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Same for me. I absolutely understand the criticism of Uber but saying that they are just a taxi app doesn't cut it. To add more advantages to the list: Full pr

Same for me. I absolutely understand the criticism of Uber but saying that they are just a taxi app doesn't cut it. To add more advantages to the list: Full price transparency, pre-agreed price so you don't need to worry that you drive in circles, no driver searching for change for several minutes until you let him keep it. And, like McDonald's did for fastfood, it creates a world wide standard for taxi services. I had a driver in India that took me to tourist stores instead of my destination and in Mexico City they warn you about taxi drivers robbing you - all not happening in an Uber.

gaius 9y ago
To add more advantages to the list: Full price transparency, pre-agreed price so you don't need to worry that you drive in circles, no driver searching for change for several minutes until you let him keep i The local cab firm that exists only in my small home town has all these "innovations" too.
- coldtea 9y ago
  Yep, as do cab firms all around the globe, including apps that offer the same experience with regular registered cab drivers.
  - samsonradu 9y ago
    Not sure if you're being sarcastic but that's a big overstatement. There are a lot of big cities (capitals) around the globe where the cab industry is a pure scam. There's no such thing as GPS tracking, price transparency, apps and whatsoever. No wonder Uber took over.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      That's true too. Maybe, in a way, Uber was a necessary evil. From following the discussions about it here for years now, I realize there are many places around the world where taxi situation is absolutely horrible. All of that created an opportunity for a bunch of evil assholes (and I'm not using these words lightly) with VC money to take over and earn money breaking laws, knowing in full that the locals will appreciate the increase in quality and decrease in price to the point of actually defending them from regulators.
      - samsonradu 9y ago
        Exactly. I, by no means, agree to a foreign company stepping over local taxi companies which spent huge amounts of money on licensing and operating rights. But the service plainly sucks for end-users.
      - user5994461 9y ago
        On top of that, there are also numerous locations where taxis simply didn't exist.
freeflight 9y ago
> all not happening in an Uber I'm pretty sure similar [0], and worse [1], is also happening on Uber/Lyft, just not to the same scale yet because of taxis services being far more established around the world. But I don't see any reason why cab drivers would be any more criminal than ridesharing drivers. Unless ridesharing services do some extra deep background checking on their drivers, which I doubt is actually happening. [0] http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/hialeah/article131857254.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/h... [1] http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/rideshare-incidents http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/rideshare-incidents
- epanchin 9y ago
  To take [0] as an example, the driver was easily arrested. If she had been travelling in a taxi, is it likely she would have memorised the plates? The use of apps to book rides makes it very easy to trace drivers if anything untoward happens. Route tracking also makes it easy to reclaim if an indirect route is taken (I have successfully done this with Uber). Route tracking could of course be implemented with traditional taxis, but at the moment is a reason why ride sharing is considered safer.
  - freeflight 9y ago
    > To take [0] as an example, the driver was easily arrested. If she had been travelling in a taxi, is it likely she would have memorised the plates? It was a he who got robbed by a she and it could only happen because he got drugged by the water she offered and then abused his trust-advance, towards ridesharing drivers, by asking to use his toilet. Her getting caught on his surveillance cam, leaving the house only two hours later, probably did more leading to her arrest than her being an Uber driver instead of a Cab driver because the victim didn't remember a whole lot of anything after having been drugged. > The use of apps to book rides makes it very easy to trace drivers if anything untoward happens. Afaik taxis also keep logs about where they go, tho that might depend on the country we are talking about, just like the background check practices of any given ridesharing service. But I don't see why regular taxi services couldn't do the background check that Uber supposedly does. Tho I agree with your last two points, I still think the only real difference here is that criminals and scammers haven't fully adapted to these ridesharing services yet, but the potential is there none the less.
coldtea 9y ago
>Same for me. I absolutely understand the criticism of Uber but saying that they are just a taxi app doesn't cut it. To add more advantages to the list: Full price transparency, pre-agreed price so you don't need to worry that you drive in circles, no driver searching for change for several minutes until you let him keep it. None of the above are impossible to have in regular cabs + app. In fact tons of countries already have just that.
- dagw 9y ago
  Sure, but what Uber offers is to make this ubiquitous and save me from having to learn the subtle variations of the local taxi markets in each place I visit.
  - xxs 9y ago
    If there are differences it'd be (partly) b/c of regulation which the topic is all about. By all means if Uber feel like using licensed drivers, cars etc. as they apply to a specific country, they can keep their ubiquitous app. For instance: enough cities may not have preferred/dedicated public transport lane which makes significant costs based on waiting times, rather than distance: hence pre-agreed price is an estimate at best. To me: Uber is a taxi company through and through and if there are local regulation Uber should not be able to circumvent them.
  - watwut 9y ago
    Your argument boils down to: they are not taxi service, because they are ubiquitous. There is nothing about taxi definition that would exclude ubiquitous from it. There is nothing about taxi definition that would exclude companies with easy to use apps from it etc.
    - dagw 9y ago
      I'm not arguing that they're not a taxi service. Colloquially they definitely are, and I don't know enough about the legal definitions to have an option on that aspect. I was just pointing out their competitive advantage over local taxi companies with local apps.
deadbunny 9y ago
> pre-agreed price so you don't need to worry that you drive in circles This isn't the case in the UK, it's always an estimate and I've had plenty of shitty drivers who don't know how to drive in London which have added 10 mins to a surge price journey because they've missed turnings, driven round in circles or taken the wrong bridge.
- nikanj 9y ago
  But with Uber, you can message customer service who have a full gps trace of your trip. This actually works, I’ve done it. They refunded my entire trip, and I bet the driver has a mark on their record somewhere.
- baby 9y ago
  pre-agreed prices are pretty recent in the US too, I am confident they will implement it in the UK at some point. It just makes more sense.
DanBC 9y ago
> Full price transparency, pre-agreed price so you don't need to worry that you drive in circles, In UK you either get a taxi which uses a calibrated tamper-proof taximeter and published rates per mile, or you use a cab which must offer the option of pre-agreed fee. This dual system existed decades before Uber.
- HelloMcFly 9y ago
  Great for you, but until Uber I never experienced those things. Because of Uber, I experience them everywhere. I use Lyft exclusively when given the option, and cabs here and there as I travel. No matter what, I'm grateful to Uber for creating pressure across global markets to make the "typical experience" much closer to the "good experience" that you've been privileged to already have.
- Aunche 9y ago
  A tamper proof taximeter is useless when the driver can just drive in circles to make some extra money.

gaius 9y ago

To add more advantages to the list: Full price transparency, pre-agreed price so you don't need to worry that you drive in circles, no driver searching for change for several minutes until you let him keep i The local cab firm that exists only in my small home town has all these "innovations" too.

coldtea 9y ago
Yep, as do cab firms all around the globe, including apps that offer the same experience with regular registered cab drivers.
- samsonradu 9y ago
  Not sure if you're being sarcastic but that's a big overstatement. There are a lot of big cities (capitals) around the globe where the cab industry is a pure scam. There's no such thing as GPS tracking, price transparency, apps and whatsoever. No wonder Uber took over.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    That's true too. Maybe, in a way, Uber was a necessary evil. From following the discussions about it here for years now, I realize there are many places around the world where taxi situation is absolutely horrible. All of that created an opportunity for a bunch of evil assholes (and I'm not using these words lightly) with VC money to take over and earn money breaking laws, knowing in full that the locals will appreciate the increase in quality and decrease in price to the point of actually defending them from regulators.
    - samsonradu 9y ago
      Exactly. I, by no means, agree to a foreign company stepping over local taxi companies which spent huge amounts of money on licensing and operating rights. But the service plainly sucks for end-users.
    - user5994461 9y ago
      On top of that, there are also numerous locations where taxis simply didn't exist.

freeflight 9y ago

> all not happening in an Uber I'm pretty sure similar [0], and worse [1], is also happening on Uber/Lyft, just not to the same scale yet because of taxis services being far more established around the world. But I don't see any reason why cab drivers would be any more criminal than ridesharing drivers. Unless ridesharing services do some extra deep background checking on their drivers, which I doubt is actually happening. [0] http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/hialeah/article131857254.html http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/h... [1] http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/rideshare-incidents http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/rideshare-incidents

epanchin 9y ago
To take [0] as an example, the driver was easily arrested. If she had been travelling in a taxi, is it likely she would have memorised the plates? The use of apps to book rides makes it very easy to trace drivers if anything untoward happens. Route tracking also makes it easy to reclaim if an indirect route is taken (I have successfully done this with Uber). Route tracking could of course be implemented with traditional taxis, but at the moment is a reason why ride sharing is considered safer.
- freeflight 9y ago
  > To take [0] as an example, the driver was easily arrested. If she had been travelling in a taxi, is it likely she would have memorised the plates? It was a he who got robbed by a she and it could only happen because he got drugged by the water she offered and then abused his trust-advance, towards ridesharing drivers, by asking to use his toilet. Her getting caught on his surveillance cam, leaving the house only two hours later, probably did more leading to her arrest than her being an Uber driver instead of a Cab driver because the victim didn't remember a whole lot of anything after having been drugged. > The use of apps to book rides makes it very easy to trace drivers if anything untoward happens. Afaik taxis also keep logs about where they go, tho that might depend on the country we are talking about, just like the background check practices of any given ridesharing service. But I don't see why regular taxi services couldn't do the background check that Uber supposedly does. Tho I agree with your last two points, I still think the only real difference here is that criminals and scammers haven't fully adapted to these ridesharing services yet, but the potential is there none the less.

coldtea 9y ago

>Same for me. I absolutely understand the criticism of Uber but saying that they are just a taxi app doesn't cut it. To add more advantages to the list: Full price transparency, pre-agreed price so you don't need to worry that you drive in circles, no driver searching for change for several minutes until you let him keep it. None of the above are impossible to have in regular cabs + app. In fact tons of countries already have just that.

dagw 9y ago
Sure, but what Uber offers is to make this ubiquitous and save me from having to learn the subtle variations of the local taxi markets in each place I visit.
- xxs 9y ago
  If there are differences it'd be (partly) b/c of regulation which the topic is all about. By all means if Uber feel like using licensed drivers, cars etc. as they apply to a specific country, they can keep their ubiquitous app. For instance: enough cities may not have preferred/dedicated public transport lane which makes significant costs based on waiting times, rather than distance: hence pre-agreed price is an estimate at best. To me: Uber is a taxi company through and through and if there are local regulation Uber should not be able to circumvent them.
- watwut 9y ago
  Your argument boils down to: they are not taxi service, because they are ubiquitous. There is nothing about taxi definition that would exclude ubiquitous from it. There is nothing about taxi definition that would exclude companies with easy to use apps from it etc.
  - dagw 9y ago
    I'm not arguing that they're not a taxi service. Colloquially they definitely are, and I don't know enough about the legal definitions to have an option on that aspect. I was just pointing out their competitive advantage over local taxi companies with local apps.

deadbunny 9y ago

> pre-agreed price so you don't need to worry that you drive in circles This isn't the case in the UK, it's always an estimate and I've had plenty of shitty drivers who don't know how to drive in London which have added 10 mins to a surge price journey because they've missed turnings, driven round in circles or taken the wrong bridge.

nikanj 9y ago
But with Uber, you can message customer service who have a full gps trace of your trip. This actually works, I’ve done it. They refunded my entire trip, and I bet the driver has a mark on their record somewhere.
baby 9y ago
pre-agreed prices are pretty recent in the US too, I am confident they will implement it in the UK at some point. It just makes more sense.

DanBC 9y ago

> Full price transparency, pre-agreed price so you don't need to worry that you drive in circles, In UK you either get a taxi which uses a calibrated tamper-proof taximeter and published rates per mile, or you use a cab which must offer the option of pre-agreed fee. This dual system existed decades before Uber.

HelloMcFly 9y ago
Great for you, but until Uber I never experienced those things. Because of Uber, I experience them everywhere. I use Lyft exclusively when given the option, and cabs here and there as I travel. No matter what, I'm grateful to Uber for creating pressure across global markets to make the "typical experience" much closer to the "good experience" that you've been privileged to already have.
Aunche 9y ago
A tamper proof taximeter is useless when the driver can just drive in circles to make some extra money.