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Comment by tibbon | Hacker News Reader

Uber started at the top and then did Uber X to go down in pricing.

Lyft started at the bottom and now goes up.

My biggest problem with all of these services is that there aren't enough drivers (at least in Boston), and I can rarely actually find one on any service when I need it. And it seems a large % of the drivers are actually chilling at home, waiting for a ride (which is fine), but sometimes don't "move" on the map for 10-15 minutes from the time they accept the ride. It will appear they are a 5 minute drive away, but that becomes a much longer wait.

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I've noticed that too, it's infuriating. And with Uber and cabs, they all mark themselves as having 'arrived' some 2-5 minutes before they pull up - it's like, dude, I can see you on the map as six blocks away, how the hell do you get away with this?

With Uber, marking themselves as "arrived" does nothing but notify the passenger. I asked one driver about it and he says he does that a few blocks away because he doesn't want the text to be delayed.

The actual paid portion of the ride doesn't start until you enter the vehicle and the driver taps the Start Trip button.

You can also verify the entire trip later on your receipt. It shows the entire trip on a map, plus the start and end times, so you can verify that it matches your expectations.

Huh. I find it annoying because I'm usually watching for the car once I get the text and so extra time after being told "I'm here!" feels longer (it's like having a recorded announcement break into the hold music on a phone call), but also I think because I had assumed that they were getting somehow tracked on how long it took them to get to the pickup and they were gaming it by making the signal less useful to me. I know it's not increasing my trip length, thanks!

It's most probably because they have KPIs to fulfil set by Uber and they are gaming the system that way. If I were Uber I would definitely monitor quality of service by measuring the arrival times for each driver.

Is there no way to report this sort of behavior? Possibly by refusing to ride with the driver?

I have left feedback on it, refusing to ride would just slow me down even further at that point and isn't worth it to me.

Don't know what you're doing wrong. I live in the south end and use Uber and Lyft (mostly Lyft these days) all the time to get around Boston. Rarely do I wait more than 5 or 6 minutes. Often times it's 2-3 minutes. Both services have been pretty great on average. In Boston, I find Lyft drivers to be nicer (and Lyft marketing less douchey) so I try to use them when the wait times are similar. I'll wait an extra 3 minutes to ride Lyft if I have to but usually I don't have to.

As a point of comparison, in San Francisco (ground zero for these things), a city where flagging down a cab is very hit-or-miss, they're everywhere -- it works great.

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