5 ms·

This is factually incorrect. You're drawing a direct parallel between medallion taxis and Uber/Lyft rides, when they are not in fact the same at all. The outer

by CPLX 9y ago

This is factually incorrect. You're drawing a direct parallel between medallion taxis and Uber/Lyft rides, when they are not in fact the same at all. The outer boroughs, and every neighborhood in the city, has had car service options for decades, where you call a phone number (or often walk to a local storefront stand) to get a ride. This is the exact market segment that Uber has entered. Literally. There wasn't and still isn't a restriction on the number of TLC car service cars on the streets. This idea that there "were no taxis" in the boroughs and now there are is ridiculous. There weren't many yellow cabs before and there still aren't. There used to be thousands of TLC cars before and there still are. Except now people use an app instead of calling Arecibo or Carmel. Street hailing was and still is prohibited, both for Uber and for phone style car services. The massive innovation, of course, is the use of a smartphone app for hailing, which made it technically possible to create the market that we see today. Uber, Lyft, and the other companies that built internet enabled hailing solutions certainly do deserve credit for building out that innovation, but that change was just an obvious outgrowth of the technological change to everyone having a handheld always connected small computer. It was inevitable. The dynamic you're describing for NYC just doesn't really fit the facts. Nor does the idea that a lot more people taking a lot more rides in cars is reducing greenhouse emissions, but that's another matter.

neuromantik8086 9y ago
Dial 7 ftw.
davidf18 9y ago
> This idea that there "were no taxis" in the boroughs and now there are is ridiculous. The few times I tried to take those services the service was horrible, horrible. Now, thankfully, Uber is available and they have much better service and they have a single identifiable reliable brand and they take credit cards. Uber pool where unrelated riders ride in the same car are going to have less greenhouse gas than riders taking separate cars. This is logical.
- CPLX 9y ago
  > I actually live there and there are no Yellow Cabs in the outer boroughs. I am writing this from Brooklyn, where I have lived for about 20 years. > Before Uber there was no hailable service. There still isn't. Street hails are only from medallion cabs, plus the green outer borough cabs which came just a little bit before Uber showed up and are still around. There wasn't street hailing before and there isn't now. This isn't complicated. You used to use a phone to get car services before and you still do now. The laws and the dynamics of that aspect really didn't change much. The innovation is that now your phone has a computer in it and GPS so you press a button and use an app instead of talking into the thing to a dispatcher guy in an office. It's a technological change that happened. > I don't take these services much in the outer boroughs As mentioned, I live in the outer boroughs, Brooklyn specifically. You should come check it out sometime, there are about three million of us here. We got along pretty well before Uber, we just called Arecibo. They were fine, and still are, I use them to get to the airport now since the drivers are way better. Pricing is honestly pretty similar now to what it was five years ago, with very short trips being a little cheaper on Uber/Lyft than they were in the old system. Plus all the promos and so on. It's way better now to just press a button on the phone, and have your payment info stored, and all that. No question about that. But those are technical innovations. Your argument is that their innovation had to do with changing the dynamics of supply and demand in a restricted market. But that didn't really happen, and to the extent it did it was because smartphones made it possible. Steve Jobs probably has more to do with the declining price of medallions than Travis Kalanick. > Uber pool reduces greenhouse gases because multiple unrelated parties can ride in the same taxi instead of using two different vehicles. Elementary. Unless they were previously taking the subway, of course. The world isn't quite so facile.
  - 15thandwhatever 9y ago
    Arecibo! I remember them from my time around Park Slope. My personal go-to was Evelyn Car Service from Prospect Heights. That said, even Manhattan has had phones for black cars. I've routinely called Dial 7, Carmel, and Skyline on different occasions on demand (primarily when it's raining, when it's really hard to get a yellow cab), and had no issues. I still do so when Uber surge pricing is ridiculous for my tastes. In the LES where yellow cabs can be scarce, you had Allen Car Service and Delancey Car Service (who I'd call for airport runs). The reliability of these car services was pretty good. They'd call you if they were delayed or were otherwise late. (Drastically different from San Francisco, where the taxis were pretty much a terrible crapshoot experience) When Uber started to take off in NYC, some of the feedback I heard was "I get to look like a bigwig", when in reality, anyone can get a black car, and if you think it makes you look more important... it doesn't. My point is, there's a lot of talk of "Uber was revolutionary" and "before Uber there was nothing!", when the sad truth is these folks never bothered to look? I mean, anyone who's lived in NYC for some time can tell you the numbers for Carmel or Dial 7 in a heartbeat, and some may even be able to recite the jingles from their ads. Uber was just yet another dispatch car service, but with an app.
whatok 9y ago
Are you really comparing car service in the outer boroughs to Uber? I mean I guess I agree with the TLC comparison but experience to the consumer is absolutely different.
oh_sigh 9y ago
Uber entered both markets. I live in Manhattan(UWS) and treat taxis or Ubers as interchangable. When you can pull up an app on your phone and have a car in 2 minutes, that is effectively similar to a street hail. Heck, because I work near Chelsea market(big tourist destination), using Uber gets me a car 5-10 mins quicker than trying to hail a cab and constantly getting sniped by people who appear upstream.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
RealityNow 9y ago
I'll attest to the original comment by davidf18. Uber/Lyft have radically changed NYC for the better. Ride sharing services are significantly cheaper on the order of multiples, easier to use (eg. no more hailing, paying), and a hell of a lot more pleasant to ride in than taxis. Taxis were notoriously bad. They'd intentionally take slower routes to run up the meter, refuse passengers trying to go to locations the drivers don't want to go (despite this being illegal), etc. Not to mention this is all made more attractive due to our failing decrepit subway system. The smartphone app innovation you speak of was not inevitable. Taxis indeed had a monopoly, and thus had absolutely zero incentive to developing an app. The competition induced by the ride sharing services destroying them is what incentivized them to finally launch an app, but I don't have it on my phone nor do I know anyone who has, and it's probably inferior to that of its competition.
- untog 9y ago
  Your reply doesn't address anything CPLX said. There were already non-yellow cab options in NYC for car service, and there still are. That's the point they were making.
- henrikschroder 9y ago
  Counterexample: Taxi companies in Stockholm developed hailing apps before Uber. Most of them already had location services for mobile phones so you could call their voice system, and there was an option to get a cab to your current location if you were calling from mobile. I presume there was a cooperation between the mobile carriers and the taxi systems so they could pull that info. Their first hailing apps was simply an extension of this, but it used the phone's gps, and you would press a button in the app for "a taxi, now, here", but the underlying systems were at least already there. After Uber entered the market, they made their apps better, and you can now attach a payment method to pay through the app, and there's gps tracking of the car you're waiting on, same as Uber and similar. But Stockholm never had a medallion system or other caps, and there's no monopoly, but there is some sort of oligopoly where some companies get better access to major taxi destinations such as airports and train stations. As usual, healthy competition is the key. :)
- CPLX 9y ago
danielrhodes 9y ago
I think this really depends on which city you are in. When Uber started in SF, the experience of getting a taxi was very frustrating. There weren't enough cabs, the cab drivers were over the top rude, they refused to take credit cards and were aggressive about tips, if you called a cab they would never show up, and they were (and still are) expensive. It was not necessarily about the app, it was just that it was reliable -- you could get a car when and where you needed it and not having to pay in the car made the experience far superior. At the very same time, there were all these black cars rolling around the city and picking up passengers somewhat illegally. That experience was not great because you often had to negotiate a high rate, but this was mostly because there were no taxis available. In other words, there was a bunch of supply that could be utilized. I think those conditions made Uber particularly ripe to work in SF and once it did, that proved that it could work elsewhere as well. The app was also a huge benefit, but in context, I actually think it could have been just as useful in the beginning if you could have texted your address. It goes to show that for something to be great, you have to get a lot of things right at once. :-)
thegayngler 9y ago
I live in Harlem and even in Harlem it is hard to get a Taxi in Harlem. Cab drivers regularly would discriminate against minorities who needed cabs. Uber changed all of that. Now cabs are happy to see me when I flag one down. Car Service is usually pretty horrible. The cars are dirty on the inside and they will typically overcharge you for a trip. I made the mistake of paying 20 bucks for a trip that would've been a $7 cab fare and maybe an even cheaper with an Uber/Lyft.
randomsearch 9y ago
Technically, on paper, you may be right. Uber is categorised alongside dial cabs. In practice, it has replaced lots of Yellow cab journeys too. Straightforward evidence: the large drop in the value of a medallion in NYC. But just talk to New Yorkers. Lots of people use Uber instead of Yellow Cabs.

by CPLX 9y ago

neuromantik8086 9y ago

Dial 7 ftw.

davidf18 9y ago

> This idea that there "were no taxis" in the boroughs and now there are is ridiculous. The few times I tried to take those services the service was horrible, horrible. Now, thankfully, Uber is available and they have much better service and they have a single identifiable reliable brand and they take credit cards. Uber pool where unrelated riders ride in the same car are going to have less greenhouse gas than riders taking separate cars. This is logical.

CPLX 9y ago
> I actually live there and there are no Yellow Cabs in the outer boroughs. I am writing this from Brooklyn, where I have lived for about 20 years. > Before Uber there was no hailable service. There still isn't. Street hails are only from medallion cabs, plus the green outer borough cabs which came just a little bit before Uber showed up and are still around. There wasn't street hailing before and there isn't now. This isn't complicated. You used to use a phone to get car services before and you still do now. The laws and the dynamics of that aspect really didn't change much. The innovation is that now your phone has a computer in it and GPS so you press a button and use an app instead of talking into the thing to a dispatcher guy in an office. It's a technological change that happened. > I don't take these services much in the outer boroughs As mentioned, I live in the outer boroughs, Brooklyn specifically. You should come check it out sometime, there are about three million of us here. We got along pretty well before Uber, we just called Arecibo. They were fine, and still are, I use them to get to the airport now since the drivers are way better. Pricing is honestly pretty similar now to what it was five years ago, with very short trips being a little cheaper on Uber/Lyft than they were in the old system. Plus all the promos and so on. It's way better now to just press a button on the phone, and have your payment info stored, and all that. No question about that. But those are technical innovations. Your argument is that their innovation had to do with changing the dynamics of supply and demand in a restricted market. But that didn't really happen, and to the extent it did it was because smartphones made it possible. Steve Jobs probably has more to do with the declining price of medallions than Travis Kalanick. > Uber pool reduces greenhouse gases because multiple unrelated parties can ride in the same taxi instead of using two different vehicles. Elementary. Unless they were previously taking the subway, of course. The world isn't quite so facile.
- 15thandwhatever 9y ago
  Arecibo! I remember them from my time around Park Slope. My personal go-to was Evelyn Car Service from Prospect Heights. That said, even Manhattan has had phones for black cars. I've routinely called Dial 7, Carmel, and Skyline on different occasions on demand (primarily when it's raining, when it's really hard to get a yellow cab), and had no issues. I still do so when Uber surge pricing is ridiculous for my tastes. In the LES where yellow cabs can be scarce, you had Allen Car Service and Delancey Car Service (who I'd call for airport runs). The reliability of these car services was pretty good. They'd call you if they were delayed or were otherwise late. (Drastically different from San Francisco, where the taxis were pretty much a terrible crapshoot experience) When Uber started to take off in NYC, some of the feedback I heard was "I get to look like a bigwig", when in reality, anyone can get a black car, and if you think it makes you look more important... it doesn't. My point is, there's a lot of talk of "Uber was revolutionary" and "before Uber there was nothing!", when the sad truth is these folks never bothered to look? I mean, anyone who's lived in NYC for some time can tell you the numbers for Carmel or Dial 7 in a heartbeat, and some may even be able to recite the jingles from their ads. Uber was just yet another dispatch car service, but with an app.

whatok 9y ago

Are you really comparing car service in the outer boroughs to Uber? I mean I guess I agree with the TLC comparison but experience to the consumer is absolutely different.

oh_sigh 9y ago

Uber entered both markets. I live in Manhattan(UWS) and treat taxis or Ubers as interchangable. When you can pull up an app on your phone and have a car in 2 minutes, that is effectively similar to a street hail. Heck, because I work near Chelsea market(big tourist destination), using Uber gets me a car 5-10 mins quicker than trying to hail a cab and constantly getting sniped by people who appear upstream.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

RealityNow 9y ago

I'll attest to the original comment by davidf18. Uber/Lyft have radically changed NYC for the better. Ride sharing services are significantly cheaper on the order of multiples, easier to use (eg. no more hailing, paying), and a hell of a lot more pleasant to ride in than taxis. Taxis were notoriously bad. They'd intentionally take slower routes to run up the meter, refuse passengers trying to go to locations the drivers don't want to go (despite this being illegal), etc. Not to mention this is all made more attractive due to our failing decrepit subway system. The smartphone app innovation you speak of was not inevitable. Taxis indeed had a monopoly, and thus had absolutely zero incentive to developing an app. The competition induced by the ride sharing services destroying them is what incentivized them to finally launch an app, but I don't have it on my phone nor do I know anyone who has, and it's probably inferior to that of its competition.

untog 9y ago
Your reply doesn't address anything CPLX said. There were already non-yellow cab options in NYC for car service, and there still are. That's the point they were making.
henrikschroder 9y ago
Counterexample: Taxi companies in Stockholm developed hailing apps before Uber. Most of them already had location services for mobile phones so you could call their voice system, and there was an option to get a cab to your current location if you were calling from mobile. I presume there was a cooperation between the mobile carriers and the taxi systems so they could pull that info. Their first hailing apps was simply an extension of this, but it used the phone's gps, and you would press a button in the app for "a taxi, now, here", but the underlying systems were at least already there. After Uber entered the market, they made their apps better, and you can now attach a payment method to pay through the app, and there's gps tracking of the car you're waiting on, same as Uber and similar. But Stockholm never had a medallion system or other caps, and there's no monopoly, but there is some sort of oligopoly where some companies get better access to major taxi destinations such as airports and train stations. As usual, healthy competition is the key. :)
CPLX 9y ago

danielrhodes 9y ago

I think this really depends on which city you are in. When Uber started in SF, the experience of getting a taxi was very frustrating. There weren't enough cabs, the cab drivers were over the top rude, they refused to take credit cards and were aggressive about tips, if you called a cab they would never show up, and they were (and still are) expensive. It was not necessarily about the app, it was just that it was reliable -- you could get a car when and where you needed it and not having to pay in the car made the experience far superior. At the very same time, there were all these black cars rolling around the city and picking up passengers somewhat illegally. That experience was not great because you often had to negotiate a high rate, but this was mostly because there were no taxis available. In other words, there was a bunch of supply that could be utilized. I think those conditions made Uber particularly ripe to work in SF and once it did, that proved that it could work elsewhere as well. The app was also a huge benefit, but in context, I actually think it could have been just as useful in the beginning if you could have texted your address. It goes to show that for something to be great, you have to get a lot of things right at once. :-)

thegayngler 9y ago

I live in Harlem and even in Harlem it is hard to get a Taxi in Harlem. Cab drivers regularly would discriminate against minorities who needed cabs. Uber changed all of that. Now cabs are happy to see me when I flag one down. Car Service is usually pretty horrible. The cars are dirty on the inside and they will typically overcharge you for a trip. I made the mistake of paying 20 bucks for a trip that would've been a $7 cab fare and maybe an even cheaper with an Uber/Lyft.

randomsearch 9y ago

Technically, on paper, you may be right. Uber is categorised alongside dial cabs. In practice, it has replaced lots of Yellow cab journeys too. Straightforward evidence: the large drop in the value of a medallion in NYC. But just talk to New Yorkers. Lots of people use Uber instead of Yellow Cabs.