Uber’s decision to pay nearly $300 million and end its five-year legal tussle with taxi drivers has shone a light on the company’s ugly past and the reality that its promise of urban transportation was always an illusion, built on the back of cheap venture capital money, worker exploitation and taking advantage of regulatory loopholes.

The US giant on Monday agreed to pay a $272 million settlement to more than 8000 Australian taxi drivers and operators, avoiding a 10-week trial and a tacit admission that when it entered the local market a decade ago, it had done so illegally and at significant cost to local taxi drivers.

Nick Andrianakis and Michael Donelly speak outside the Supreme Court of Victoria on Monday.Credit: Paul Rovere

“Today I’m very pleased as this hasn’t been done before,” the lead plaintiff, former taxi driver Nick Andrianakis, said on the steps of Victoria’s Supreme Court.

“We suggested that Uber acted illegally and they needed to pay, and that they have today.”

Things have changed dramatically since the US tech company steamrolled into Australia in 2012, when it set up shop without the required permits.

Founded by charismatic Californian college dropout Travis Kalanick, Uber thrived on a perfect storm of regulatory loopholes and rampant customer demand.

Kalanick, like his peers including Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, succumbed to self-mythologising: he would tell tech conferences that he came up with the idea when he was unable to flag down a taxi in Paris, when the real story is that another entrepreneur, his friend Garrett Camp, came up with it after being “blacklisted” by two large taxi companies in San Francisco. Camp brought on Kalanick as Uber’s chief executive.

Uber grew quickly and in Australia deployed a tactic it used again and again for entering new markets: launch, drum up a loyal customer base and then aggressively lobby for new laws to be passed making its services legal. And taxi drivers, who paid around $500,000 per licence plate, were left in the gutter.

QOSHE - Uber’s ugly truths laid bare with $300 million capitulation - David Swan
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Uber’s ugly truths laid bare with $300 million capitulation

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22.03.2024

Uber’s decision to pay nearly $300 million and end its five-year legal tussle with taxi drivers has shone a light on the company’s ugly past and the reality that its promise of urban transportation was always an illusion, built on the back of cheap venture capital money, worker exploitation and taking advantage of regulatory loopholes.

The US giant on Monday agreed to pay a $272 million settlement to more than 8000 Australian taxi drivers and operators, avoiding a 10-week trial and a tacit........

© The Sydney Morning Herald


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