The appeal of Uber, and what taxi drivers should know
What you need to know:
- Nairobi joins a significant number of cities around the globe whose traditional taxi operators are agonising over Uber’s unconventional, innovative business model.
- Regular cab operators have been posing as riders and then beating up Uber drivers, or simply switching off their phones to delay and derail them.
- Marinelli, the bell makers, could well survive in their little Italian corner, for their job has intricacies which do not apply to cab drivers.
Marinelli Bells Company is one of the five oldest companies in the world. Its bells adorn majestic buildings in New York, Jerusalem, Rome, Korea, South America and elsewhere.
The business employs around 20 people. Five of them, called Marinelli, belong to the same family.
Marinelli Bell Foundry has been casting bells in a hidden corner of Italy for almost 1,000 years. The company has survived wars, floods, persecution, disasters and what not. It has a basic website and no social media presence though all visitors tweet about them.
Marinelli does not worry about social media strategy but they are somehow confident they will outlast us all.
Truly, the world is changing rapidly, as are perceptions, efficiency and information. We constantly mess it up and spoil the show when we attempt to apply the same criteria to everything.
Most people nowadays move with fads. Fashion dictates our behaviour and we constantly copy. We are followers, many sheep with few shepherds, and too few among us dare to innovate.
The sheep always face innovators in two ways, by imitating them or destroying them. The law allows imitation as long as "copyright" does not degenerate into "right-to-copy" but prohibits destruction. Violent destruction is cruel.
The recent spate of attacks against Uber drivers in Kenya is worrying, but not isolated. Nairobi joins a significant number of cities around the globe whose traditional taxi operators are agonising over Uber’s unconventional, innovative business model.
There have been protests, sometimes violent, in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Paris, Vancouver, Delhi, London, Toronto, New York City, San Francisco, Rome, Brussels, Warsaw, Melbourne, Brisbane, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin and others.
In most of these cities, traditional cab drivers allege unfair competitive practices by Uber. Compared with traditional taxis in urban centres, charges for Uber are comparatively low.
Critics further allege that most drivers who operate under the Uber brand are unlicensed, posing safety concerns for potential clients.
According to Uber's website, the business concept of this cab-giant was first conceived "on a snowy Paris evening in 2008" by the current CEO, Travis Kalanick and his colleague, Garret Camp, as a basic app for requesting a traditional cab. One only needed to tap a button and a cab would pick them up wherever they were.
The company is headquartered in San Francisco and valued at more than $60 billion. Its principal operations include developing the Uber app and forming partnerships with drivers, who then take requests from riders in 373 cities around the world, as of February 3, 2016.
CONTRACTORS, NOT EMPLOYEES
Uber’s funders include Google Ventures, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft and an array of smaller investors, which coincidentally are among the companies with the largest stockpiles of money stashed in tax havens across the globe.
Uber's critics allege that the incredulously low fares charged by Uber cabs are attributable to the unending resources at the disposal of these high-tech giants.
Another allegation suggests that Uber could be one of the outlets of global tax avoidance strategies that have piled money in tax havens estimated at around $2.1 trillion, away from the grasp of the US Internal Revenue Service. This, of course, remains but a theory.
At the heart of the conflict is the indefinite relationship between Uber the company, its partner drivers and its clients. This indefinite relationship is probably one of the reasons Uber is able to avoid the grasp of local legislation regulating the cab industry.
Uber drivers are engaged as contractors, not employees. Indeed, there have been concerns that Uber cannot track the records of the drivers it engages accurately, at least outside the United States.
During its one year stay in Nairobi, Uber has had its fair share of challenges, including local competition from equally innovative companies that preceded it in the market, and discontent from traditional cab operators who feel that its low standard charges woo away clients and drivers alike.
The competition has turned violent. Regular cab operators have been posing as riders and then beating up Uber drivers, or simply switching off their phones to delay and derail them.
The fact remains, however, that Uber charges way below the standard or variable rates of traditional cab operators.
The parameters for "getting into the game" appear to set Uber cabs apart from the rest. These conditions have presented a number of regulatory challenges, not only in Nairobi, but also in a significant number of cities where Uber has set up shop.
CONFER WITH LOCAL AUTHORITIES
The growing number of protests all over the globe demonstrates just how urgently these challenges need to be dealt with, but violence against Uber by traditional cab drivers does not help in any way.
It only enhances the tension between these groups and shows the public how unreasonable and insecure regular cab drivers are.
For all we know, we may be at the edge of a truly amazing world. Uber should come out openly and confer with local authorities on the best way to implement its clearly innovative strategies, and calm these fears.
This may also serve as a wake-up call to regular cab operators to adopt innovation and think of new ways of remaining in business, which is happening to all traditional business models.
Marinelli, the bell makers, will likely survive in their little Italian corner, for their job has intricacies that the taxi business doesn't.
Cab drivers will not survive unless they think outside the box, and we the clients will sabotage their envy, violence and lack of imagination by insisting on Uber rides. Violence is the way of the brute and is unreasonable.
It is deeply annoying to see the immature rage of traditional cab drivers. There are always better and reasonable ways of solving such challenges than taking to violence.
Dr Franceschi is the dean of Strathmore Law School. [email protected], Twitter: @lgfranceschi
