I want a lift from x to y to z. Bid on me.
I'm left feeling like the fare - strictly from the perspective of a consumer - is actually too high.
The price - while higher - feels more aligned with what I would consider to be "good value".
Ranked in order of importance for me are: - A competent + safe driver, preferably someone who knows the area. - A nice, clean, comfortable ride. - A driver who doesn't talk to me.
All 3 of these are markedly improved in both the Select and Black options. Given I don't take Uber that often, I can justify the expense. If it was something I relied upon on a more regular basis I just don't think I could justify using Select/Black.
I wish "Quiet Ride, Please" was an option in the app.
Unless the cricket is on the radio, then all bets are off.
I am dubious. You live in LA and want to be discreet?
Uberx is much nicer for an extra dollar or two (for standard trips), no more farty taxis.
But using my power of recollection - taxis were a crapshoot before uber came along too. Some were okay, some were disgusting.
I have not had (after a night out at a comedy lounge with my wife) an uber driver chase me into another uber, try and yank open the door yelling "I was first in line! You fuck! You Fuck! Get out!" while my taxi driver speeds away tires squealing.
Since uber came along, the quality of standard taxis here in Perth has increased dramatically. The result is a net positive.
So all in all, I think it's been a net positive for the consumer.
I drove for Uber about 3 years ago for a couple of months when getting my consultancy off the ground, which led to my current gig.
If I had a way to tell Uber "Don't give me rides that require me to leave a given geofence--we'll all have a bad time." Then I'd have been much, much happier. Everyone wanted a ride from my suburban town to the metro area that I know nothing about. Every now and then I'd get one where start point and endpoint were both my own town.
I'd have happily taken less fares in order to drive more familiar streets, and the people who rode with me would have enjoyed it more.
1) Many drivers from your town would likely geofence themselves to your town, reducing the supply of drivers that will drive to the metro area, increasing wait times and driving up prices, making riders unhappy.
2) Drivers would use this feature to avoid driving to "bad" parts of town, making transportation discriminatory. (In ways that are illegal for traditional taxi companies, so Uber would eventually run afoul of the same regulations.)
It's a shame because there are reasonable use cases for a geofencing feature (you seem to certainly be one of them), but it can be easily abused and can hurt the rider experience depending on locale. (Not saying the rider experience is inherently more important, but certainly Uber/Lyft would see it that way.)
For #2, sincere problem for which I am not aware of a good solution.
It also may not be the same thing as a market customers understand and feel comfortable participating in. It's true that there's more demand for unblemished produce priced the same as misshapen ones, but I'd be very unlikely to patronize a grocery store that ran an auction for each individual vegetable. So it might be in Uber's interest to not expose a variable-pricing mechanism. (Indeed, customers already seem not thrilled with surge pricing, even though it arguably gets them the service they want more efficiently.)
Unfortunately, you're talking to one of those few people. I'm against government mandating minimum wages or mandatory maternity/paternity leave. If you want those things, you can try to negotiate for it.
> customers already seem not thrilled with surge pricing
This is a true statement, but I wonder about these people. I don't share their view.
Yes, we can expose the reality that most people aren't economically worth enough right now to demand parental leave or living conditions, but what is the benefit of exposing that?
It's not like figuring out the true price of a product is low because it's low quality, so if people stop buying it then the producer will stop making it. The people that aren't worth enough, whether it be because they are lazy, stupid, came across an illness, born into a poor family and never had the opportunity and mentors to teach them, should we just let them rot away?
The benefit would be discouraging people from having kids they can't afford and not forcing employers to pay employees who aren't working.
If you want to get paid for work you're not doing, you should at least have a conversation with your employer about it.
You bring up an interesting point about efficiency, and regarding most other things, I would agree with you, but your employment is one of the most important things in your life, so it's worthwhile to do the work to understand your contract.
Perhaps you haven't noticed, but all the evidence would suggest that that isn't working. You can't just not pay people and they magically stop fucking.
Rather, the framework is broken. When we hyper-individualise everything, we end up with a world people can come to frame thoughts like the one you've expressed.
A world where everyone must own one of everything, and a spare, in order to survive. Where betterment is defined as having more and better things to throw in the garbage heap.
So that future archeologists may dig up our society and find the last of the great cetaceans, beached, with their bellies full of custom gift cards with your face printed on it.
And that is a sad state of affairs.
The more educated people are the fewer children they have. And we continue to price more and more people out of education because they lost the birth lottery.
If you pick up random strangers in "bad" neighborhoods as a private person you are insane. Somehow taxi drivers are bad persons when they don't.
Do these things full time you will sooner or later get in trouble.
Going after drivers is going for the symptoms rather than the cause and quite selfish. If I wouldn't do it myself I don't want anyone else being forced because they have lower income than me.
"Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was 'used' by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies. ... Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008."cdc see https://www.investors.com/politics/columnists/how-many-lives...
Just explain to me the game theory plus of a main-street battle, where the bad guy already holds you at gun point- and you have the chance to accelerate towards the bitter end?
I used to travel to Houston quite a lot. Not sure if this is representative of taxis in general in the US, but the taxi drivers never knew the neighbourhood. I couldn't say "I want to go to Acme Stuff in X district", I had to give a "Cross road" (a very US thing, that) and the driver would use satnav based on that. It did seem that a lot of taxi drivers were recent immigrants (invariably chatty), so that accounts for some, but not all.
At first, this was a surprise, as in my native UK I can literally give a street name within 50 miles of where I am, and the driver cocks their head for a second, gears whir, and yes! They know it!
EDIT: If it sets a standard then why has that standard not been adopted nationwide? Your argument is dead in the water and I can only assume you’re speaking as a person who has never visited the UK.
The US has no such equivalent.
Even then, many experienced drivers will still use satnav due to changing traffic conditions. Since there are usually several routes that can be taken, using Google Maps or the like will tell the driver what the fastest route is during that particular moment, which might change every 15 minutes.
I remember when Uber was new (black cars only), and the app didn't yet give the ability to enter your destination, the drivers were all very knowledgeable (in SF) and would be able to take me where I wanted to go based on pretty minimal information. Especially in SF, UberX and Lyft Line are full of drivers who don't live in the city, and must rely on satnav to get around. Very occasionally (1 in 100 rides) I'll end up with a driver who has lived in the city for decades and could drive me somewhere in their sleep.
I'm not sure where in the UK you are, but if you pick a street at random (i.e. give all streets within 50 miles equal weight, and pick a name out of the hat), it's far from guaranteed that a taxi driver would know where it is, and how to get there.
- <30 square miles: The area within 6 miles of Charing Cross, within which London taxi drivers must know every single street.
- ~606 square miles: The area of Greater London, within which London taxi drivers must know the main roads.
- ~7800 square miles: The area "within 50 miles of where I am"
In my travels to the US, which almost exclusively meant Houston, the taxis were always very basic, "boxy" cars; not sure about make/model, but they always felt "cheap".
Meanwhile in Europe, a lot of taxis are Mercedes E class saloons, or high-spec saloons from other makers.
In comparison the cost of the car itself isn't as important, so drivers put some effort into it. And they're more professional. I've never once in my life talked to a taxi driver in France besides entering and leaving the car.
Here in Romania, taxis are consistently horrible. The cars are usually old and not well maintained. It's not uncommon to see duck taped airbags. The drivers are far from friendly.
But! They are consistently horrible in my experience. Not once has one ripped me off and they always use the meter. They know every address you throw at them and get you there safely. No matter the hour. They're also dirt cheap. 2.25 RON/km. So that's about $0.55/km.
For the Romanians reading this; Bucharest is an exception and I've had nothing but bad experiences with cabs there. My experiences are based on using cabs weekly in major Transylvanian cities.
Not a bad ride that one, but that guy had all his bases covered...
The truth is that if you want to pay less for transport then you need to not be taking human-driven taxis.
You're a snob.
I wish they'd relax their policy on vehicles. I would have no problem riding in 90s shitboxes. I would find it novel. As long as it's been vacuumed that week I don't care what condition it's in.
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/watch-terrifyingly-bad-car-saf...
Not to mention personal risk if you consider how dangerous some Uber drivers are.
However if you consider the cost of car maintenance, annual depreciation on a taxi-like vehicle, and petrol the fares are actually very low. I would be willing to bet that a lot of Uber drivers are wavering around breaking even on the long run. Maybe that's why a lot of drivers' cars aren't as well-groomed as they used to be.
Now, I get that "from a consumer perspective" this is irrelevant, but it does mean that a cheaper service is simply not possible without sacrificing something.
Most are doing it as a side hustle for a little extra cash before or after work. Or they're using the money to justify spending more on their dream car.
They don't need to break even, they needed the car anyway, it would depreciate roughly the same amount anyway. Or at least the extra uber usage is going to be negligible compared to the time based depreciation.
Interesting. Anecdotally, in Sydney it seems almost all Uber drivers I meet are doing it full-time now. A few years ago, it was just a side-gig for most but I think the demographics have shifted quite a lot.
> They don't need to break even, they needed the car anyway, it would depreciate roughly the same amount anyway.
Not if you're driving it 10x more than you normally would. Mileage affects the resale value and increases the likelihood of additional maintenance work (especially if you're doing city driving which is substantially more stressful on cars).
Most of the guys make it to pick up girls. I know some girls that use to go by Uber and many guys would ask for their number.
For example they can't drive a Tesla for this cheap, makes no economic sense, except if it's another tinder for them.
Having people who don’t understand how to calculate their costs in the market drives down wages for everyone.
Yup, this was my point! :)
Conversely in Columbus Ohio all the drivers I’ve had recently are clearly former taxi drivers that migrated to Uber. The cars are old and beat up, the insides are dirty, and the drivers disregard the app’s directions usually taking us to the wrong spot.
I agree that when it comes to finding the most efficient routes across town, cab drivers are better (especially during rush hour), but once they get to the right street the experience is so much better with Uber/Lyft/GPS.
"It's the red building in the middle of the next block. No, the next block. No, a bit further. The...it's fine, I'll just get out here."
vs.
"Perfect, thanks!"
How about we let consumers decide what the right "price" is? If you don't like it, then you should feel free to use the higher priced/quality alternatives!
My most recent trip to SF, my ride from Berkley to Downtown each day was about 30 dollars for about a 30 minute trip. 60/hour doesn't sound absurd for that region.
Couldn't we have gotten to taxi-hailing apps without allocating a bunch of capital to companies that might never turn a profit?
I'm just curious. I don't personally care because my money isn't invested and my rides are subsidized by the people who did invest.
The taxi “cartels” can’t “compete” with Uber or “improve their services” to match Uber. Some of the key things that make Uber attractive to customers is low rates and the ease of booking through an app. Taxi companies are *legally prohibited” from competing on rates. Rates are set by the government, and surge pricing (which allows Uber to offer cheaper rates to more cost sensitive customers by charging more to less cost sensitive customers) is illegal for taxis. Likewise, the government usually regulates metering and payment processing for cabs. It’d be illegal for most cab companies to do GPS based metering and smart phone billing like Uber.
Reality is, even in parts of the world where taxis are not heavily regulated, no taxi firms got even close to Uber's competence and sophistication. They simply don't have access to the right people or technical knowledge to produce the same experience (evidence: my local taxi apps that are trying to compete with Uber are all buggy incompetent messes).
I had local services with an app before Uber, I'm sure. It's really not much of a shift from a phone call either.
But then, all Uber cars are the same as private hire cans anyway here.
It seems like the real innovation was being big enough to ignore the local rules. That and being able to say it's "ride sharing" with a straight face.
"For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem"
Hacker News about Uber (2019):
"It's really not much of a shift from a phone call either"
I'm not saying the HN crowd didn't miss a $10B opportunity, but they also weren't exactly wrong.
Also, Dropbox was an early mover. That worked well for them in their early days, but the consumer space is saturated by better options. Dropbox (and Box) are often better suited to enterprise use, where some of the more advanced features (that regular consumers mostly don't care about) are important.
Also, yes, it's not much of a shift. I'm not arguing people rebuild it or have something together but the shift from:
Call cab firm and say where you are
to
App calls cab firm and says where you are
is not massively innovative. (edit - particularly when it has been done before)
I know it's fun and cool to be snarky, but you have clearly missed what I've said and equated it to something wildly different. Please put a little more effort in to your comments to make them more useful.
The Dropbox comment is amusing because that's a complex thing users would have to do and doesn't support what Dropbox supports. Switching from one app to another is really quite different.
If I order an Uber/Lyft, I'm nearly guaranteed a ride within a reasonable amount of time once my request is accepted. Yes, occasionally the driver will cancel and the app will find a new driver, which adds to the time. Sure, the time estimate itself is usually off by 10% or so. It's not perfect, but this experience is orders of magnitude better than it used to be. For the most part I only drive my car when I'm leaving the city or need to carry a bunch of things with me.
McDonalds didn’t have the first burger franchise, the innovation is very much in the reliability of an experience that is a better fit for the needs of the consumer than the alternatives.
I too avoided booking taxis due to bad dispatchers, even though I’m sure some good dispatchers existed in some areas. That doesn’t really do you any good when the use case for a taxi is generally that you need a car in a place that is not your home, and so you are unfamiliar with the area.
Uber not only gave you a reliable dispatcher, they show you with GPS that the taxi on the way, which greatly improves consumer confidence that yes, the ride really is on its way. If that existed pre-Uber for some areas, it hardly matters if you never visit the area and so don’t know about it’s existence.
So saying "the innovation is in the franchise" wouldn't make sense, right?
> That doesn’t really do you any good when the use case for a taxi is generally that you need a car in a place that is not your home, and so you are unfamiliar with the area.
The use case for a taxi is surely dominated by when you need a car but can't or don't want to drive? I've definitely taken more taxis near my home than away from it, purely because I'm here more often.
> Uber not only gave you a reliable dispatcher, they show you with GPS that the taxi on the way, which greatly improves consumer confidence that yes, the ride really is on its way. If that existed pre-Uber for some areas, it hardly matters if you never visit the area and so don’t know about it’s existence.
This seems like an odd description of innovation to me. "I didn't know about it so it's innovative"?
Remember, innovation is not the same as value. I'm not saying it doesn't add value to have these services elsewhere, but that the app is not innovative simply because it was not new.
I say this as someone who was downright flabbergasted that the iPhone was described as “innovative.” After all, I had been using a handheld PC with full Windows installed for years when the original iPhone came out, and it could make VoIP calls just fine! It took me awhile to accept that the incremental “new” people are talking about when they talk about innovation is distinctly NOT novelty. It’s a shuffling of the already existing puzzle-pieces in a way that, in the cases it is successful, we call innovative, and when it fails, it was simply “ahead of its time.”
I'm sure it depends. I've never taken an Uber near my house. (I do get driven to and from the airport but I use a private car service for that.) I don't actually use Uber/Lyft (or taxis) all that much when I travel either although I've started to do so a bit more often when I found I mostly rented a car to get to/from the airport to some destination and then just have it sit.
> ...the innovation is a consistent more reliable and timely experience, consistent across geographies, where it did not exist before.
This is in a major metro. Calling for a cab sucked if you weren't in a busy area, in which case you could just walk to a major street and hail one.
It seems the main thing they did was be big enough to ignore the rules that kept taxis in some parts of the US so terrible.
It is completely different. Before Uber, you had to call dispatch, give them your location or your closest estimate of it: dispatch would then manually try to find a car that was available and send them to you. This usually took at least 30-40m, if they arrived at all.
With Uber, I open the app, it looks at all available cars, finds the closest one available, and sends that car to my GPS location. Oh, and if that car gets stuck in traffic, it automatically picks another car and sends that over
Uber completely revolutionized taxi services and is absolutely nothing like calling dispatch on a phone.
Here, Uber is just another private hire taxi. They cannot pick up random people from the street (and be insured, anyway), so they would not be picking up random other fares on the way unless the dispatcher told them to. This is what has existed for a long time before Uber appeared, so replicating that elsewhere is not innovative surely?
And that’s what’s making you look like a dolt. Taxis in most of the world were (and mostly still are) unreliable gambles that vary from city to city. Calling on the phone and waiting for 40 minutes without live tracking and automatic rerouting for when the driver decides to stop for groceries is a completely different level of usefulness.
You just compared a flip phone to a smartphone (in more ways than one).
> This usually took at least 30-40m, if they arrived at all.
Not for me, I would and still do get cars faster using other firms. Uber says they're two minutes away and they come ten minutes later.
The only reason I use Uber is I get receipts I can push to my expenses.
If the innovation is being a non-terrible taxi firm, then I think I stand by my point that it's because they were big enough to ignore the local rules
No. Nor have I suggested anything like that.
If they're not the first to have an app like they started with, why would you describe it as innovative?
I think their important business decisions were ignoring local rules (as I've said) and building a brand.
Back then, you had to know the phone number to call - I'd try to be diligent about keeping a taxi number in my contact list but it's invalid when I really need it when traveling in a different city.
Trying to hail a cab during a busy holiday? Good luck with that - cab splitting existed but nowhere near as frictionless as through apps + route-planning software. Plus phone calls usually didn't make it to the dispatcher during extremely busy times (walking out of a bar on new years).
Waiting for the cab? Better stay put where you are since they can't see your live location.
I won't say there's none, but there was a taxi app for me before Uber that knew where I was and let me book a taxi, that wasn't innovative.
> Back then, you had to know the phone number to call -
A benefit sure, but "being big" is not an innovation.
> Trying to hail a cab during a busy holiday? Good luck with that
Here when it's busy I can't get an Uber but I can book my local service. Uber is way less reliable here.
> route-planning software.
Every uber here uses Waze.
> Waiting for the cab? Better stay put where you are since they can't see your live location.
Hah! I've repeatedly had issues where Uber cars didn't seem to know where I was, their app put me in the middle of a lake once and I kept moving about trying to figure out where the hell I could meet the taxi because their position made no sense either. They cancelled on me and I had to chase them down a street and rebook, hoping it would connect to them.
Swing and a miss. Op is talking about Uber’s scheduling system for assigning drivers to riders.
- Knowing my location automatically via GPS. I don't always know where I am. I'm on a street near some bar. - Knowing how long it'll take for my cab to get to me. I don't have to assume it's on its way and wait or call the operator to confirm ETA. - Paying when I don't have cash. In NZ, not all taxi cabs take cards.
It's a major shift from a phone call. Not a fan of the company but it's certainly changed things with taxi companies now investing in their own apps and Uber alternatives sprouting up.