The self-inflicted damage of the mistake called UberPop During the expansion of Uber, the company created different variations of their service. For example, UberXL was made to provide customers with the option to book a car with more than four seats, while Uber Black provides more luxurious cars and services. One of these variations was named UberPop, which is a ride-sharing service where anyone with a decent car can become a driver. The idea of this service was simple: share your ride and split the costs. Although it sounds appealing, the problem with this concept lies in the exact reason the taxi market is so strictly regulated. The fact that almost anyone can become a driver quickly becomes an issue. This not only creates opportunities for people with bad intentions, but it leads to a decrease in quality of service. Car owners have different standards in terms of cleanliness, friendliness, and driving style. In addition, the service could result in an overflow of available cars, causing a lack of customers, which mainly affects drivers who aim to make a living with Uber. These downsides were obviously not well thought out by Uber, but these are not the reason why the service eventually failed miserably. UberPop also did not account for one more critical factor. Local governments often have rules regarding taxi and ride-sharing services. The expansion of Uber to Europe, therefore, caused numerous bans in several countries, including France (which also resulted in several large riots by taxi drivers; Rubin & Scott, 2015) and the Netherlands. These bans were mostly aimed at the UberPop service, as it did not comply to the local government’s rules and legislations, and were accompanied by numerous multi-million-dollar fines (Hao, 2017). However, the real backlashes of UberPop were not the bans themselves. The publicity that came with these bans marked the start of increased global awareness about the Uber concept as a whole. Following the UberPop fiasco, increasingly more aspects of the Uber concept started being looked at more closely, which resulted in more and more questions being asked about driver contracts, passenger safety, environmental impact, and business tactics. 50
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