Black cabs roar back into favour as app firms put up their prices | Hacker News Reader

Black cabs roar back into favour as app firms put up their prices

theguardian.com

25 pointsedward20 comments

In the UK, I have found Black Cabs to be superior to any taxi system anywhere else in the world, at least any of the places I’ve been to. I mean, the sheer determination it takes to go through “The Knowledge” is just breathtaking. You really have to be committed to the job in order to do that.

In the US, I’ve used rental limos on several occasions, including ExecuCar and BlackLane. They’ve both been great — not a single bad experience there. But there’s a huge leap downward from that to the “black car” service from companies like Uber.

I’ve had occasion to use regular car service from Uber and Lyft, and between the two I think Lyft is better to their drivers and their customers. But that’s like saying one pile of poo is better than another pile of poo, because it stinks less.

I haven’t had any really horrible experiences from either Lyft or Uber, and I have had some really good ones. But it’s a lot more hit and miss. I think they might be better than your average taxi, but only in some places. In others, I suspect your average taxi will still be better.

I do prefer to use local co-op transportation services instead of either Uber or Lyft — like RideAustin here in Austin, TX. I’ll use RideAustin over Lyft or Uber any day of the week.

> But there’s a huge leap downward from that to the “black car” service from companies like Uber.

I haven't seen that here in NYC. They wait something like 15 minutes without any complaints, they're always clean, always spacious. I like the little pre-trip survey that lets you communicate your preferred temperature and level conversation

I'm not sure what more to expect?

Do any cab companies here let you book online via browser/PWA rather than requiring a proprietary app to be downloaded? Uber used to have m.uber.com but it seems lately that doesn't actually allow you to book rides in this region anymore and I've not come across any others yet.

In the UK (London) I use Addison Lee. They've provided the Uber app experience before Uber was a thing. Not to mention the drivers are always on spot!

I don't see how investors didn't see or didn't want to see this outcome.

You can't make a new taxi company, a cutthroat industry, and in addition to paying drivers, pay many many millions in Software Eng. All while magically charging less money than those who aren't paying those same overhead.

I mean, it was good for us consumers for a while, but in the end someone was paying for that(via investments), and I really don't understand why.

Can someone tell me why Uber needs so many engineers? I mean the app has been developed, infrastructure software as well, probably was rewritten several times as well...why do you still need thousands of engineers for a taxi app? Do people really want more features? Can't they keep it going the "same" way for the next 20 years? Something like the craiglist approach.

There was an article on this board not long ago, which was very eye opening. It was about the process of rewriting their ios app in swift. It described how they have multiple versions of the app, written by completely different teams, in different languages.

Interesting to read, because it would seem any engineer with more than a few years of experience would understand the risks of rewritting an application of any complexity, but worse they would also understand the difficulty of picking immature technologies. Layer on a whole bunch of other WTFs (related to how & why the app itself is so large) and a picture emerged for me. Never mind the fact that no one in mgmt appears to have questioned why it wasn't possible to pick a cross platform language/toolkit (or even write a custom shim) and reduce their app development overhead.

While they might be getting the glory for what the org has achieved the whole thing sounds crazy dysfunctional. Mostly because it sounds like no one with any actual long term experience developing and maintaining software has any power in their organization. Its totally the software version of "the emperor doesn't have any cloths".

So, it doesn't take much imagination to see how they could be wasting immense sums of VC money on engineering, and likely are stuck on a treadmill or dozen that continue to cause them to fail upwards.

Because they took many $billions in funding and if they don’t increase in value, investors can sue.

In many areas, the experience is just better with Uber or Lyft. Most taxi or black car services in most cities in America are only accessible by calling and booking and in many cases you need hours if not 24 hours or more lead time. Not to mention the huge number of smaller cities that have no other car services.

As someone past their partying days, the only time I typically use them is at the airports.

And at the airports, I'm always blown away. Taxis as far as the eye can see, ready and willing. Yet most people are fumbling with their phone, walking around lost trying to find the Uber lot.

As a data comparison, it cost me 10 seconds of my time and $33 to get a taxi ride home. It cost me 7 to 10 minutes of my time and $31 for an Uber. Doesn't make sense to me.

Anecdotes differ. That’s why data is best for comparing these things. For example I would always take Uber or Lyft some weekends from the airport to the office and it would be around $15. One time my phone was dead, I hailed a taxi and they charged me $50. Haven’t taken them much since that’s been my typical experience.

Yeah I don't see how these apps are even 4% better value than the old system, beyond breaking up the medallion racket in many cities. Back in the 2000's, in Santiago, there were "radiotaxis," which had a dispatch that received calls. So, it was the same thing, same exact thing as Lyft, you called them on your old school cell phone, they always answered, and they gave you an estimated time of arrival, what it would cost (they could quote you an exact price if they knew the route well or you were a customer with an account with them), and how long the drive might be. They could do deliveries too, for instance a rare book from one customer to a relative. The one advantage Lyft has is the map on the phone, though they also use the GPS signal in interesting ways. I'll get to that.

And this is the best part: because it's not an app on a grotesque pocket supercomputer, but a human on the other end of the line, the radiotaxi didn't have dark patterns. Not one in years and years. Whereas Lyft has committed several betrayals it thinks are forgivable but that I will always remember. The contract they wanted me to sign when I was in the airport, which it knew because I agreed to send location while using the app, trying to get a ride home. They presented an ultimatum, as a condition for service, that I waive my class action lawsuit rights and agree to arbitration, and other demonic things they think are fine to include if a lawyer says to[1]. And there was a big beautiful fuscia button, that's the color the app uses to mean "the good choice" in their flow and like 3% of the time to try to fool you to agreeing into something terrible like a 3x more expensive VIP ride. But if I wanted to opt out, was there a button the same size, on a different part of the screen, also of a eye-catching color? No, to click that button you had to send a letter by mail (and you'd need to go to the post office so it could be certified mail), and you have to look up the magic words for that online, hope you trust the right wikihow clone, a dollar for postage, go to the post office and wait in line because sometimes there's a line, and then be checking the certified mail code in the receipt on the USPS's website to make sure you served them your declination within the 30 days. But they could just as easily made a button in their app for that. EDIT: It might have taken the coder less time to add that button than it cost a single person to send his declination by mail.

[1] For some reason they ask lawyers what to put and nobody else, never ask a pastor is this contract similar to a demonic contract? Never ask GOD. Should I tone it down, be 10% less arrogant (arrogance means "asking too much") with the words that end up on the paper? In theory somebody who has a minute scope of choice will read this shit, all this arrogant shit, and then say, OK Mr Lyft, you got me, you win, here, here's my rights, I agree to the words you tell me to agree to that I won't sue your taxi companies, unconditionally, despite it being an excellent, legal and dignified way to resolve eg serious harm and death from car accidents. I would say just presenting these contracts for someone to read is harmful, the language on them is completely demonic. It's like cornering a child into signing a piece of paper saying he's selling his soul to you and he'll go to hell in exchange for a little bit of food, just showing him a contract with that language is disgusting and evil. But it is never punished: the worst that can happen is the contract is unenforceable.

EDIT: what I believe should happen with abusive contracts is the courts should make them counter-enforceable. Meaning, all the rights and dignities the signature-demander wanted me to forfeit to them, and all the obligations and basic liability the signature-demander wanted to be exempt from, are turned around 180 degrees. Which for contracts is legitimate, since the claim is always that they presented you with a fair contract, contracts are supposed to be in balance and signed with mutual consent and no party taking advantage of the other, so if you flip it 180 degrees so the signature-demander has to forfeit the rights he wanted forfeited to him, he has no standing to complain over it. Now of course the court would have to adjust the terms a bit to make the contract really make sense in the opposite direction, for a prenup for instance if a man was the signature-demander to his future wife, the court would have to fix some parts of the contract so it would represent a true reversal.

> what I believe should happen with abusive contracts is the courts should make them counter-enforceable. Meaning, all the rights and dignities the signature-demander wanted me to forfeit to them, and all the obligations and basic liability the signature-demander wanted to be exempt from, are turned around 180 degrees.

This is a terrible idea because it presumes both sides of the contract are equally valuable to both sides.

You know how much it's worth to me that Lyft will have to enter arbitration if they want to sue me? Nothing, because there are very few courses of life where Lyft ends up suing me

Likewise with any privacy terms. I don't have any spyware installed on their computers, and no sane judge is going to grant you authority to randomly distribute crapware to Lyfts computers.

Lyfts terms are of no use to me, and me having them isn't a real risk to them. Likewise with the prenup. The prenup isn't useful to her, and her having one doesn't threaten him. In both cases, the problem for the contract writer is that their end is now void.

If you want to penalize them, fine them. If you're not happy with how paltry fines have been, base them on % revenue like Europe and remove a lot of the judicial discretion.

Well that's why the court has to fit it.

So typically a prenup assigns a share of the marriages asset to each party, say 90/10. If the prenup were deemed abusive, instead of her getting 10% of the assets of the marriage, and the husband keeping 90%, she would get 90% and he would get 10%.

Vienna: Cancelled my last 10 late night rides after they lied about arrival times that usually turned into something between „driver rejecting me until one 30min away accepts me“ and „infinity“.

Running/walking to a taxi stand or just taking late night public transport is now generally faster. Also, it‘s not cheaper anymore. Uber is dead here.

>> Uber is dead here.

I will be in Vienna soon and I guess I can't wait to get swilded by a taxi driver. At least with Uber you know how much you are going to pay and that the price is fair/market price which is not always the case with taxi drivers. Not to mention I had some really bad experiences with the taxi drivers(in Spain) trying to switch the banknotes given...you can't really appreciate Uber enough until you find the "right" taxi deriver(s)

No thanks. In my experience, taxi drivers the world over have regularly been rude, untrustworthy, and found ways to swindle customers. Uber was a game changer. I have no idea why they need an army of engineers, and maybe they can cut costs. But I appreciate their existence and the competition they brought to an otherwise uncompetitive racket. I would rather pay double for an Uber than deal with traditional taxis.

Anecdotally this has been going on for a while, at least where I am. When uber first started, the cab industry sucked, and needed "disrupting". That may still be true some places, but uber was able to peak and stagnate faster than anyone could imagine. I've been taking calling taxis for the last few years, and generally they come faster, are cheaper, and more professional.

And ironically, I've come to really dislike uber, so I'm happy to support cab companies instead. I say ironically because when I first started using uber, I was happy to he depriving my local cab companies of income because of how user unfriendly and entitled they had become under a medallion system.

I've never installed an app to get a ride. Sometimes I call, but usually I'll simply hail a ride. I spot a cab, walk to the curb, and wave it down. Sometimes, the available cabs are going the wrong way, returning from whatever direction I want to go. Easy enough, just cross the street and let them handle the turnaround.

Cabs certainly aren't what they used to be -- 20 years ago, cabbies knew the city. Today, they ask me for directions and implore me to use my phone. But I'll be damned if I'll invite a company to surveil my every trip.

At the end of the day, ROE is the truth beyond everything else. Businesses have to justify their valuations at some point in their lifecycle.

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