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Disclaimer : I live in Berlin and work in IT. The benefit that Uber gives me here in Berlin, for me, is really big : 1) Global usage ( I travel a lot around E

Disclaimer : I live in Berlin and work in IT. The benefit that Uber gives me here in Berlin, for me, is really big : 1) Global usage ( I travel a lot around Europe and I can use the same app everywhere, no need to look for a local app ) 2) Using app that is potentially / economically better. I certainly expect less bugs than the other apps. 3) All english user interface for every country I go to and pay using the same credit card. 4) Rating drivers So ... IMHO The big potential of Uber is that it tries to solve the taxi problem everywhere. Just like booking.com for the whole world. Competitor solution for this problem is MyTaxi. It is popular in Berlin and I also used it in Lisbon last week.

Nursie 11y ago
I don't want to rate drivers and I think Uber's rating practices are basically evil. I can see the appeal in the global nature of the app, certainly.
- chrisseaton 11y ago
  > I think Uber's rating practices are basically evil Wow that's strong. Can you explain further?
  - th0br0 11y ago
    Probably because you essentially rate a service without having a fixed rating scale. Rating _people_ is always purely subjective and therefore judgmental - yet this is what Uber wants you to do. (Leaving aside the potential economic impact of such ratings...)
    - chrisseaton 11y ago
      The scale thing is problematic. In practice I think on Uber 5 is 'service was fine' and anything less basically gets the driver fired. Nobody told me this though so I was rating drivers a 3 by default for a few months. Hopefully I didn't end anyone's career!
      - dagw 11y ago
        Uber should really remove the 5 point scale and just have a two value scale of: "good enough" / "deserves to be fired".
  - Nursie 11y ago
    I guess you have your explanation from the other comment, but it's basically that a few bad ratings and you get kicked from the service. A driver traditionally employed by a company would have a variety of employment rights in this situation - the right to a fair warning (or several), the company would generally have to try to help them improve etc etc. It's a callous circumvention of employment law, effectively.
    - drinchev 11y ago
      Well it really depends. There is no legal requirement for the company to fire an employee based on customer ratings, so it should definitely be as it is ... up to the employer to deal with this. Something more. One time I happened to have bad ride with uber and by clicking on the low star button I got many options including the one that I was looking for : "Bad route". So you can justify why you left that rating. On the other hand I've always missed the opportunity that I have in restaurants to complain about my food quality or even grumpy waiters. This is a nice thing to do, that nowadays I use foursquare for, but it seems very practical for taxi drivers. I don't want to go deep, but for example if you get a taxi driver from Lisbon airport by hailing you have high chance to pay double the price to the city center ( usually it costs 10 euro, but some guys will bump it to 18 if they see you are a tourist ).

Nursie 11y ago

I don't want to rate drivers and I think Uber's rating practices are basically evil. I can see the appeal in the global nature of the app, certainly.

chrisseaton 11y ago
> I think Uber's rating practices are basically evil Wow that's strong. Can you explain further?
- th0br0 11y ago
  Probably because you essentially rate a service without having a fixed rating scale. Rating _people_ is always purely subjective and therefore judgmental - yet this is what Uber wants you to do. (Leaving aside the potential economic impact of such ratings...)
  - chrisseaton 11y ago
    The scale thing is problematic. In practice I think on Uber 5 is 'service was fine' and anything less basically gets the driver fired. Nobody told me this though so I was rating drivers a 3 by default for a few months. Hopefully I didn't end anyone's career!
    - dagw 11y ago
      Uber should really remove the 5 point scale and just have a two value scale of: "good enough" / "deserves to be fired".
- Nursie 11y ago
  I guess you have your explanation from the other comment, but it's basically that a few bad ratings and you get kicked from the service. A driver traditionally employed by a company would have a variety of employment rights in this situation - the right to a fair warning (or several), the company would generally have to try to help them improve etc etc. It's a callous circumvention of employment law, effectively.
  - drinchev 11y ago
    Well it really depends. There is no legal requirement for the company to fire an employee based on customer ratings, so it should definitely be as it is ... up to the employer to deal with this. Something more. One time I happened to have bad ride with uber and by clicking on the low star button I got many options including the one that I was looking for : "Bad route". So you can justify why you left that rating. On the other hand I've always missed the opportunity that I have in restaurants to complain about my food quality or even grumpy waiters. This is a nice thing to do, that nowadays I use foursquare for, but it seems very practical for taxi drivers. I don't want to go deep, but for example if you get a taxi driver from Lisbon airport by hailing you have high chance to pay double the price to the city center ( usually it costs 10 euro, but some guys will bump it to 18 if they see you are a tourist ).