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I'm not going to reward an industry that spent decades squandering innovation and didn't modernize until Uber came along. That's ridiculous. I'm happy with Lyft since I don't ever have to worry about "being near a cab line" or a major avenue. I just open the app and I can tell it where I want to go and where I'm at.

Eh - I've had some really terrible NYC yellow cab drivers - drivers that drove really unsafely, wouldn't listen to my instructions about what route to take, made wrong turns, etc. I haven't had this problem with drivers on Uber/Lyft/Juno. I suspect that the average skill level of NYC cab drivers has gone down, since the more experiences drivers that have saved up enough for a car lease have switched to the ride-hailing services, leaving yellow cabs to be driven mostly by relatively recent arrivals to the city.

I'll hail one if I'm in a hurry and I'm already on an avenue, but otherwise I'll go out of my way to avoid it. I agree that it's really frustrating waiting for an Uber in traffic-heavy places like Midtown during rush hour, though - the yellow cab probably wins for those cases if you can find one that's empty.

> drivers that drove really unsafely, wouldn't listen to my instructions about what route to take, made wrong turns, etc. I haven't had this problem with drivers on Uber/Lyft/Juno.

This sums up most of my urban Uber/Lyft experiences, be it Boston, Chicago, or NYC. Also my experiences when I'm driving and somebody's got an Uber sticker on the car.

Cabs don't exactly vet driving, but Uber/Lyft have a lot of folks out there that probably shouldn't be driving. And it's pretty wishful thinking to think that Uber/Lyft don't have recent arrivals driving--Uber at least will give a warm body a lease and take the payments out of what those drivers make on the platform. (A big part of what passes for "their business" is car loans!)

That's why Uber and Lyft have rating systems, and bar people from driving if the rating as a driver is too low

> bar people from driving if the rating as a driver is too low

With Uber's driver turnover being what it is, I wonder what has to happen for Uber to bar a driver.

My bet is that they'll semi-shadow ban instead. Keep them in the system for capacity, but silently send less work their way. Especially to "complainy" customers.

I'm not too sure about the specifics, but I have yet to be paired with a driver that has less than a 4.0 (although I don't watch to keenly). Most of them are 4.5+. I haven't rated anybody below a four

In the scenario proposed, they would be lying to you about the rating.

Ah, yes. That's why. And when they finally--after all, they're only a decade old!--get enough information for these ratings to work, I'll be thrilled.

Put my car in storage two years ago, using a lot of ride share and cabs these days.

Rarely have a yellow cab driver get lost, despite no GPS. I can think of three in three years.

At least 2 of every 5 ride-share pickups, drivers can’t seem to figure out how to get to me.

At last 1 of 5 ride shares I file for refunds on drive costs because drivers blindly followed GPS directions despite bad signal on their phones, circling the destination, sometimes passing within a block of destination several times, yet never arriving.

In each of these cases, the ride share company has the data that shows the driver can’t find the pickup and can’t find the destination, yet doesn’t do anything proactive with that knowledge.

I have used ride-share services many times in a wide range of different cities, and I simply don't believe your claim of 20 - 40% problems. I suspect you're exaggerating the numbers to try to make a point.

GPS signal in Manhattan is specifically unreliable, I believe it for that one location

Cabs are getting better these days, especially with app improvements, but as your note mentions unless I know I'm always going to be in a place where there is a large taxi presence partnered with Curb then it's still not even a real option. E.g. Curb isn't where I am now but I can get a 3 AM Uber to my Airport, hop off at JFK, and Uber there too. The inverse is not true and will likely never be 100% true.

I attempted Uber, Juno, and Lyft, from JFK to midtown, on Saturday, around 9 PM.

Didn’t mind any of the prices offered, ranging from $60 (Lyft) to $160 (Uber XL). Some had waits of 15 mins plus, some couldn’t get the pick-up pin to stick where I was, Uber went into beach-ball spinner mode, and wouldn’t match to a driver.

Fed up with all the tech fail, I walked to cab line, no wait, $55 flat fee to midtown.

Chicago has a very heavy cab presence and yet you'll get a lot of strange looks if you're standing on your residential street with your arm out expecting to get a cab. They'll drive by when dropping people off, but you'd be standing there awkwardly for a very long time.

I can have an Uber at my door in < 3 minutes with two clicks on my phone.

To be fair I think you’d get strange looks on just about any residential street with your arm out looking for a cab unless you live in, and count the loop to be “residential”.

Here in Chicago someone would just ask “why don’t you take dah CTA over derr?” and you know it’s true, heh.

My highrise building apparently has a cab light that can be requested to be turned on. I saw someone use it once, it didn't seem like they waited very long for a cab to pull up to the front door.

Not everyone lives in luxury buildings.

Is a switchable light really a luxury?

Depends on the building. If you're on the lake end of Lakeshore East, those cab lights will whirl and blink for hours before a cab will accidentally wander past Aon Center and see it.

you'll get a lot of strange looks if you're standing on your residential street with your arm out expecting to get a cab.

Depends a lot on your neighborhood, and the time of day.

I lived in The Loop, and in the Gold Coast, and just walking out the front door of my building, I'd get anywhere from one to three cabs honking at me to see if I needed a ride.

But then, once you got past Halsted, Division, or Harrison, it was taxi ghost town.

In every town I've lived, the taxi industry killed itself by focusing on tourists and office workers, and not being available where the locals need them.

True in parts of NYC that cabs are street-hail-able. When I lived in downtown Brooklyn it was quite easy to street hail a cab and then use Curb to handle payment. But now that I live deeper in Brooklyn, there are basically no cabs to street hail on any street in walking distance, and using Curb to request a cab usually takes 10 minutes. Using Lyft takes more like 2-5 minutes.

Meanwhile, my office is on Canal Street, which seems to be basically filled with already booked cabs - while it's in a busy part of lower Manhattan, I have had no luck street hailing when I'm sick and need to get home. If you're in Midtown I definitely believe that street hailing is easier/faster than app hailing.

Interesting. In SF, most of the time I just walk outside when my car has arrived and jump in. Then I get to my destination and jump out. The next time I take a ride I may do things like hit the 5 star button and the No Tip button but that's it. Most of the time my start and destination are already available from a quicklist because whatever time-and-location-search Lyft has is damned good.

I don't want to key in numbers and shit. Not even a QR code?

For this standard experience, I'm willing to sacrifice the tails: driver getting lost on way, driver being a dick. The rarity makes that worth it. Happens to me maybe once in 20 rides. Looks like you have a different calculus.

I don’t think you should be down voted, but seriously? Try hailing a cab in rush hour or bad weather. Or a neighborhood outside of Manhattan with few cabs. Before Uber that’s what we did, and it sucked.

I lived in Flatbush and Bay Ridge, and we just called car service.

It's like Uber, but instead of using an app on your phone, you use a phone on your phone.

Except most people don't live in NYC. Here in LA, all the taxis I've ever been in were dirty, the drivers drove recklessly, and were much more expensive.

Whenever I'm in NYC or other cities, it's also much more convenient to just use Uber or Lyft than to have to download and register an account for whatever app that city's taxis use.

Not if you are in northern Manhattan, where cabs don't go.

Because NYC is everywhere?

Certainly not like this in Toronto.

> Toronto

Sometimes happens at Fri/Sat 2AM on King/Queen downtown. Uber/Lyft will surge and there'll be a million empty cabs driving by.

What does that tell you? People hate the service of cabs so much that they'll pay surge prices rather than use cabs.

I would rather pay more to take an Uber/Lyft than a Taxi almost always.

With the ride share services, I have a full record of my trip and ability to rate the driver afterwards. I can even contact someone if something goes wrong or if I lose something in the car.

I just have a much better experience start to finish and I'm willing to pay a premium for that.

The price has never been the major factor, although ridesharing certainly was cheaper than cabs in the beginning and almost always is today.