I have to thank Peter Neumann from the Berliner Zeitung in particular, because he not only gave me and my colleagues a lot of space, but he also summarised the arguments of the Berlinale and Uber very well.
Here he reports what was said from all sides on the subject:
Protest at film festival: Taxi drivers demonstrate against Berlinale sponsor
From the article in the Berliner Zeitung.
The head of the Berlinale says
"The Berlinale only works with companies that adhere to the legal standards in Germany. The current legal situation stipulates that Uber is allowed to operate legally in the city. Uber has credibly assured us that the business practices of their early years no longer exist and that they have clearly distanced themselves from them," she reported. Rissenbeek emphasised that it is not only Uber that adheres to the legal requirements; the Uber hire car partners are also subject to close scrutiny of the applicable regulations.</quote
Of course, what else.Mr Uber also believes that we live in the best of all worlds, and his company is committed to ensuring that this is the case.
"We are convinced that the economic challenges facing the industry are primarily the result of low capacity utilisation due to rigid structures and permanently rising and inflexible fares," said Fröhlich. "In addition, the coronavirus pandemic and rising energy prices have put a strain on many companies. Taxi drivers are suffering the most, not chauffeur-driven hire cars, which are expanding the mobility mix for everyone."</quote
That’s great. First we are convinced, then we talk about all sorts of things and in the end we mix mobility with blah blah blah."Oh, how beautiful Panama is", you might want to add like the little tiger or the little bear in Janosch children’s tales. However, we not only know how beautiful or rather ugly it looks in the world of taxis and hire cars from our own experience, we can now prove it scientifically. The Uber and Berlinale arguments from Peter Neumann’s article are a good place to start. We can compare them with research findings from Toronto, Buenos Aires, Mumbai and Berlin. This will take too long for a letter to the editor of the Berliner Zeitung, but we have a website where we can publish everything whenever we want.
No matter what comes to light, "we" are convinced of this: Panama is oh so beautiful.
It couldn’t be any other way.
