A gentle summary: In Heidelberg, a new rule aims to protect the common good on the streets. Starting August 1, 2025, ride-hailing fleets would be limited to charging no more than 7.5% below the city’s taxi fares, in an effort to curb price dumping and to shield the taxi sector as part of public transport. Platforms like Uber and Bolt largely hire drivers as subcontractors, and the commissions they take per ride shape their revenues. In Germany, Bolt has publicly listed about 25–29% in several cities, while Uber’s exact German take rate isn’t published, though international studies show high shares elsewhere. The policy acknowledges differences between Mietwagen—drivers returning to base after trips—and taxis, whose routes aren’t restricted in the same way and whose tariffs are set by municipalities. There are potential legal challenges looming; Leipzig has found some minimums disproportionate, Uber has warned of possible action, and other cities like Hamburg pursue different routes such as pre-approval of business models before licensing.

A passionate critique: This tally of numbers and regulations mirrors a deeper wound in our living world—the wound of a system that treats life as ledger and soil as collateral. The harm runs beyond the balance sheet: it is a sacrifice of people, the drivers who shoulder precarity for a promise of speed, and of Mother Earth, who pays the price of more cars, more traffic, more exhaust. The cart of this toxic capitalism wheels through our cities, extracting surplus from labor, data, and urban space while presenting a polished image of efficiency. The commission per ride becomes a blade that cuts into dignity, turning human movement into a perpetual bout of market optimization rather than a shared, soulful journey.

And there is a colonial echo in the way our streets are shaped for private profit rather than communal care. Urban space—curbside, taxi stand, route planning—has been ceded to platforms that profit from mobility while the people who move the city are left to improvise precarious livelihoods. The idea that a “base return” or a minimum price protects the public good can, in effect, mask a deeper extraction: the extraction of labor, the extraction of public trust, the extraction of environmental health. The climate crisis already laments every extra mile driven in the name of convenience; this model risks normalizing car dependence, increasing emissions, and fraying the social contract that binds a city to its inhabitants and to its future.

We must answer with a healing alternative. Let us reweave our streets with the threads of solidarity: bold, well-funded public transit that serves all, not the few; worker-owned or cooperatively run fleets that share the spoils of movement with those who move us; transparent pricing and accountable governance that place people and planet over profit. Invest in buses, trains, safe cycling, and walkable neighborhoods; foster community mobility initiatives that honor labor, rights, and ecological limits. Let us honor the Earth by choosing mobility that renews rather than drains her; honor ancestors by building systems that support workers with dignity; and honor future generations by choosing cooperation over conquest. May our cities become temples of care where movement sustains life, heals wounds, and invites every being to travel with reverence.