ensure that residents and visitors travel with maximal comfort and least disruption for everybody else, it should plead with Uber to enter - not ban it.

Taiwan is especially a case in point. Back in the pre-Uber age I remember how much of a linguistic nightmare every cab ride was. Despite the ubiquity of English everywhere, most cab drivers in Taipei would not even recognize Latin characters - forget about understanding an address spoken by a foreigner (one guy wound up calling his son to serve as an interpreter). With Uber one would only need to punch the same address into the familiar application on one's own phone. And I am not even talking about the safety of not having to use cash and ability to insist on your own route in an unfamiliar city despite the language barrier, and the ability to get a car in an area where few cabs venture, etc., etc.

Well, my only uber experience has been India, Mumbai, and yeah i would kinda relate this, maybe English would be less unaccessful than in Taiwan here, but still, put an Indian and a French together, try to make them speak English, and u can quickly enough admire the live creation of a new language, of which the two first speakers would barely understand each other, an aww scenery.

So with the average cab, u deal with that, manageable but u sometimes wonder if u will really land where u wish, not speaking about the fact that, when they see ur cute Western face, u better pay attention they start counter, otherwise, the afterward calculation of final prize, even after having played the bargaining card, can make a kind of 'oho' sound resonate somewhere in ur head.

On the other hand with a uber, u'll have the same language conveniency, even if u'll have far more younger drivers than with the average cab, but, the price already been set yeah, if u go by uber pool, it's really not expensive, and the guy starts his google maps app and so we leave, now u can only hope goovle maps is fine, cause once i thought we had been over my destination, but finally it was quite further, just same name (brilliant idea to call two places 'Hyper city mall' within few kilometers), but google maps was right but almost impossible to get understood by that young driver, even both making efforts, i had to call the girl i know to confirm it was the right one.

For me in Mumbai it was that way:

Short casual drive, average cab.

Longer drive, or with good deal of luggages, uber. Almost always quite new cars, good ac, usually gentlemen enough, and well, yeah, safer and guaranteed prices.

Average cabs can be quite good in Mumbai too, both cars and drivers, just both cars and drivers are globally not as young as uber's ^^, and prices can be higher and not necessarily guaranteed.

Something unexpected though, might be profitable enough to do there, i've recently been told about a young guy to which the in-law family bought a car so that he earns more money than in his civil engineer job.

While in France uber drivers shows as all, but wealthy.

[jaichind]

Taxi drivers in ROC are quite politically powerful.  In the 1990s they clearly tilted Green and was critical to the DPP grassroots organization.  They have become less partisan last decade but are still very powerful especially under a DPP regime.  The DPP regime are acting on behalf of a section of its partisan coalition and to rope in the taxi driver vote in 2018 and 2020.