With mounting legal difficulties in some areas, I can't see investing in this one. The Portland metro area, for example, has banned the service. It may all shake out in their favor or it might not. Either way, its too soon to tell.
Apparently, only now that it has gone under fire is Uber starting to focus upon safety. The company instituted a background checking system and other safety features for selecting drivers. That should hypothetically reduce the level of crimes that Uber drivers are involved in, but I doubt that it's enough to save the company long term. It needs to do far more in order to gain the trust of the public and especially the governments.
Pretty much, let's face it, it's a great service and so was Napster, but as there aren't taxes involved most entities will create legal problems to it and that might be it's end.
How can the service be banned? At an official level, it is just a bunch of people giving rides to each other...
Taxi lobbyists, govt regs, etc can cause such services lots of grief and often have them at least temporarily stop offering the service in many locales.
Pretty much, just because it's so simple and working well it's because it's going to be blocked by lobbies like JR says or other sort of laws, I am with Gel here.
The latest news is Uber is now banned in Germany. Legal actions are being taken in South Korea and France too. Details can be read here in the BBC article.
I think the reason Uber is one of the hottest IPO's is two fold 1) so much of the United States does not have public transportation or otherwise existing Taxi service and rural America is jumping at the chance to earn money. If we had the a bus service that interconnected every community like Mexico it would only be a fly by night operation. Uber is here to stay! I am seriously considering investing in them.
