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Comment by drrotmos | Hacker News Reader

Global brand definitely provides value. Whenever I'm traveling (or rather, back when travel was possible) I always use Uber because I know that I can pay buy credit card (rather than cash) and if the driver takes a huge detour or some other common taxi scam, I can just contact Uber's customer service, and they'll refund me.

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That's true, but most rides are local by wide margin. And 10-20% per ride is too much. Maybe $20 per month/car or so.

It's only question of time until the margins from riding app start to go down. Someone builds competing app with similar bells and whistles and sells it to locals as a service without branding for example.

I have often found local alternatives to Uber/Lyft, whether it be in Austin or Ireland, and their main value proposition remains: get me a car, quickly, and take my payment digitally. If I have a problem there's always credit card charge backs.

I think competition is the other thing that makes them work. The local options know if they fuck customers over that they'll just jump ship to Uber/Lyft. And same is probably true for Uber/Lyft!

>if the driver takes a huge detour or some other common taxi scam, I can just contact Uber's customer service, and they'll refund me.

This often gets cited as an advantage of Uber but in my person experience I've been driven 3 sides of a square and Uber hasn't refunded me when I've complained.

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