Lyft to cut 1,072 employees, or 26% of its workforce

A huge part of what made Uber great when they first launched UberX was the driver ratings. This forced the drivers to provide good service, unlike the previous standard for taxis.

The problem now is that you can't give your driver a rating until the ride actually starts. This allows the drivers to play all sorts of games before the ride starts. If I match with a driver, and he drives around aimlessly for 10 minutes, then calls me, asks where I'm going, and then demands I cancel the ride (and get charged), that should be one star, but currently it's impossible to rate this bad driver.

I called a Lyft the other day and saw that there was an option for priority pickup, which flags a driver who's close to you but going to pick up someone else and has him pick you up instead.

In the moment it was nice: I was running late and that got me on track. But it seems really really bad for the ecosystem in general. I'm not sure I can rely on being picked up at a reasonable time again without paying for it. And once everyone realizes that and starts paying more, then we're back to where we were before.

If Uber isn't doing that, maybe it's time to give them a try.

Could be a coincidence, but my experience has been that Lyft have generally been faster and cheaper than Uber. However the quality of both the driver and the car has generally been higher with Uber.

I'd still call Lyft over taking a traditional cab though.

It seems to be very city specific. Had exact experience a few times while in Miami and switched back to Uber for rest of trip.

Drivers are smart, they network, and they talk. I'm sure theres some idiosyncratic thing going on where Lyft is more gameable for drivers in some cities. Could be Uber-Lyft price spread plus cancel policy / penalty on drivers.

Most of these guys drive around with N apps running, so they switch to more lucrative ride / app / etc on the fly.

Lyft's UI is also just worse. When you order a ride, they use a particular dark pattern to make it seem as if the driver has immediately been found, when it's still searching for one.

That was my experience last year (first time using Lyft; never used Uber). I was trying to get a ride from a Holiday Inn in Austin that sat next to the freeway. I had about 4 accept it and bail out five minutes later (even the person who accepted it the night before when I scheduled it). I had to wait around 20 minutes past my scheduled pick up time until someone decided to follow through. This was around 7am and was scheduled for surgery at 8am. I don't know if it's a perfect storm situation but I wasn't impressed. I didn't need any more anxiety, and I'll probably stick with the traditional taxi service next time.

I had that happen 6 times in a row. Incredibly frustrating experience. I was in SF and trying to get to the east bay.

That's happened to me, and it does suck. On the map inside the app, I one time watched a Lyft driver take my order, then drive to a McDonald's, then cancel my order. Weird thing to do.

The thing is, your Uber driver was probably also working for Lyft at the same time. The one who canceled probably was too. So I don't know if one company is better for that than the other, or if you just happened to get a game theorist Lyft driver by luck of the draw, who decided to optimize his expected value.

If you're already at the airport... Why wait for a ride-hail, instead of just using the taxi line?

This game is played by Uber drivers as well, so it's just a matter of luck. Not sure if related to particular cities or just bad people, of which we had enough in the taxi business already.

Lyft stopped being my default after a couple rides where I was charged more than I was quoted for no clear reason, and customer service just went .

I was in DC for business 2 weekends ago and had 3 Lyfts cancel on me. Never had that happen before on either platform. Checked my rider rating just in case and it's 4.97. Really frustrating to deal with, especially when timing matters.

The irony here is that that every driver is both a Lyft and Uber driver.

Lyft is still around. They aren't going out of business. They are just consolidating their workforce.

Remember that Uber has had 2 rounds of layoffs already I think. One was for 16% of their workforce and another was for 5-6%. So it isn't a whole lot different. I wouldn't expect anything to change. Facebook has had 4-5 rounds of layoffs and Instagram and Facebook aren't going anywhere.

> I feel like their strategy since Day 1 has been "First, take over the world. Second, raise prices."

I'm not sure it's as nefarious as you present it. The "raise prices" portion is more like "raise prices to what it actually costs to provide the ride". They'd been pricing rides at a loss for years to get traction and customers.

Anecdotally, though, I haven't found Lyft to be much better. Even with Lyft Pink (and no Uber One or whatever it's called), Uber is usually fairly competitive with Lyft, at least where I live.

I ran into something very similar in DC. They let me unlock a scooter that was in a 'no-go' zone and began billing me, however it wouldn't operate because I was in that zone. I ended up having to walk it over a mile to get it to function, while it was billing me the whole time.

So frustrating they even would let you unlock these in the first place. I'll never use it again.

Where I live there is a high-speed road (45 mph speed limit, no sidewalks) going through a park. Lyft and Bird have both designated the entire park as a prohibited zone except for the road. The city has also designated the road a "cycling route" despite it not having bike lanes.

I found this out while trying to ride a scooter through the park. Google Maps directed me to take the road, which I was not thrilled about but seemed like a better idea than carrying the scooter through the prohibited zone. But then the fuzzy geofencing on the scooter thought I was in the park anyway and kept intermittently cutting off the scooter.

They definitely are. When I take Uber/Lyft I notice that most drivers are running both apps. As they get towards my destination they will start bobbing for fares between the two apps. Maybe Uber is paying slightly more for drivers? I don't know, but maybe that is why they tend to favor Uber rides over Lyft. Maybe they are more likely to get tips on Uber. Just some theories. But I have noticed the same thing, most drivers tend to favor Uber. So if they gets rides from both, they will cancel the Lyft one.

I used to switch between the apps based on price of rides. Now I have AMEX rewards for Uber plus I get Marriott points when I ride, so that is why I have moved exclusively to Uber.

But the drivers are the same. It's the same pool of drivers, using both apps.

Or if you want to know which CEO's were responsible for these layoffs: https://www.itakefullresponsibility.fyi

I think there has been a lack of innovation and growth. WS can accept losses so long as there is potential (e.g. food delivery)

I mean if you really weren't profitable, and you wanted to try to be, why not freeze feature development and run the company with ~500 employees, <100 engineers? I learned Uber takes as much as a 50% cut of taxi rides. The margin for profit is really there if you see the company's primary goal as "make a taxi marketplace, and leave it be" like craigslist does.

My last Lyft ride home from the airport the driver was really ripping into Lyft and how terrible they treat their drivers compared to Uber, says he only drives Lyft as a last resort if no Ubers are available. He agreed that Lyft used to be the underdog and preferred them but something changed.

I have noticed that Lyft rides frequently get cancelled, and Uber rides aren't as often (still happens though).

I think drivers are preferring riding for Uber over Lyft. It used to be that every driver had both apps in their cars and now I am seeing fewer drivers running both apps. So I think many are settling down with Uber.

In the end, this is actually kind of exciting. It means that the two companies can compete on treating drivers better and the drivers will move towards that app and the riders are noticing (based on this thread). Competition that treats the drivers better I think is ultimately a good thing. The market was so crazy for a while it didn't matter, but now this might be an important factor between the two.

You are wildly off.

For perspective, Microsoft has ~200,000 employees. Lyft never had 2,000,000.

You might be thinking 2,000,000 drivers. But I checked that fact and apparently they have 20M registered drivers. Maybe 2M of those are active. I don't know. But Lyft never had anywhere near 2M employees. It looks like at their peak they had around 4,500.