A decree from the Catalan government requiring ride-hailing vehicles to be hired 15 minutes in advance and banning cars from being geolocated and moving around the city seeking customers, has been implemented in Barcelona.
They know how to regulate Uber properly.
José Yañez, a 54-year-old taxi driver, with 33 years' experience, considers that "drivers with a VTC license (Private Hire) occupy a space that's not theirs because they provide the same service as a taxi without paying the same license".
He also stresses that self-employed drivers like him cannot compete with big companies like Uber or Cabify, so he is happy with the new decree.
Uber's Spanish spokesman, Yuri Fernández, argues that the obligation to wait 15 minutes to travel in a VTC does not exist anywhere else in Europe and is totally incompatible with the immediacy of on-demand services, such as UberX.
"The future of mobility is being able to choose," he says, and is key to developing a sustainable mobility strategy with fewer vehicles circulating in the streets.
To achieve that, all the stakeholders need to work together, Fernández argues. "Uber and the taxi sector working together?
It may sound weird, but it's not. We already do it in several cities around the world, and we want to do it in Spain."
In Madrid, the ordinance that seeks to regulate the activity of ride-hailing services in the city is still being discussed. The proposal that most worries Uber and Cabify drivers is a limitation on the kilometers they can do without a passenger in the vehicle.
They argue it would be unfair to apply such restrictions to them when issued by Madrid City Council shows that a conventional taxi travels about 208km a day in the city, 113.6km of them without any rider (129 miles and 70.6 miles).
Meanwhile, millennials and generation Z users don't understand why their cheap options are being limited. Laura and Inès, 18 and 24 years old respectively, both students in Barcelona and users of Uber and Cabify, were devastated when both companies quit the city.
They know that the conventional taxi sector has also developed applications to order vehicles through their phones, but they still prefer the sharing-economy alternatives.
"The vehicles are cleaner, and they take you where you want to go without unnecessary detours," says Inès, who is doing a masters in international law.
In the end, protests from both sides are probably futile, given what was going on inside the MWC19 venue. Technology change is unstoppable and also opens up new possibilities.
Whatever future technology promises, taxi driver José Yañez just wants to keep driving his car: "You know, I don't think the autonomous car will take over the streets tomorrow."
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