For an industry that’s cultivated a relationship with its customers to the point where “I’m not going that way” is now as common a phrase on a Friday night as “Just a pot of draught, thanks,” the Taxi Industry has sure as hell got its back up trying to protect the way things are.
The bone that Cabcharge has with ride-sharing service Uber has grown quickly from a fishbone to a femur, with certain sectors of the industry going on the front foot against UberX drivers and publicly performing citizen’s arrests on people engaging in the service, which they continue to bleat black and blue is illegal.
Now even the head of Cabcharge has seemingly had enough, levelling the blame for the industry turmoil at everyone except his own company.
Company chairman Russell Balding (and trust us when we say that holy moly is that surname ever appropriate) has lambasted the rogue startup app and revealed his pleading with all forms of Government to step in.
“Uber is dangerous, unsupervised and illegal. Governments need to do something about it.“
Meanwhile statements from Uber have asserted that Cabcharge is merely “scaremongering,” and that thanks to UberX, nearly 1100 new jobs have been created in Australia in the past month.
The problems stem from the fact that legislation doesn’t move at the same pace as society and technology, and the current form of Taxi legislation in both New South Wales and Victoria renders UberX in somewhat of a grey area. But that hasn’t stopped the app from rapidly gaining popularity among users, particularly those fed up with what’s at times been perceived to be an arrogant and non-consumer friendly cab industry.
Uber stated “We are confident that policy makers will see these claims for what they are … and make their decisions based on what is best for consumers, not incumbent industries.“
Elsewhere, it’s interesting to note that since the Victorian State Government halved the rate at which Cabcharge can charge you for the clearly wild inconvenience of paying using your card to 5% of fares, down from the previous 10%, their net profit has fallen by 7%.
Have a real good think about that for a moment. By halving the arbitrary nonsense fee of credit and debit card processing – a form of payment quite literally every other business ever has – their ENTIRE NET PROFIT has fallen by seven percent. The New South Wales State Government is also on the verge of making a similar decision, which Cabcharge estimates will cost their business $14million – FOURTEEN MILLION DOLLARS.
And remember, this is revenue gained via a payment system that provides the entire backbone of Uber – and they get by with charging you $0 for this.
The point is, you can beat your drum and make as much noise as you want about some brash new upstarts who pose a threat to your carefully guarded status quo.
But at the end of the day, this is business. Innovation is inevitable. Adapt or die.
Photo: Pablo Blazquez Dominguez via Getty Images
via Herald Sun.
