Comment by toxicFork | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toxicFork | Hacker News Reader

I took an Uber during the tube strikes of London quite recently. They had a surge pricing that almost tripled fares. That's understandable.

I was speaking to the driver, asking about his opinions on Uber. I started the conversation assuming Uber gave him an opportunity to work. It was not exactly like that.

He used to work at a taxi company for around 30 years. Then Uber came. They lost a lot of business to Uber, because of the lower prices. Also it didn't help that the boss was the only person taking the calls and sometimes he forgot to tell the drivers that a job was available, or he just slept through calls. So the company shut down.

His son started working for Uber, and was very happy with it. So he started working for Uber too, but he said he was earning much less, and working more.

Also he complained that the customers would sometimes have a lot of luggage bags, and his previous employer allowed him to charge extra for luggage bags, extra people, or other "inconveniences". Uber doesn't. So he wasn't happy, but he doesn't have many options.

Uber seems to be making it better for the customers, and worse for the "old school" drivers.

Edit: He did mention that when driving for Uber, if he sees someone with lots of luggage bags or lots of people, he just doesn't pick them up. I guess Uber may eventually come up with penalties against that, if they haven't already.

Had this exact thing the other day.

I had boxes and I ordered an uber, done it before, used them a good 50+ times.

The driver turned up and said an "UberX" is just the person, nothing else, that's what the next one is for.

I've never seen any info telling me this, so this is Uber's fault I feel and I've chatted to the same type of people, they work more, but also they said, sometimes the controllers in London, send drivers around everywhere for a fair, whereas Uber it is perfect for people to pick in the same area.

So to excuse the phrase, it's all swings and roundabouts. I'd love to be able to pick up a black cab and maybe pay a little bit more as their knowledge far outweighs any gps alternative.

> The driver turned up and said an "UberX" is just the person, nothing else, that's what the next one is for.

Maybe this is a regional rule but I doubt it, it's definitely not the rule in the States.

Maybe he meant 'uber XL' (which is the next step up on the slider), which are people carriers for more people/bigger items?

It seems as if though, as far as drivers go, companies like Uber are very much catering to this new phenomenon of Millennial aged people having multiple jobs to make ends meet. So they don't feel as obligated to pay as much as a Taxi service, or provide as many frills, since they probably assume its just a 'side gig' for most of their drivers.

This is good for some people, bad for others. No longer can you JUST drive a Taxi (or Uber). They've made everything a lot easier for the customer, and I would argue they have done a great deal to streamline things for the Drivers as well... But at the price of it not really being able to be a truly fulltime gig anymore.

You likely will still have to keep a second job to live comfortably in most Uber scenarios (depends on the city though)

I'd say it's more of a Millennial trend of devaluing labor and services. Napsterfication, I like to call it.

Who is going to argue with upending an industry providing a living wage to mostly immigrant workers to funnel all of the money into investor pockets instead?

Am I the only person who feels a little bit unsettled seeing the push towards the gig-economy mostly being made by genetic lottery winners? I don't know what to think anymore; it's hard to maintain the contradictions of pointing out wealth disparity, creative job demand giving fresh grads comfortable middle class lifestyles, and automating/undercutting poor peoples' jobs away.

What evidence do you have that the "Millennials" value labour and services any less than previous generations? Napster is a good example - most Millennials were barely teenagers when it closed down. The bulk of users were certainly older.

Who is going to argue with upending an industry providing a living wage to mostly immigrant workers to funnel all of the money into investor pockets instead?

Yeah, immigrant workers like Evgeny Freidman: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/11/upshot/new-york-taxi-mogul...

This whole poor immigrant vs large tech company makes for good propaganda, but is there any evidence that Uber takes a larger cut than previous taxi companies? Being bigger is not evidence: they serve many more markets.

I don't think the millenials are devaluing their value, I think they are left without much of a chance.

The need for unqualified work in the modern world in dwindling and the young lack a way to enter the workforce. the huge supply allows employers to go by only hiring experienced workforce, and they don't even have to pay them top dollar, reducing any incentive to train youngster.

https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/...

That's not great for the taxi drivers that get put out of work, since a lot of them work crazy hours - you talk to them and it seems they just drive taxis and sleep, not really time for a 2nd job.

I thought uber drivers not suppose to load your bags and you should do it yourself anyway? Why would you charge more if customers are loading their bags on their own? You only have to push a button to open a trunk that's it...

My experience has been the opposite, in the vast majority of cases where I've used Uber to/from airports (and that's a lot), the driver has almost insisted that they handle loading/unloading of luggage. Not sure if they're being courteous, it's for insurance purposes or they just don't want one of their customers damaging their car.

> They lost a lot of business to Uber, because of the lower prices.

I assume this isn't true for everyone, but for me, price is quite a ways down the list of reasons I prefer Uber to traditional Taxi service. If I'm at an airport, big hotel, or somewhere else with a taxi line, I'll take a taxi. Everywhere else, Uber is just vastly more convenient.

I'm only an occasional Uber (or taxi) user, which I suspect makes me less price sensitive than some, but my perspective is that the reason Uber is eating the taxi industry's lunch does not have as much to do with pricing or regulation as people seem to think.

> I assume this isn't true for everyone, but for me, price is quite a ways down the list of reasons I prefer Uber to traditional Taxi service. If I'm at an airport, big hotel, or somewhere else with a taxi line, I'll take a taxi. Everywhere else, Uber is just vastly more convenient.

Even if the hotel doesn't have a taxi line they usually have a strong relationship with a taxi company. I've had a taxi driver get woken up to drive me at the airport at 4am when no one was available because of those relationships. I can't get Uber to do that.

> I'm only an occasional Uber (or taxi) user, which I suspect makes me less price sensitive than some, but my perspective is that the reason Uber is eating the taxi industry's lunch does not have as much to do with pricing or regulation as people seem to think.

Given the number of times Uber has cut corners on regulation to enable that pricing...eh. I've honestly never found Uber worth using except to save money. It could be because I generally only use taxis for to/from airport<->hotel [or another business with a relationship with a Taxi company] but I've had far fewer problems with Taxis than I have the couple of times I tried Uber.

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