Hacker News Reader

Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, it's probably for the best. Over the last decade it has become the expectation that - at the tap of a button - a taxi will appear and take you across the city (or three blocks over) for a few bucks. People need to realize that this isn't reality. The entire industry has been subsidized by VCs and desperate drivers working below minimum wage since day 1.

If, after paying drivers fairly, complying with local laws, reaching profitability etc., we find that prices are where most people can still afford to take Ubers everyday - great! If not, well, that's how things have been for ~150 years. Keep urging your city to invest in public transit and bike lanes.

View on HN

I don't understand why it's a moral imperative that people not take advantage of the VC funding subsidy? The VCs are wealthy interests looking to find a 10-20-100x exit at the end of this. I don't care if the Saudi Royal family places an enormous bet on automation over the next 10 years. Why is it for the best that all the people who use Uber not have that? I just don't understanding cheering that one of the few subsidies that is tricking down is being phased out, and I disagree with the suggestion that any of this is driving toward the end of paying drivers more.

Because it puts out of business other legitimate businesses which can’t access cheap money but that would otherwise be profitable. It can lead to a situation where a company becomes a monopoly, and at that point it can take advantage of the consumer.

From what I've heard, this industry works reliably in Eastern Europe and Asia.

Uber, or any company of this sort is not magical lifestyle company, its merely an app for a driver and a rider. This is easily replicated.

Uber became a poster child only because the barrier to enter is so high in so many western economies. There is a ton of smaller competition elsewhere.

It doesn't work too well in high-income countries anywhere, because cost of living is relatively high and then people don't want to pay those kinds of fares to support taxi drivers entering the industry. You don't really see this in Korea or Japan, for example. Where this kind of informal taxi arrangement happened in the US pre-Uber (e.g. New York dollar vans) it was mostly lower-income immigrant communities willing to accept a lower standard of living.

It's similar to why you don't really see, for example, maids in middle class homes in high-income countries, but those are relatively common where wages are lower.

I have had occasion to call a taxi home after public transit has shut down [a decision I made myself knowing consequences].

When I expressed what the general cost was to my [rather cheap] parent who still lives in 1973, he was astounded. "Why are you shocked and horrified? $45 is a good deal for a 1am taxi at that distance. I cannot believe you've suddenly forgotten about inflation. If you want 1973 taxi prices, go back to 1973 or do an uber."

It appears that a latter part of my quip shall become null and void in a near future.

Few bucks? You ever taken a Lyft or Uber between boroughs in New York?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com