15 ms·

French Uber drivers have created their own Uber

211 points by kawera 11y ago

kennydude 11y ago
App looks pretty nice which makes a change. Here (Newcastle, UK) a lot of taxi companies have their own apps which are not even stable hence Uber is useful (the only reason I actually use Uber)
comboy 11y ago
I still don't understand why Uber couldn't let drivers set their own fares. It seems to me that it should create a healthy market that in the end would be great outcome for consumers. E.g. some hours are much less profitable for Uber drivers - so they set the fare higher and thanks to that you can always find a driver when needed. On the other hand, higher current fare works as an invitation for the new drivers. It auto adjusts to drivers/users availability in given region.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  Because Uber is using these people as a resource and allowing them to set their own rates would cut in on Ubers margins. Drivers provide capital goods (a vehicle) and work (as opposed to hiring a bunch of employees which you'd have to pay even if there was no work) and they provide these at a moments notice at Ubers discretion. If Uber allowed drivers to set their own rates that would initiate a 'race to the bottom' reducing the fares and thus Ubers percentage. Because it is convenient to make these operators out to be independent entities for legal reasons does not rule out Ubers desire to treat them as unpaid employees for totally different reasons. From Ubers persective some independence is good, just enough to not assume any responsibilities that go with operating a company like this but too much independence (such as control over the rates) is a bad thing. The 'new middlemen' have to ride a very fine line here to protect their income stream. A real free market is simply not in Ubers interest, they would like the prices to stay as high as possible, basically what the market will bear.
  - loceng 11y ago
    Followed by Uber eliminating drivers all together in the future, where possible, with self-driving vehicles. I have this nervousness, excitement, that would could see the biggest free fall in all of history for a company at some point in the future if they ever legitimately start abusing (that's what I would call it anyway) the relationship with the drivers.
    - masklinn 11y ago
      > Followed by Uber eliminating drivers all together in the future Nah, having to own and maintain a fleet of vehicles would bring about similar issues. Uber wants driverless vehicles but they'll want to subcontract to fleet owners (or individuals), not to be on the hook for maintenance and legal issues.
      - arethuza 11y ago
        Perhaps Uber will turn into a franchise operation where you get a franchise, buy a few cars and a base somewhere cheap to store and clean them and you just send them out to earn money.
      - dexterdog 11y ago
        But there will be a much more consistent experience from a services that vertically integrates the whole thing. Some people will prefer that. I will prefer to have more than one transportation company in the future.
  - sharemywin 11y ago
    also, the more steps you add to the process the more people drop off similar to an abandoned shopping cart.
  - halviti 11y ago
    >If Uber allowed drivers to set their own rates that would initiate a 'race to the bottom' Not necessarily, it could easily go both ways as it would create a market for people that want to pay more for "better" drivers.. people with nice cars (teslas and generally expensive automobiles) just to be seen in them or to experience riding in them, drivers that pamper their clients with newspapers, in vehicle entertainment, free water, etc.
- repomies691 11y ago
  Sidecar is trying the different model AFAIK. I'm myself very doubtful that it would work well in practice - as a consumer I don't want to haggle the price in the ordering process, I just want hassle-free ordering experience with the constant price level.
- mannykannot 11y ago
  Uber's best interests are not served by creating a healthy market, its preferred outcome is a de-facto monopoly (see also Amazon.) Competition benefits consumers, but winning is what most benefits corporations.
- HappyTypist 11y ago
  That's what the surge pricing system is intended to do, to some extent. However, significant variance in pricing removes the reliability and consistency of the service. Designing a UI to allow the user to see the supply market and set a rate xyr's willing to bear would also be a nightmare. Surge pricing aims to balance the supply/demand curve and a consistent experience, resulting in more future rides.
- morgante 11y ago
  Because I want to be able to consistently know how much an Uber ride will cost. Particularly in emerging markets, one of the biggest appeals that Uber offers is that you don't have to compare prices and haggle with drivers.
- totalrobe 11y ago
  For one thing, the app experience would be significantly more complex for users because the consumer would need to choose between drivers based on pricing.
Sarkie 11y ago
"Created" vs "Rebranded" https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=5923513214207758667 https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=592351321420775866...
- scotty79 11y ago
  Uber vs this, looks like Apple vs Android (or PC many years ago). What I mean is, to compete with Uber it's a good idea to build taxi calling platform that all local taxi networks could adopt (and brand to some degree). Same way that Google needed to create open platform that established mobile manufacturers could participate in. They will eventually adopt it because it brings customers (and they can't adopt Uber), and customers will adopt it because they'll be able to use central platform to call local taxi with all the conveniences of pre-defined destinations and automatic payment. I think the Uber is successful not because of price achieved by hiring non-professional drivers with their non-professional cars and getting the price down. I think they are successful because you no longer need to talk to the driver or manually pay to get somewhere.
  - mingus68040 11y ago
    No, they were successful because they deliberately flaunt existing regulations that would otherwise reduce their profit margin.
fit2rule 11y ago
And so goes the free market, in its most refined form .. how easy it is, after all, to simply clone a service in some other language, some other framework, and continue to deliver to customers. What bothers me most is how the OS vendors are asleep at the wheel, again. These kinds of services - "I am [here] and want [blah]" - are broadly applicable. "Word"-"Summoning" apps are a dime a dozen. Shouldn't this be a builtin by now?
- izacus 11y ago
  Why would everything have to be built-in? That just kills competition and bloats the already large OSes.
  - fit2rule 11y ago
    Because users demand it, perhaps? I mean, stay with me, but I happen to think Dropbox is a calamity that only was possible because of the Browser wars taking out pretty much everyone, with the survivors basically going insane. Peer-to-peer service discovery, built-in, should be a major feature by now. I shouldn't need to worry about my Face-privacy; my portable computer has the capability to handle that for me. If only someone would program it so.
repomies691 11y ago
What's the user experience like? There is a lot of talk about these "worker-own" apps/networks, however I very much doubt that they are able to compete with the uber level of service in the longer run. You need lots of software engineering etc skills to run this kind of service smoothly.
- seivan 11y ago
  Exactly. Outsourcing your main tech stach isn't exactly competing with Uber. It's easy to tell them apart. Which team has a properly restful API available to the public.
  - LunaSea 11y ago
    It's amazing to me that you think that anybody (besides developers) will care about REST API design rather than the service offered by the driver.
    - repomies691 11y ago
      I don't care about the REST API, but I care how well the app works etc. It doesn't sound trivial to me. Showing the locations of the car and the customer in real-time, routes in real-time, having all the communication systems working all the time, the reputation system etc.
      - Q6T46nT668w6i3m 11y ago
        While I agree with conclusion, Uber, et al. doesn’t actually show real-time locations and the communication system is error prone.
        matwood 11y ago
        It looks like real time locations when I've taken uber, unless you mean not real time as in slightly delayed time to get GPS, go to uber and then back to my phone.
ucaetano 11y ago
"Whereas Uber takes a 20 percent commission for every trip in Paris, VTC Cab charges its drivers a monthly fee of €250" So the drivers need to make at least €1,250/month for this model to be better than Uber (for the driver)? Not to mention that it has a higher upfront cost. Sounds like most drivers would rather pay 20% on whatever they make than pay an upfront fee with no guarantee of revenue.
- brohee 11y ago
  The typical Uber car lease is way over that, anyone not making at least that shouldn't be a driver at all I guess...
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - danpalmer 11y ago
    Bear in mind that the other costs for the driver are the same - they need to pay the car lease, insurance, etc in both cases. As far as I can tell, the only difference is 250 vs 20%.
  - diabeetusman 11y ago
    I'm sure there are plenty of drivers who drive for Uber to supplement their income, not replace. If they already have a car, they only need to cover the additional mileage/depreciation, not pay for the entire car lease.
    - forgetsusername 11y ago
      >they only need to cover the additional mileage/depreciation, not pay for the entire car lease. Don't forget the extra insurance required when you are using your vehicle to transport passengers, commercially. Of course, not many people actually buy it, which is essentially insurance fraud. Don't think so? Call your insurance provider and ask their opinion.
- zyx321 11y ago
baby 11y ago
It's a non-profit => unfair competition But they don't get the huge 20% commission on the ride? Well that's amazing. Also looking at how much it cost them to maintain the app, if they have 1000 drivers subscribing for just a month they already have reached a turn over. I just hope it offers the same kind of experience Uber does: drivers are ranked, and thus can't act like taxi drivers. PS: in Romania the rate/km is written on the cab. Even similar taxis can have very different rates. Most people don't see that and get screwed afterwards. In Vietnam they use fake counters and increase the price x10. I welcome any solutions to these problems (and Uber is def. one)
- rplnt 11y ago
  Apps like these existed before[1], many real and licensed taxi drivers participated. Only difference I can think of is that the driver decided the price (as he had to), app was there to just check it for users. You could pay both through the app and in person I believe. 1. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sk.hopin.taxiapp https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sk.hopin.taxia...
- marincounty 11y ago
  "I just hope it offers the same kind of experience Uber does: drivers are ranked, and thus can't act like taxi drivers." On Halloween, I saw this older Uber driver pick up/take home one groups of drunks, and idiots all night. This driver had a black Uber approved SUV. One passenger insisted on taking a 10 foot tree branch home to her destination. She tried to stuff it into his new SUV, and ripped the headliner. The driver offered her water. She then told the driver if he didn't get her home, with her light saber she would leave him a bad review. He let her hold the branch outside the SUV. Her light saber was scratching the new paint. Passengers shouldn't be able to leave any remarks, unless their was a major problem with the ride. People have gotten way to finicky, and think they have a right to review every aspect of this sharing economy. While I watched this guy smile, and open doors; I thought how would I handle these people. I think it would be along the line, "Get in this 4 door Uber approved chariot--that I'm still trying to pay off. Shut the F--- up, and I'll take your drunk a-- home. If you keep quiet, I won't throw the mineral water at you." I guess I wouldn't get a good review?
guinness74 11y ago
With blackjack, and hookers.
ogrisel 11y ago
I installed the app and the estimated trip prices seems from 1.5x to 2x more expensive than for competing services.
HappyTypist 11y ago
This is called disintermediation. In short, unless you can convince at least 51% of the drivers to join your platform in a very short period of time, your offering will be inferior (longer ETAs, lower earnings per hour for drivers) due to the network effect. As times go on, your drivers will leave the inferior platform. This is assuming that your app is at least good as Uber's.
- notahacker 11y ago
  There's no reason to suspect that consumers (or indeed drivers) will only use the one service though. Consumers are focused more on specific availability than average availability, and just because Uber has more drivers doesn't mean they won't sometimes only be able to offer the second quickest time and lowest price to a person waiting in a specific place. Provided there are enough drivers to ensure that it's worth consumers' while checking their app, the service can remain viable. Traditional telephone-booked taxi services usually aren't local monopolies.
- amelius 11y ago
  But can't drivers be part of more than one platform?
- gadders 11y ago
  I can see the Kayak-style apps that aggregate across Uber, Lyft etc being written now.
- aianus 11y ago
  There's not much of a network effect with taxis. Someone's going to build a free aggregator so you can see which local service has the closest car and it will become a commodity.
  - viscanti 11y ago
    The network effect was just explained above. The more drivers on the system, the shorter the ETAs. The shorter the ETAs, the more riders want to use that system. The more riders on the system, the less downtime between each ride for drivers. New entrants have to subsidize the market (pay drivers more than they make and give riders steep discounts) in an attempt to catch up. Recent reports about Lyft burning hundreds of millions of dollars in a relatively short amount of time, without gaining much market share most places, shows just how high of barrier there is. Hailo pulled out of all of North America this year for similar reasons. It's just really expensive to try to subsidize your way to competing with the network effect.
Maken 11y ago
"Angry French Uber drivers have created their own Uber" Now that's a misleading title. These guys seems perfectly reasonable, and it is clearly an alternative platform that suits better their own interests than Uber, not something done by an angry mob.
- briandear 11y ago
  You've obviously not have spent much time around French taxi drivers and Uber drivers. Not the must sedate group.
  - palmer_eldritch 11y ago
    I wouldn't want someone driving me to be sedated.
AYBABTME 11y ago
The main issue with "each their own app" is that as a person who travels, I'm not going to install one-app-per-city. I'll just use Uber.
- haswell 11y ago
  I'd love to see some kind of universal "Hailing" API. Something that would allow a single app to coordinate rides wherever you go. I travel as well, and really wish I didn't need to have an entire folder of transportation apps on my phone. But alas, I have a feeling that many services would not go along with this because of direct competition in the same market area. And some probably just aren't sophisticated enough to publish an API, much less adopt a centralized / standardized interface. But I can dream.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - kawera 11y ago
    Yes, protocols, not platforms.
    - nathancahill 11y ago
      When was the last time a protocol had a unicorn valuation? I completely agree, but it's not aligned with investor interest.
      - mingus68040 11y ago
        Protocols don't exist to serve investors.
  - toephu2 11y ago
    that's what they are working on (Lyft, Didi, etc): http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/03/lyft-didi-ola-and-grabtaxi-partner-in-global-tech-service-alliance-to-rival-uber/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/03/lyft-didi-ola-and-grabtaxi-...
xorcist 11y ago
How is this different from any other taxi app? Why is this their "own Uber"?
SlashmanX 11y ago
Every time I see an article about Uber or taxi drivers I feel thankful that I live in a place where apps like Hailo exist. Every time I read the comments on these types of articles I see people pointing out what the people want/need and how taxi companies could make it work while thinking to myself "Hailo already does this". It was created by ex-taxi drivers too and every taxi driver I talk to speaks very highly of them and how they manage to satisfy both drivers and passengers. Hopefully they can manage to expand further
- christophilus 11y ago
  Hailo looks pretty good. I'd never heard of it before. However, VTC Cab operates "as a nonprofit association with a membership fee" which is pretty sweet. I'd like to see more platforms operate that way-- either as a non-profit, or as a co-op-- in order to avoid the exploitive nature of platforms like this.
  - netcan 11y ago
    I don't quite get why it matters if it's for profit or not. If its about the uber-driver split then we're talking about lowering the 20% fee, not a huge deal in the scheme of things. Presumably the fee will not be that far from that 20% cut. The more substantial part of the grievances that taxi and limo drivers usually have with uber is about prices and the number of participants in the market. That is a negative sum game. Drivers' gains come at the expense of consumers and (often) other drivers.
    - cheez 11y ago
      What ends up happening with for profit and relatively low entry (or well-defined entry) markets is that it's a race to the bottom in prices. Someone is going to have to pay more or be paid less. Investors won't want to be paid less and consumers don't want to pay more. So it's the people providing the service who bear the brunt of the force of competition. They get paid shit and/or get treated like shit. From this perspective, a co-op for taxis sounds like a splendid idea for everyone except investors.
joshstrange 11y ago
If the app works then great but I'm not about to herald this as some great accomplishment. There is a reason Lyft/Uber completely steamrolled the taxi industry (aside from skirting regulations that were arguably bad to start with) and it's because they provided a 10000x better experience over calling a taxi dispatcher and waiting for cab (if it even shows up). I hated using taxis but Uber/Lyft changed all of that fixing all the problems with the taxi industry. Plain and simple the taxi industry had a monopoly, got lazy, didn't innovate, and didn't give a shit about their customers. I relish watching them burn down in the same way I enjoy watching Google Fiber trouce it's competition. Now if drivers want to create an app to compete with Lyft/Uber then more power to them, if they want to run it as a non-profit then great, just as long as their app isn't a buggy/crashing POS then I'll use it but I'm not holding my breath for that to happen. The best I saw from a cab company was a mobile website that asked for your location and allowed you to dispatch a cab after typing a short message. TWICE they never showed and once they didn't even read the message as I had scheduled the cab for a specific time and they showed up 45min early and called to ask where I was...
- ThomPete 11y ago
  Thats not the reason for why Uber got popular in Europe. Europe had plenty of good taxi-dispatch companies. The primary reason the real disrupting was their attack on legislation by allowing anyone to become a taxi driver.
  - johansch 11y ago
    Yeah. You could (can) call a number, order a taxi, get one five minutes later. Typically with a very nice and polite 40-50 year old driver who has doing this for decades and knows all the streets AND is the best source for local gossip. When you pay (with a credit card!) you get a nice receipt. It's all quite nice. I'm talking about the civilized northern European countries now, of course. In other parts of Europe, Uber is a major disruption because the existing service more resembles the US taxi non-service. Except possibly with even higher risk of being ripped off if you are not local. In all parts of Europe though, just tapping in an app with automatic payment is more comfortable than calling a phone number.
takee 11y ago
> He says it costs more than $200,000 a year to maintain the app, which was developed by Multi Brains LLC, and his organization has begun buying ads on Google and Facebook. That sounds a tad bit less (even assuming 250K, to account for "more than") considering it includes salaries for >2 app developers, hardware/AWS costs and marketing costs which seem to include Google and Facebook ads. What am I missing here?
- ameen 11y ago
  Software Engineer salaries in Europe aren't as high as they are in the U.S.
- tristanj 11y ago
  Looking at their android app store page, Multi Brians LLC has built over a dozen Uber clones https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=5923513214207758667 https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=592351321420775866... . The UI is very similar between the apps and I assume the backend is shared so there's not much dev cost for an additional app.
  - kawera 11y ago
    I can easily see then offering an opt-in protocol for their clients allowing users/travellers from one system to book rides in another system/city. Bingo! Direct link: http://taxistartup.com/ http://taxistartup.com/
- acveilleux 11y ago
  A european software dev gets paid more in line with the midwest than SF... 40-50k euros sounds pretty fair in most euro countries. High even.
CodeWriter23 11y ago
I am most curious about how the numerous seasoned VCs who have poured money into Uber, failed to recognize the thin barriers to entry for a would-be competitor.
davidf18 11y ago
The taxi drivers in Paris are much more likely to compete if they think of what the customer wants which is lower fares and a quicker ETA in a reliable taxi. With the new app, since they are not paying the 20% fee of the Uber drivers, they should undercut Uber by 20% thus attracting more customers and making up in volume money they lose by having lower prices. The VTC app should also implement the equivalent of Uber pool which is greener than regular taxis while being able to offer customers even lower rates while improving driver income. NYC does have a taxi app for e-hailing called Arro which is able to compete with Uber when Uber uses "Surge pricing" since the taxis don't charge surge pricing.
- CydeWeys 11y ago
  Agreed. I was flabbergasted when I got to that point in the article and it was clear they were trying to compete with Uber by ... charging significantly higher prices?! Good luck with that. They aren't charging 20% on every fare, so if anything they should be lower.
jordanthoms 11y ago
It's great that they are deciding to compete in the marketplace rather than the courtroom. It'll be interesting to see if the zero-commission model works for them though - The 20% Uber takes is actually fairly reasonable (and much less than what a traditional taxi company takes from their drivers) when you consider CC fees & Collections, customer support costs, customer acquisition costs, marketing, etc is all covered by that. Uber is spending huge amounts of money on growing the customer base (which is good for drivers as they have a liquid market of ride requests coming in all the time), and a service like this will most likely not be able to invest as much in that since they don't have the commission and investment to pay for it.
joshmn 11y ago
I bet they didn't think they had to run and operate a business. The common thinking of "oh, it's in the app store, now I can sit back and relax" is ludicrous.
habosa 11y ago
I use Uber a good amount (~10x a month) and while I like the service I just don't see why everyone is so impressed with the company. Let's consider what people like about Uber: "It's so much more convenient to use an app than a taxi dispatch" - totally true. The taxi industry was definitely lazy. But now most Uber markets also have a competitor to dispatch a taxi by phone (Flywheel, etc). "The drivers are not (jerks|unsafe|scary|etc)" - at this point half of the smart taxi drivers have gone to Uber, there's not much of a difference in driver quality. I think the real thing that nobody else can do that Uber does is sell you a cheap ride. Uber is cheaper than a taxi in almost every city (30% in my experience). If taxis were 10% cheaper than Uber, I'd go to Flywheel immediately. How did they achieve this low price? Simple: by ignoring laws, not paying for expensive regulations, and passing more costs on to the driver. This is not impressive to me. I could think of 10 industries that could easily be 'disrupted' if you add the rule 'You're allowed to ignore all existing laws and regulations'. I could provide you with a $20 massage ... assuming you don't want a licensed massage therapist. How about a $10 light repair ... assuming you don't want a real electrician. You might respond: "but habosa, who cares? You're getting a good ride at a lower price with more convenience". My frustration comes from the precedent this sets. Uber says that if you have enough VC funding, you can make lawbreaking and regulatory blindness a central pillar of a billion-dollar company. There are a lot of people who have invested in credentials such as taxi medallions (or the equivalent in other industries) because they didn't have a hundred million dollars of VC funding to shake off the lawsuit. And some Uber-like company can come into their space and instantly devalue their investment. I don't believe the ends justify the means because soon there will be an Uber we don't like, and there will be nothing we can do about it.
- fineman 11y ago
  > How about a $10 light repair ... assuming you don't want a real electrician. Well damn right, if all I want is a bulb replaced I don't want some jerk insisting it takes a ticket to read the spec on the bulb. I want liability insurance for the driver, etc, but all the value-adds that Taxi companies claim to have (see posts in this thread) aren't, to me. I want to the freedom to choose any qualified driver.
- silverlake 11y ago
48snickers 11y ago
From the article: "The geolocalized app offers the same basic services as Uber; users can hail black cars, rate their drivers, and drink free bottled water." Does the app also remove drivers with consistently low ratings from the system? From where I stand, _that_ is the killer feature of Uber. In the early days, I was happy to pay a premium to Uber not to put up with the typical crap you get from cabbies in Los Angeles. For example, swearing the entire duration of a cab ride from LAX to El Segundo or Manhattan Beach because they were hoping to go for a longer ride. I've never had an Uber or Lyft driver that was anything but pleasant to talk to.
- CydeWeys 11y ago
  The incentives don't seem to align for this. Why kick someone out of the system and lose their 250 Euros/month?
dbg31415 11y ago
Of course they did.
hackuser 11y ago
It seems to me Uber's management openly disregards their workers (but tell me if I'm wrong) and they openly disregard other social goods such as the law. I see this in actions and occasionally in words too. If Uber becomes the dominant service, which due to the network effect would be the only place to find customers/drivers, what will they do to their workers? There's no reason to think Uber will, out of the goodness of their hearts, do any less than use their full market power to take as much as possible from their workers.
- LLWM 11y ago
  Uber wants to replace their drivers with self-driving cars. They've always been very open about this.
ape4 11y ago
Add in Bitcoin for a lower barrier to entry for Uber-like services.
- acveilleux 11y ago
  Bitcoin? Really? What kind of alternate reality do you live in that there are millions of folks out there with: (1) bitcoins (2) the technical wherewithal to use them (3) actually would consider doing so in a cab? Bitcoins are exactly the opposite of credit cards, they are far from instant and it's more then a swipe/touch/insert + a pin, signature or even nothing.

211 points by kawera 11y ago

App looks pretty nice which makes a change. Here (Newcastle, UK) a lot of taxi companies have their own apps which are not even stable hence Uber is useful (the only reason I actually use Uber)

comboy 11y ago

I still don't understand why Uber couldn't let drivers set their own fares. It seems to me that it should create a healthy market that in the end would be great outcome for consumers. E.g. some hours are much less profitable for Uber drivers - so they set the fare higher and thanks to that you can always find a driver when needed. On the other hand, higher current fare works as an invitation for the new drivers. It auto adjusts to drivers/users availability in given region.

jacquesm 11y ago
Because Uber is using these people as a resource and allowing them to set their own rates would cut in on Ubers margins. Drivers provide capital goods (a vehicle) and work (as opposed to hiring a bunch of employees which you'd have to pay even if there was no work) and they provide these at a moments notice at Ubers discretion. If Uber allowed drivers to set their own rates that would initiate a 'race to the bottom' reducing the fares and thus Ubers percentage. Because it is convenient to make these operators out to be independent entities for legal reasons does not rule out Ubers desire to treat them as unpaid employees for totally different reasons. From Ubers persective some independence is good, just enough to not assume any responsibilities that go with operating a company like this but too much independence (such as control over the rates) is a bad thing. The 'new middlemen' have to ride a very fine line here to protect their income stream. A real free market is simply not in Ubers interest, they would like the prices to stay as high as possible, basically what the market will bear.
- loceng 11y ago
  Followed by Uber eliminating drivers all together in the future, where possible, with self-driving vehicles. I have this nervousness, excitement, that would could see the biggest free fall in all of history for a company at some point in the future if they ever legitimately start abusing (that's what I would call it anyway) the relationship with the drivers.
  - masklinn 11y ago
    > Followed by Uber eliminating drivers all together in the future Nah, having to own and maintain a fleet of vehicles would bring about similar issues. Uber wants driverless vehicles but they'll want to subcontract to fleet owners (or individuals), not to be on the hook for maintenance and legal issues.
    - arethuza 11y ago
      Perhaps Uber will turn into a franchise operation where you get a franchise, buy a few cars and a base somewhere cheap to store and clean them and you just send them out to earn money.
    - dexterdog 11y ago
      But there will be a much more consistent experience from a services that vertically integrates the whole thing. Some people will prefer that. I will prefer to have more than one transportation company in the future.
- sharemywin 11y ago
  also, the more steps you add to the process the more people drop off similar to an abandoned shopping cart.
- halviti 11y ago
  >If Uber allowed drivers to set their own rates that would initiate a 'race to the bottom' Not necessarily, it could easily go both ways as it would create a market for people that want to pay more for "better" drivers.. people with nice cars (teslas and generally expensive automobiles) just to be seen in them or to experience riding in them, drivers that pamper their clients with newspapers, in vehicle entertainment, free water, etc.
repomies691 11y ago
Sidecar is trying the different model AFAIK. I'm myself very doubtful that it would work well in practice - as a consumer I don't want to haggle the price in the ordering process, I just want hassle-free ordering experience with the constant price level.
mannykannot 11y ago
Uber's best interests are not served by creating a healthy market, its preferred outcome is a de-facto monopoly (see also Amazon.) Competition benefits consumers, but winning is what most benefits corporations.
HappyTypist 11y ago
That's what the surge pricing system is intended to do, to some extent. However, significant variance in pricing removes the reliability and consistency of the service. Designing a UI to allow the user to see the supply market and set a rate xyr's willing to bear would also be a nightmare. Surge pricing aims to balance the supply/demand curve and a consistent experience, resulting in more future rides.
morgante 11y ago
Because I want to be able to consistently know how much an Uber ride will cost. Particularly in emerging markets, one of the biggest appeals that Uber offers is that you don't have to compare prices and haggle with drivers.
totalrobe 11y ago
For one thing, the app experience would be significantly more complex for users because the consumer would need to choose between drivers based on pricing.

Sarkie 11y ago

"Created" vs "Rebranded" https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=5923513214207758667 https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=592351321420775866...

scotty79 11y ago
Uber vs this, looks like Apple vs Android (or PC many years ago). What I mean is, to compete with Uber it's a good idea to build taxi calling platform that all local taxi networks could adopt (and brand to some degree). Same way that Google needed to create open platform that established mobile manufacturers could participate in. They will eventually adopt it because it brings customers (and they can't adopt Uber), and customers will adopt it because they'll be able to use central platform to call local taxi with all the conveniences of pre-defined destinations and automatic payment. I think the Uber is successful not because of price achieved by hiring non-professional drivers with their non-professional cars and getting the price down. I think they are successful because you no longer need to talk to the driver or manually pay to get somewhere.
- mingus68040 11y ago
  No, they were successful because they deliberately flaunt existing regulations that would otherwise reduce their profit margin.

fit2rule 11y ago

And so goes the free market, in its most refined form .. how easy it is, after all, to simply clone a service in some other language, some other framework, and continue to deliver to customers. What bothers me most is how the OS vendors are asleep at the wheel, again. These kinds of services - "I am [here] and want [blah]" - are broadly applicable. "Word"-"Summoning" apps are a dime a dozen. Shouldn't this be a builtin by now?

izacus 11y ago
Why would everything have to be built-in? That just kills competition and bloats the already large OSes.
- fit2rule 11y ago
  Because users demand it, perhaps? I mean, stay with me, but I happen to think Dropbox is a calamity that only was possible because of the Browser wars taking out pretty much everyone, with the survivors basically going insane. Peer-to-peer service discovery, built-in, should be a major feature by now. I shouldn't need to worry about my Face-privacy; my portable computer has the capability to handle that for me. If only someone would program it so.

repomies691 11y ago

What's the user experience like? There is a lot of talk about these "worker-own" apps/networks, however I very much doubt that they are able to compete with the uber level of service in the longer run. You need lots of software engineering etc skills to run this kind of service smoothly.

seivan 11y ago
Exactly. Outsourcing your main tech stach isn't exactly competing with Uber. It's easy to tell them apart. Which team has a properly restful API available to the public.
- LunaSea 11y ago
  It's amazing to me that you think that anybody (besides developers) will care about REST API design rather than the service offered by the driver.
  - repomies691 11y ago
    I don't care about the REST API, but I care how well the app works etc. It doesn't sound trivial to me. Showing the locations of the car and the customer in real-time, routes in real-time, having all the communication systems working all the time, the reputation system etc.
    - Q6T46nT668w6i3m 11y ago
      While I agree with conclusion, Uber, et al. doesn’t actually show real-time locations and the communication system is error prone.
      - matwood 11y ago
        It looks like real time locations when I've taken uber, unless you mean not real time as in slightly delayed time to get GPS, go to uber and then back to my phone.

ucaetano 11y ago

"Whereas Uber takes a 20 percent commission for every trip in Paris, VTC Cab charges its drivers a monthly fee of €250" So the drivers need to make at least €1,250/month for this model to be better than Uber (for the driver)? Not to mention that it has a higher upfront cost. Sounds like most drivers would rather pay 20% on whatever they make than pay an upfront fee with no guarantee of revenue.

brohee 11y ago
The typical Uber car lease is way over that, anyone not making at least that shouldn't be a driver at all I guess...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- danpalmer 11y ago
  Bear in mind that the other costs for the driver are the same - they need to pay the car lease, insurance, etc in both cases. As far as I can tell, the only difference is 250 vs 20%.
- diabeetusman 11y ago
  I'm sure there are plenty of drivers who drive for Uber to supplement their income, not replace. If they already have a car, they only need to cover the additional mileage/depreciation, not pay for the entire car lease.
  - forgetsusername 11y ago
    >they only need to cover the additional mileage/depreciation, not pay for the entire car lease. Don't forget the extra insurance required when you are using your vehicle to transport passengers, commercially. Of course, not many people actually buy it, which is essentially insurance fraud. Don't think so? Call your insurance provider and ask their opinion.
zyx321 11y ago

baby 11y ago

It's a non-profit => unfair competition But they don't get the huge 20% commission on the ride? Well that's amazing. Also looking at how much it cost them to maintain the app, if they have 1000 drivers subscribing for just a month they already have reached a turn over. I just hope it offers the same kind of experience Uber does: drivers are ranked, and thus can't act like taxi drivers. PS: in Romania the rate/km is written on the cab. Even similar taxis can have very different rates. Most people don't see that and get screwed afterwards. In Vietnam they use fake counters and increase the price x10. I welcome any solutions to these problems (and Uber is def. one)

rplnt 11y ago
Apps like these existed before[1], many real and licensed taxi drivers participated. Only difference I can think of is that the driver decided the price (as he had to), app was there to just check it for users. You could pay both through the app and in person I believe. 1. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sk.hopin.taxiapp https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sk.hopin.taxia...
marincounty 11y ago
"I just hope it offers the same kind of experience Uber does: drivers are ranked, and thus can't act like taxi drivers." On Halloween, I saw this older Uber driver pick up/take home one groups of drunks, and idiots all night. This driver had a black Uber approved SUV. One passenger insisted on taking a 10 foot tree branch home to her destination. She tried to stuff it into his new SUV, and ripped the headliner. The driver offered her water. She then told the driver if he didn't get her home, with her light saber she would leave him a bad review. He let her hold the branch outside the SUV. Her light saber was scratching the new paint. Passengers shouldn't be able to leave any remarks, unless their was a major problem with the ride. People have gotten way to finicky, and think they have a right to review every aspect of this sharing economy. While I watched this guy smile, and open doors; I thought how would I handle these people. I think it would be along the line, "Get in this 4 door Uber approved chariot--that I'm still trying to pay off. Shut the F--- up, and I'll take your drunk a-- home. If you keep quiet, I won't throw the mineral water at you." I guess I wouldn't get a good review?

guinness74 11y ago

With blackjack, and hookers.

ogrisel 11y ago

I installed the app and the estimated trip prices seems from 1.5x to 2x more expensive than for competing services.

HappyTypist 11y ago

This is called disintermediation. In short, unless you can convince at least 51% of the drivers to join your platform in a very short period of time, your offering will be inferior (longer ETAs, lower earnings per hour for drivers) due to the network effect. As times go on, your drivers will leave the inferior platform. This is assuming that your app is at least good as Uber's.

notahacker 11y ago
There's no reason to suspect that consumers (or indeed drivers) will only use the one service though. Consumers are focused more on specific availability than average availability, and just because Uber has more drivers doesn't mean they won't sometimes only be able to offer the second quickest time and lowest price to a person waiting in a specific place. Provided there are enough drivers to ensure that it's worth consumers' while checking their app, the service can remain viable. Traditional telephone-booked taxi services usually aren't local monopolies.
amelius 11y ago
But can't drivers be part of more than one platform?
gadders 11y ago
I can see the Kayak-style apps that aggregate across Uber, Lyft etc being written now.
aianus 11y ago
There's not much of a network effect with taxis. Someone's going to build a free aggregator so you can see which local service has the closest car and it will become a commodity.
- viscanti 11y ago
  The network effect was just explained above. The more drivers on the system, the shorter the ETAs. The shorter the ETAs, the more riders want to use that system. The more riders on the system, the less downtime between each ride for drivers. New entrants have to subsidize the market (pay drivers more than they make and give riders steep discounts) in an attempt to catch up. Recent reports about Lyft burning hundreds of millions of dollars in a relatively short amount of time, without gaining much market share most places, shows just how high of barrier there is. Hailo pulled out of all of North America this year for similar reasons. It's just really expensive to try to subsidize your way to competing with the network effect.

Maken 11y ago

"Angry French Uber drivers have created their own Uber" Now that's a misleading title. These guys seems perfectly reasonable, and it is clearly an alternative platform that suits better their own interests than Uber, not something done by an angry mob.

briandear 11y ago
You've obviously not have spent much time around French taxi drivers and Uber drivers. Not the must sedate group.
- palmer_eldritch 11y ago
  I wouldn't want someone driving me to be sedated.

AYBABTME 11y ago

The main issue with "each their own app" is that as a person who travels, I'm not going to install one-app-per-city. I'll just use Uber.

haswell 11y ago
I'd love to see some kind of universal "Hailing" API. Something that would allow a single app to coordinate rides wherever you go. I travel as well, and really wish I didn't need to have an entire folder of transportation apps on my phone. But alas, I have a feeling that many services would not go along with this because of direct competition in the same market area. And some probably just aren't sophisticated enough to publish an API, much less adopt a centralized / standardized interface. But I can dream.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- kawera 11y ago
  Yes, protocols, not platforms.
  - nathancahill 11y ago
    When was the last time a protocol had a unicorn valuation? I completely agree, but it's not aligned with investor interest.
    - mingus68040 11y ago
      Protocols don't exist to serve investors.
- toephu2 11y ago
  that's what they are working on (Lyft, Didi, etc): http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/03/lyft-didi-ola-and-grabtaxi-partner-in-global-tech-service-alliance-to-rival-uber/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/03/lyft-didi-ola-and-grabtaxi-...

xorcist 11y ago

How is this different from any other taxi app? Why is this their "own Uber"?

SlashmanX 11y ago

Every time I see an article about Uber or taxi drivers I feel thankful that I live in a place where apps like Hailo exist. Every time I read the comments on these types of articles I see people pointing out what the people want/need and how taxi companies could make it work while thinking to myself "Hailo already does this". It was created by ex-taxi drivers too and every taxi driver I talk to speaks very highly of them and how they manage to satisfy both drivers and passengers. Hopefully they can manage to expand further

christophilus 11y ago
Hailo looks pretty good. I'd never heard of it before. However, VTC Cab operates "as a nonprofit association with a membership fee" which is pretty sweet. I'd like to see more platforms operate that way-- either as a non-profit, or as a co-op-- in order to avoid the exploitive nature of platforms like this.
- netcan 11y ago
  I don't quite get why it matters if it's for profit or not. If its about the uber-driver split then we're talking about lowering the 20% fee, not a huge deal in the scheme of things. Presumably the fee will not be that far from that 20% cut. The more substantial part of the grievances that taxi and limo drivers usually have with uber is about prices and the number of participants in the market. That is a negative sum game. Drivers' gains come at the expense of consumers and (often) other drivers.
  - cheez 11y ago
    What ends up happening with for profit and relatively low entry (or well-defined entry) markets is that it's a race to the bottom in prices. Someone is going to have to pay more or be paid less. Investors won't want to be paid less and consumers don't want to pay more. So it's the people providing the service who bear the brunt of the force of competition. They get paid shit and/or get treated like shit. From this perspective, a co-op for taxis sounds like a splendid idea for everyone except investors.

joshstrange 11y ago

If the app works then great but I'm not about to herald this as some great accomplishment. There is a reason Lyft/Uber completely steamrolled the taxi industry (aside from skirting regulations that were arguably bad to start with) and it's because they provided a 10000x better experience over calling a taxi dispatcher and waiting for cab (if it even shows up). I hated using taxis but Uber/Lyft changed all of that fixing all the problems with the taxi industry. Plain and simple the taxi industry had a monopoly, got lazy, didn't innovate, and didn't give a shit about their customers. I relish watching them burn down in the same way I enjoy watching Google Fiber trouce it's competition. Now if drivers want to create an app to compete with Lyft/Uber then more power to them, if they want to run it as a non-profit then great, just as long as their app isn't a buggy/crashing POS then I'll use it but I'm not holding my breath for that to happen. The best I saw from a cab company was a mobile website that asked for your location and allowed you to dispatch a cab after typing a short message. TWICE they never showed and once they didn't even read the message as I had scheduled the cab for a specific time and they showed up 45min early and called to ask where I was...

ThomPete 11y ago
Thats not the reason for why Uber got popular in Europe. Europe had plenty of good taxi-dispatch companies. The primary reason the real disrupting was their attack on legislation by allowing anyone to become a taxi driver.
- johansch 11y ago
  Yeah. You could (can) call a number, order a taxi, get one five minutes later. Typically with a very nice and polite 40-50 year old driver who has doing this for decades and knows all the streets AND is the best source for local gossip. When you pay (with a credit card!) you get a nice receipt. It's all quite nice. I'm talking about the civilized northern European countries now, of course. In other parts of Europe, Uber is a major disruption because the existing service more resembles the US taxi non-service. Except possibly with even higher risk of being ripped off if you are not local. In all parts of Europe though, just tapping in an app with automatic payment is more comfortable than calling a phone number.

takee 11y ago

> He says it costs more than $200,000 a year to maintain the app, which was developed by Multi Brains LLC, and his organization has begun buying ads on Google and Facebook. That sounds a tad bit less (even assuming 250K, to account for "more than") considering it includes salaries for >2 app developers, hardware/AWS costs and marketing costs which seem to include Google and Facebook ads. What am I missing here?

ameen 11y ago
Software Engineer salaries in Europe aren't as high as they are in the U.S.
tristanj 11y ago
Looking at their android app store page, Multi Brians LLC has built over a dozen Uber clones https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=5923513214207758667 https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=592351321420775866... . The UI is very similar between the apps and I assume the backend is shared so there's not much dev cost for an additional app.
- kawera 11y ago
  I can easily see then offering an opt-in protocol for their clients allowing users/travellers from one system to book rides in another system/city. Bingo! Direct link: http://taxistartup.com/ http://taxistartup.com/
acveilleux 11y ago
A european software dev gets paid more in line with the midwest than SF... 40-50k euros sounds pretty fair in most euro countries. High even.

CodeWriter23 11y ago

I am most curious about how the numerous seasoned VCs who have poured money into Uber, failed to recognize the thin barriers to entry for a would-be competitor.

davidf18 11y ago

The taxi drivers in Paris are much more likely to compete if they think of what the customer wants which is lower fares and a quicker ETA in a reliable taxi. With the new app, since they are not paying the 20% fee of the Uber drivers, they should undercut Uber by 20% thus attracting more customers and making up in volume money they lose by having lower prices. The VTC app should also implement the equivalent of Uber pool which is greener than regular taxis while being able to offer customers even lower rates while improving driver income. NYC does have a taxi app for e-hailing called Arro which is able to compete with Uber when Uber uses "Surge pricing" since the taxis don't charge surge pricing.

CydeWeys 11y ago
Agreed. I was flabbergasted when I got to that point in the article and it was clear they were trying to compete with Uber by ... charging significantly higher prices?! Good luck with that. They aren't charging 20% on every fare, so if anything they should be lower.

jordanthoms 11y ago

It's great that they are deciding to compete in the marketplace rather than the courtroom. It'll be interesting to see if the zero-commission model works for them though - The 20% Uber takes is actually fairly reasonable (and much less than what a traditional taxi company takes from their drivers) when you consider CC fees & Collections, customer support costs, customer acquisition costs, marketing, etc is all covered by that. Uber is spending huge amounts of money on growing the customer base (which is good for drivers as they have a liquid market of ride requests coming in all the time), and a service like this will most likely not be able to invest as much in that since they don't have the commission and investment to pay for it.

joshmn 11y ago

I bet they didn't think they had to run and operate a business. The common thinking of "oh, it's in the app store, now I can sit back and relax" is ludicrous.

habosa 11y ago

I use Uber a good amount (~10x a month) and while I like the service I just don't see why everyone is so impressed with the company. Let's consider what people like about Uber: "It's so much more convenient to use an app than a taxi dispatch" - totally true. The taxi industry was definitely lazy. But now most Uber markets also have a competitor to dispatch a taxi by phone (Flywheel, etc). "The drivers are not (jerks|unsafe|scary|etc)" - at this point half of the smart taxi drivers have gone to Uber, there's not much of a difference in driver quality. I think the real thing that nobody else can do that Uber does is sell you a cheap ride. Uber is cheaper than a taxi in almost every city (30% in my experience). If taxis were 10% cheaper than Uber, I'd go to Flywheel immediately. How did they achieve this low price? Simple: by ignoring laws, not paying for expensive regulations, and passing more costs on to the driver. This is not impressive to me. I could think of 10 industries that could easily be 'disrupted' if you add the rule 'You're allowed to ignore all existing laws and regulations'. I could provide you with a $20 massage ... assuming you don't want a licensed massage therapist. How about a $10 light repair ... assuming you don't want a real electrician. You might respond: "but habosa, who cares? You're getting a good ride at a lower price with more convenience". My frustration comes from the precedent this sets. Uber says that if you have enough VC funding, you can make lawbreaking and regulatory blindness a central pillar of a billion-dollar company. There are a lot of people who have invested in credentials such as taxi medallions (or the equivalent in other industries) because they didn't have a hundred million dollars of VC funding to shake off the lawsuit. And some Uber-like company can come into their space and instantly devalue their investment. I don't believe the ends justify the means because soon there will be an Uber we don't like, and there will be nothing we can do about it.

fineman 11y ago
> How about a $10 light repair ... assuming you don't want a real electrician. Well damn right, if all I want is a bulb replaced I don't want some jerk insisting it takes a ticket to read the spec on the bulb. I want liability insurance for the driver, etc, but all the value-adds that Taxi companies claim to have (see posts in this thread) aren't, to me. I want to the freedom to choose any qualified driver.
silverlake 11y ago

48snickers 11y ago

From the article: "The geolocalized app offers the same basic services as Uber; users can hail black cars, rate their drivers, and drink free bottled water." Does the app also remove drivers with consistently low ratings from the system? From where I stand, _that_ is the killer feature of Uber. In the early days, I was happy to pay a premium to Uber not to put up with the typical crap you get from cabbies in Los Angeles. For example, swearing the entire duration of a cab ride from LAX to El Segundo or Manhattan Beach because they were hoping to go for a longer ride. I've never had an Uber or Lyft driver that was anything but pleasant to talk to.

CydeWeys 11y ago
The incentives don't seem to align for this. Why kick someone out of the system and lose their 250 Euros/month?

dbg31415 11y ago

Of course they did.

hackuser 11y ago

It seems to me Uber's management openly disregards their workers (but tell me if I'm wrong) and they openly disregard other social goods such as the law. I see this in actions and occasionally in words too. If Uber becomes the dominant service, which due to the network effect would be the only place to find customers/drivers, what will they do to their workers? There's no reason to think Uber will, out of the goodness of their hearts, do any less than use their full market power to take as much as possible from their workers.

LLWM 11y ago
Uber wants to replace their drivers with self-driving cars. They've always been very open about this.

ape4 11y ago

Add in Bitcoin for a lower barrier to entry for Uber-like services.

acveilleux 11y ago
Bitcoin? Really? What kind of alternate reality do you live in that there are millions of folks out there with: (1) bitcoins (2) the technical wherewithal to use them (3) actually would consider doing so in a cab? Bitcoins are exactly the opposite of credit cards, they are far from instant and it's more then a swipe/touch/insert + a pin, signature or even nothing.