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Comment by collyw | Hacker News Reader

Yours seems like a fairly usual reply when either Airbnb or Uber are discussed - "it works for me". Great that it works for you.

I have never had a problem with the cabs where I live (and Uber is banned)

Anyway to add my anecdote as a counter to yours. I was back home in Scotland at Christmas last year. Private Cabs were all busy, so we tried an Uber wanted to charge nearly three times what the monopolistic black cabs (the ones you hail from the street) charge. My one and only experience with Uber and it didn't seem good.

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Surge pricing is actually a great feature. It’s the low base bay, lack of benefits, and screwing with liability that are loathsome.

You had a choice of NO CAB or an Uber at triple rate. Didn’t want to pay? Clearly someone else did. Economics at work.

One of my early experiences with Uber was much the same, trying to get my family home from the national zoo in Washington DC in a sudden rain storm. Cabs — not available. Uber — surge pricing. Totally worth it.

That said I use Lyft exclusively now because of Uber’s moral vacuum.

We hailed a black cab there and then, so it was quicker than Uber and a fraction of the price. (Just to clarify, the cheaper private hire cabs where you book in advance were all busy. Usually I avoid black cabs - the ones you hail on the street, as they cost way more. These expensive back cabs were still less than half of the price of Uber).

If TNCs didn't exist, then almost all the black cabs would have been in use and you would have been back with "no black cab" as an option. The only reason it's now easy to hail a vehicle on the street is increased competition from TNCs.

It was never difficult to hail a black cab, its just the costs were high.

I prefer waiting longer for a cab to be available, than only rich people taking cabs. With uber at a triple rate, I have to wait longer on average for the fare to go down, than to catch a free cab by chance when the fare stays flat.

a choice of NO CAB or an Uber

That's not what he said. Private-hire taxis are not the same as "black cabs". The first is more like what we'd call a car service in the US (call and schedule in advance). The second is what we know as a yellow cab (hail on the street).

It doesn't matter. Uber doesn't hide the fact that they charge more during demand surges, and the fact that there is a demand surge is more info than cab companies usually provide; typically they'll take your booking and lie about how close the driver is.

Pre-Uber, cabs near me worth horrendous. I'd book a cab to go to the bar on St Patties day a week in advance, and they'd just not show; they found someone else on the way and that maximized their profit so they grabbed that fair. So 30m after I'm supposed to be inebriated; I call company, they say they sent another, and 30m later it also never shows. One of us then bite the bullet and play DD for the night (group of 5 congregated to share the cab and hitchhike back).

I think 'Cabs Suck' was pretty ubiquitous comment in many many areas of the country pre uber/lyft; it's an industry that needed to be disrupted badly.

Cabs are shit in most places around the world. What's great with Uber is that you will avoid that while traveling.

I traveled recently in a foreign country where I did not speak the local language. Uber allowed me to enter my destination and location without confusing the driver. I could never have done this with a traditional taxi cab.

You couldn’t show them the address written down?

I've tried that in most countries I've been to. The results have been hit-and-miss.

Japan: Works great Turkey: Nope. Thailand: Nope. France: Works, but not always well

In a lot of countries, cab drivers are illiterate. And I don't mean functionally illiterate. I mean simply CAN NOT read. Not even a map. If you don't speak the language absolutely fluently, you're screwed.

I could, but sometimes addresses are not so clear. In my experience taxi drivers like it when you can explain directions and negotiate price. Without common language for me that is quite difficult.

I have managed to take taxis in plenty of countries where I don't speak the language. Don't pretend that its something difficult.

Sure it's easy to take a cab. What's more tricky, is not getting scammed. E.g. in Vietnam you'll be looking about various internet sources on which taxi companies are probably not gonna scam you. In France, I had some friends getting scammed in a separate ride from mine.

In general, the ability to know beforehand the price, is golden!

Adding to this: in countries payment can also be a problem, trivially solved via Uber. Take e.g. when I first arrived in South Korea and took an cab from the airport (fixed rates and in cabs in Korea are nice, so not a complaint there), the taxi couldn't take my card, and I didn't have 100k won in cash (accidentally took a luxury cab), so we had to drive around to find a bank that luckily took VISA.

Depends on the country. Travel to a difficult country, or a rural area of pretty much any country, and get back to us.

What do you consider a "difficult" country? I used to lug a kayak around South America with me on public transport and taxis or even the back of trucks that were going the right way (while speaking the language very poorly). The biggest problem I had was getting a taxi in Hungary where the letters look the same but the pronunciation is quite different. Even then it was a case of getting a map out and pointing to the street.

I am not sure how you were able to communicate if you could not write or speak directions, but I am impressed! I don't think it wasn't possible to do before Uber in general, just for my case.

Map, and a finger. Or a piece of paper with a hotel name written on it. Are people really becoming so incapable of navigating life without a phone?

So people before Uber have never used taxis in foreign countries?/s In most countries taxis already have apps comparable to Uber available on Google Play. Even before that, I've managed to get a taxi in China without understanding a single word or symbol (could be said the same about driver and English) and successfully reach my hotel -- showing a hotel's reservation did the trick (I bet that pointing a finger on a location on a map would also work).

Did they really have those apps pre-Uber or did they simply adjust to compete by releasing their own app later? Nothing wrong with that, companies adjusting their model to compete, but at least where I live, cabs hadn't changed their model since the 1950s at least. Now, some of them are beginning to release apps, but they wouldn't have bothered without Uber and Lyft taking their business.

Those are interesting techniques. In my case I was in a foreign country and did not have a map or hotel reservation. I also did not know about local taxi companies. My visit was not exactly well-planned.

If you had a phone and Internet to call Uber, you also had a map. Of course, I don't deny that it's much simpler with Uber or a taxi app, but telling that Uber is the only mean to get a taxi in a foreign country is like telling that people couldn't eat before inventing a spoon.

Yeah my intention was just to share that I found it easier. In my case the map wasn’t working. I was on a public WiFi hotspot and I didn’t know where or how to hail a cab. I’m sure it is technically possible to do without the convenience, but doing all the communication over the app in advance saved me from walking four hours in the rain and likely getting lost.

Counter anecdote to your anecdote: I took tons of cabs when I was visiting Colombia and I didn't know a single bit of Spanish. I'd just pull up google maps, click on where I wanted to go, show them the screen. Every single one was perfectly fine.

Not having mobile data in my case meant that I was scrambling from public wifi to the cab. I could not use Google translate or other tools in the car. I also would have no way to negotiate price or insure that I was going the correct place. Not saying that Uber is the only way, but that for me it was helpful.

I didn't realize that Uber worked without mobile data.

Yeah I actually used it from a public WiFi and then ran outside to meet the driver when he got close enough.

This is the primary reason I use Uber when traveling. It makes things so easy.

I don't think thats entirely fair. They vary a lot, some places good some places bad.

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