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I find a lot of naysayers miss the point of Uber: the experience really is better. UberX’s discount isn’t why I use it. It’s because the app is without peer

I find a lot of naysayers miss the point of Uber: the experience really is better. UberX’s discount isn’t why I use it. It’s because the app is without peer. I can choose the car with the features I want. I have a company watching me and my driver to ensure that the experience is good for both of us, unlike taxis which have abysmal customer service and consumer (or driver!) protection in most cities. I’d happily pay more for it (and usually go for select or black when I can). I tip where I can. I don’t like Uber’s bro culture and wish Lyft would get better and broader coverage. But Uber is on to something big. UberEATS I can take or leave as others have comparable experiences (Skip the Dishes, DoorDash, etc).

untog 9y ago
> It’s because the app is without peer. Eh. Lyft provides essentially the same feature set. Here in NYC we also have Juno and Gett. The point is not that Uber is bad, but that it's utterly replaceable. The one plus they do have is their presence in so many cities around the world, and while that is a benefit, I'm not convinced it's enough - I don't think that many people travel that often that it can keep the company competitive.
- wuliwong 9y ago
  I think there are a lot of places around the world that have Uber but don't have Lyft. Uber has competition in some areas but it seems like there's a lot of places where it doesn't have much.
  - untog 9y ago
    Sure, but wide coverage doesn't come for free. Uber has to set up regional offices, advertise to local drivers, etc. etc. in each city in which it operates. It's not difficult to make the business case that you should actually just focus on a small number of huge cities instead - your chance for profit is much higher.
    - wuliwong 9y ago
      I cannot really comment on the difficulty of making the business case for only huge cities. But I am not convinced that marketing to non-Huge cities isn't profitable.
  - kingnothing 9y ago
    Lyft is only in the US, so yes, most of the world has Uber while only one country has Lyft.
    - a3camero 9y ago
      Also Toronto now.
- mastazi 9y ago
  > [...] presence in so many cities around the world, and while that is a benefit, I'm not convinced it's enough It's enough in all those markets/countries where there is no viable alternative to Uber. Here in Australia the main competitor would be GoCatch but, while it's a very good app for calling taxis, the "private car / ridesharing" service is still in its infancy. Another field where Uber has no competitors thanks to its international presence is international travellers: when overseas, most people are obviously going to use Uber since it's a huge hassle to do your research and then sign up to local alternatives every time you travel.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    >most people are obviously going to use Uber since it's a huge hassle to do your research and then sign up to local alternatives every time you travel. Or we just use a taxi in the many cities where there is decent taxi service. I travel to London a fair bit and rarely bother with using Uber there.
    - eric_h 9y ago
      That works when you speak the local language. When you do not, using a local taxi can be a much more difficult experience, and in many places you are likely to be over charged. In Kiev, for example, very few of the taxi drivers speak English, and I don't speak Russian. Uber is both extremely easy to use there, there is no issue with the language barrier, and it is absurdly cheap (from my US perspective).
      - collyw 9y ago
        Written address or a map and a finger worked for me years before mobile phones were popular.
      - ghaff 9y ago
        I guess. Not that I use Uber/Lyft much, but in the US I've had a number of times when the driver ends up calling me because their GPS has ended up taking them to the wrong side of the hotel or whatever. My experience hasn't really been the smartphone making all verbal communication unnecessary.
- huac 9y ago
  The Uber app is objectively better than Lyft's, and their pooling algorithm is subjectively better.
  - enraged_camel 9y ago
    Objectively better how? Please be specific.
    - huac 9y ago
      Just try using it on Android. Regardless of if you like Uber's design better (which I think it is, though design can be subjective), Lyft would often show wrong locations, not show if a driver had cancelled, not cancelling rides when you try to cancel, and much more.
    - austinshea 9y ago
      After a recent lost and found experience with Lyft, I can say that uber has thought through this process in their software. Drivers can be paid for delivering lost items, and the process is kicked off without the need for customer service staff. Lyft had no infrastructure fpr this, and relied on Zendesk and customer service reps to facilitate the delivery. There was no function for paying the driver, the item was delivered days later because i had to wait for someone to answer a Zendesk ticket, and even then there was no way for the rep to set up proxy calls between me and the driver. There are other reasons to suggest that Lyft lacks technological expertise, but this is a perfect example of a feature that is well considered by Uber and not considered at all by Lyft. I'd love to support Lyft more, but I am forced to use a substandard product in order to do so.
      - hatred 9y ago
        Hmm, my experience with Lyft was slightly different. I went to past trips, clicked find lost item. The support reached out to the driver in 10 minutes and I had the driver at my door in a hour. Haven’t Lost an item with Uber though for comparison.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > Here in NYC we also have Juno and Gett Just Juno, now [1]. (Gett acquired Juno and retired the former's brand in New York.) My personal favorite. Prediction: Juno will pass Lyft in 2018, in New York City, to become Uber's No. 2. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/26/on-demand-ride-service-gett-confirms-acquisition-of-juno-for-200m/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/26/on-demand-ride-service-get...
- parasubvert 9y ago
  Lyft is fine, but FAR from better. It has much less thought put into the app and almost no global coverage (I don’t live in the USA). I keep hearing Uber is replaceable, but no one has really done it yet. This strikes me as underestimating how hard it has been to pull off what they’ve done.
firasd 9y ago
Agreed. Here in India I used to use 'Ola' (a competitor) but ever since I tried Uber a few months ago I've preferred it. If all else were equal, I might not support a hegemonic international company with a pattern of bad judgement, but my passenger experience is just much better with Uber. There's less of a chance of running into random problems when booking a ride.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  Same here. The Ola experience is full of friction. Payment options are cash or olapay. Both are inconvenient af. Uber allows normal CC or UPI payment. Ola is slightly cheaper so wait times are always higher. And sometimes the app simply gives up and says no taxi found. Uber has none of these issues. The Uber app also encourages reliance on the app for everything. You need not call the driver and he can see your live location from the app. You need not describe your destination. The driver need not devise a route. Everything is handled in a well designed manner, no surprises, and least amount of human interaction. Truly wonderful.
- iamamrit 9y ago
  An Uber user for 3 years. Uber's service is way better than Ola. Days of Uber in India are short lived. Softbank will definitely push for merger with Ola like Didi in China
toomanybeersies 9y ago
I recently took an Uber when there was a 2X surge, where I am if it's above a ~1.3 surge taxis are cheaper. I was with another person, and we tried hailing a taxi, but none of them bothered to pick us up, so we gave up and ordered an Uber. Once we were in the uber, we were able to split the fare with no issues at all. And the taxi drivers wonder why people prefer Uber.
- koolba 9y ago
  What were the circumstance that the taxis refused to pick you up? Every city that I’ve been to has laws against refusing taxi trips within the city limits.
  - nebolo 9y ago
    Most likely they were full, which is why there was surge pricing.
    - frutiger 9y ago
      Not sure if this applies to the ancestor comment, but in New York City, the lights are on indicating when they are full, available for hailing or off duty. It is also illegal to not pick up a fare there, but drivers have refused in the past (depends on what you look like, where you are, the time of day, if you have airplane luggage, etc.)
    - pfarnsworth 9y ago
      No. Empty taxis would routinely drive past you in SF. It's common knowledge for those of us that lived in SF before Sidecar, Lyft and Uber.
      - kamaal 9y ago
        Not indulging sales is profitable than indulging in sales and then making a loss. Uber can ferry passengers around for cheap because some VC is pumping money into the company through a firehose. Take out the VC money, lets see how many Uber drivers will drive 80% below minimum wage to provide services. Its easy to blame the regular taxi drivers. How many people here on this forum would take huge salary cuts to add profits to somebody else's wallet?
thisisit 9y ago
In my opinion the question is not about the service but whether it is a viable and sustainable business. Sure Uber is a better experience than taxis which are/were a nightmare. But most of the growth seems to be coming from underpriced rides. When the price normalisation happens Uber might not be a good service anymore. Secondly, many of us decry regulations. But it seems to me that Uber's dream of people not owning cars and relying on Uber is not going to happen without some regulations. Case in point: https://www.popsci.com/self-driving-car-fleets https://www.popsci.com/self-driving-car-fleets And today, a coalition of companies—including Lyft, Uber, and Zipcar—officially announced that they were signing on to a 10-point set of “shared mobility principles for livable cities”—in other words, industry goals for making city transit infrastructure as pleasant, equitable, and clean as possible. Some of the 10 statements, like “we support people over vehicles,” are vague but positive. But the final one speaks loudly about what city roads of the future could look like: “that autonomous vehicles (AVs) in dense urban areas should be operated only in shared fleets.”
- moduspol 9y ago
  > But most of the growth seems to be coming from underpriced rides. When the price normalisation happens Uber might not be a good service anymore. This point keeps getting made, but their cut is ~25%. The driver is getting ~75%. For it to be fundamentally unsustainable, it'd have to be impossible to run the entirely administrative / virtual side of the business on 25%, which is difficult to believe.
  - dralley 9y ago
    They lost 4.5 billion last year.
    - moduspol 9y ago
      Does that imply it's fundamentally impossible to run the SaaS side of Uber's app (routing, payments, users, etc.) for 25% of the cost of every ride? Or does it imply they're likely spending a lot of money on development, expansion, and breaking into new markets (like Uber Eats)?
tim333 9y ago
>app is without peer It's usually good though last time I tried using it the app insisted on moving the pickup point from where I'd put the marker (by the road) to the middle of the pedestrianised complex. I thought ok whatever, called the Uber and then it headed to the wrong side of the complex with no road access and I had to cancel and run for a regular cab to not miss my flight. They didn't use to do that - I guess moving the pickup to some other location is a new 'improvement'.
kamaal 9y ago
>>UberX’s discount isn’t why I use it. You must be rich. Most people aren't. I see people rushing to work for their shifts in Uber all the time, because its cheap. Most of Uber's customers are in this category. Cost is all there is. I will take a crappy service at a low price, than amazing service at a higher price. Also I'm only using the cab for a few minutes, I'm not exactly getting married to the cab, to worry that much about these things.
- parasubvert 9y ago
  Cost is NOT all there is. That’s your preference, not necessarily most people’s. Cost without consideration for benefit is blind. Premium services and products succeed across all economic backgrounds and countries because people aspire for better service. See Apple. See Las Vegas (which has been moving upscale for decades). The auto industry. People pick and choose where they save their money and spend their money based on the relative benefits they want.
flexie 9y ago
I feel like most yeahsayers miss the point of why people dislike Uber. It's inherently wrong to replace tens of thousands local companies all over the world, who have had to follow legislation, with one large American company with complete disregard for labor law, taxi laws etc., even if the many of the local companies are often monopolies in the cities in which they operate and even if the American company provides a better experience for customers. Walking down the path of anarchy and replacing millions of already modestly paid jobs worldwide with even worse jobs, just because Uber provides a better app (an app!), and better service through constant reviews, is not an answer. Don't forget that Uber subsidizes their fares via the wonders of Silicon Valley venture finance. Once they have a monopoly, those prices will go up. The taxi industry is ripe for changes, but I think few of us would like to be receive personal reviews 40 times a day, and see our already modest income and job security cut even further as we are forced to become independent contractors. The answer might very well be ensure that the existing taxi companies can use similar apps (which is banned in many cities) and to provide easier access for new companies to compete with the existing taxi companies. In a not so distant future, self driving cars will also be a reality. But I'd rather suffer with the so-so service of the existing taxi industry than hand it all over to a few Silicon Valley billionaires.
- parasubvert 9y ago
  No, I don’t think we miss the point. I just on balance happen to disagree with those stances, even though I empathize with some of them. Ultimately, the customer is the point of business - we should not be “suffering” anything. I do agree that government should be able to slow down capitalist disruption for regulation and to preserve obsolete jobs for enough time to let the social impact get somewhat sorted out. But there have been jurisdictions where the incumbents are hopeless and cling to government regulation BECAUSE they’re hopeless (see SF’s taxis) So, it’s important to have the ability to challenge old industries and assumptions, and force a change in how people work. I don’t buy the argument that Uber is successful because it subsidizes fares. That certainly helps, but is not sustainable. It is a better service, period. One hopes it leads the way to a sustainable business for its workers and itself, or at least enables a successor to do so. I also LIKE that there is an institution funding a mission to provide a consistent, better ride service everywhere, and secondarily encourages change to these taxi laws which in many cases are corrupt and have been decried for decades (medallions!). It is also refreshing to be able to get the near-same experience in Austria, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia, US, and Canada with no extra work on my part as a customer. This disruption has a name: Software is eating the world (cf. Andreesen). It’s a good and bad thing. I’m don’t think it can or should be stopped. I agree with the argument that we should be careful in just allowing a global bunch of valley (and Seattle) bros dictate our future. I’d love to see competition. Uber (like its founder) was overzealous in its contempt for government, to its own detriment. It’s a balancing act to build a business model that challenges bullshit laws (good) but maintains respect for local governance (also good). I also think the new CEO is fixing the broken culture there, which had me stop using Uber for shout 6 months while Travis was clinging to life as CEO.

untog 9y ago

> It’s because the app is without peer. Eh. Lyft provides essentially the same feature set. Here in NYC we also have Juno and Gett. The point is not that Uber is bad, but that it's utterly replaceable. The one plus they do have is their presence in so many cities around the world, and while that is a benefit, I'm not convinced it's enough - I don't think that many people travel that often that it can keep the company competitive.

wuliwong 9y ago
I think there are a lot of places around the world that have Uber but don't have Lyft. Uber has competition in some areas but it seems like there's a lot of places where it doesn't have much.
- untog 9y ago
  Sure, but wide coverage doesn't come for free. Uber has to set up regional offices, advertise to local drivers, etc. etc. in each city in which it operates. It's not difficult to make the business case that you should actually just focus on a small number of huge cities instead - your chance for profit is much higher.
  - wuliwong 9y ago
    I cannot really comment on the difficulty of making the business case for only huge cities. But I am not convinced that marketing to non-Huge cities isn't profitable.
- kingnothing 9y ago
  Lyft is only in the US, so yes, most of the world has Uber while only one country has Lyft.
  - a3camero 9y ago
    Also Toronto now.
mastazi 9y ago
> [...] presence in so many cities around the world, and while that is a benefit, I'm not convinced it's enough It's enough in all those markets/countries where there is no viable alternative to Uber. Here in Australia the main competitor would be GoCatch but, while it's a very good app for calling taxis, the "private car / ridesharing" service is still in its infancy. Another field where Uber has no competitors thanks to its international presence is international travellers: when overseas, most people are obviously going to use Uber since it's a huge hassle to do your research and then sign up to local alternatives every time you travel.
- ghaff 9y ago
  >most people are obviously going to use Uber since it's a huge hassle to do your research and then sign up to local alternatives every time you travel. Or we just use a taxi in the many cities where there is decent taxi service. I travel to London a fair bit and rarely bother with using Uber there.
  - eric_h 9y ago
    That works when you speak the local language. When you do not, using a local taxi can be a much more difficult experience, and in many places you are likely to be over charged. In Kiev, for example, very few of the taxi drivers speak English, and I don't speak Russian. Uber is both extremely easy to use there, there is no issue with the language barrier, and it is absurdly cheap (from my US perspective).
    - collyw 9y ago
      Written address or a map and a finger worked for me years before mobile phones were popular.
    - ghaff 9y ago
      I guess. Not that I use Uber/Lyft much, but in the US I've had a number of times when the driver ends up calling me because their GPS has ended up taking them to the wrong side of the hotel or whatever. My experience hasn't really been the smartphone making all verbal communication unnecessary.
huac 9y ago
The Uber app is objectively better than Lyft's, and their pooling algorithm is subjectively better.
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  Objectively better how? Please be specific.
  - huac 9y ago
    Just try using it on Android. Regardless of if you like Uber's design better (which I think it is, though design can be subjective), Lyft would often show wrong locations, not show if a driver had cancelled, not cancelling rides when you try to cancel, and much more.
  - austinshea 9y ago
    After a recent lost and found experience with Lyft, I can say that uber has thought through this process in their software. Drivers can be paid for delivering lost items, and the process is kicked off without the need for customer service staff. Lyft had no infrastructure fpr this, and relied on Zendesk and customer service reps to facilitate the delivery. There was no function for paying the driver, the item was delivered days later because i had to wait for someone to answer a Zendesk ticket, and even then there was no way for the rep to set up proxy calls between me and the driver. There are other reasons to suggest that Lyft lacks technological expertise, but this is a perfect example of a feature that is well considered by Uber and not considered at all by Lyft. I'd love to support Lyft more, but I am forced to use a substandard product in order to do so.
    - hatred 9y ago
      Hmm, my experience with Lyft was slightly different. I went to past trips, clicked find lost item. The support reached out to the driver in 10 minutes and I had the driver at my door in a hour. Haven’t Lost an item with Uber though for comparison.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> Here in NYC we also have Juno and Gett Just Juno, now [1]. (Gett acquired Juno and retired the former's brand in New York.) My personal favorite. Prediction: Juno will pass Lyft in 2018, in New York City, to become Uber's No. 2. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/26/on-demand-ride-service-gett-confirms-acquisition-of-juno-for-200m/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/26/on-demand-ride-service-get...
parasubvert 9y ago
Lyft is fine, but FAR from better. It has much less thought put into the app and almost no global coverage (I don’t live in the USA). I keep hearing Uber is replaceable, but no one has really done it yet. This strikes me as underestimating how hard it has been to pull off what they’ve done.

firasd 9y ago

Agreed. Here in India I used to use 'Ola' (a competitor) but ever since I tried Uber a few months ago I've preferred it. If all else were equal, I might not support a hegemonic international company with a pattern of bad judgement, but my passenger experience is just much better with Uber. There's less of a chance of running into random problems when booking a ride.

dingo_bat 9y ago
Same here. The Ola experience is full of friction. Payment options are cash or olapay. Both are inconvenient af. Uber allows normal CC or UPI payment. Ola is slightly cheaper so wait times are always higher. And sometimes the app simply gives up and says no taxi found. Uber has none of these issues. The Uber app also encourages reliance on the app for everything. You need not call the driver and he can see your live location from the app. You need not describe your destination. The driver need not devise a route. Everything is handled in a well designed manner, no surprises, and least amount of human interaction. Truly wonderful.
iamamrit 9y ago
An Uber user for 3 years. Uber's service is way better than Ola. Days of Uber in India are short lived. Softbank will definitely push for merger with Ola like Didi in China

toomanybeersies 9y ago

I recently took an Uber when there was a 2X surge, where I am if it's above a ~1.3 surge taxis are cheaper. I was with another person, and we tried hailing a taxi, but none of them bothered to pick us up, so we gave up and ordered an Uber. Once we were in the uber, we were able to split the fare with no issues at all. And the taxi drivers wonder why people prefer Uber.

koolba 9y ago
What were the circumstance that the taxis refused to pick you up? Every city that I’ve been to has laws against refusing taxi trips within the city limits.
- nebolo 9y ago
  Most likely they were full, which is why there was surge pricing.
  - frutiger 9y ago
    Not sure if this applies to the ancestor comment, but in New York City, the lights are on indicating when they are full, available for hailing or off duty. It is also illegal to not pick up a fare there, but drivers have refused in the past (depends on what you look like, where you are, the time of day, if you have airplane luggage, etc.)
  - pfarnsworth 9y ago
    No. Empty taxis would routinely drive past you in SF. It's common knowledge for those of us that lived in SF before Sidecar, Lyft and Uber.
    - kamaal 9y ago
      Not indulging sales is profitable than indulging in sales and then making a loss. Uber can ferry passengers around for cheap because some VC is pumping money into the company through a firehose. Take out the VC money, lets see how many Uber drivers will drive 80% below minimum wage to provide services. Its easy to blame the regular taxi drivers. How many people here on this forum would take huge salary cuts to add profits to somebody else's wallet?

thisisit 9y ago

In my opinion the question is not about the service but whether it is a viable and sustainable business. Sure Uber is a better experience than taxis which are/were a nightmare. But most of the growth seems to be coming from underpriced rides. When the price normalisation happens Uber might not be a good service anymore. Secondly, many of us decry regulations. But it seems to me that Uber's dream of people not owning cars and relying on Uber is not going to happen without some regulations. Case in point: https://www.popsci.com/self-driving-car-fleets https://www.popsci.com/self-driving-car-fleets And today, a coalition of companies—including Lyft, Uber, and Zipcar—officially announced that they were signing on to a 10-point set of “shared mobility principles for livable cities”—in other words, industry goals for making city transit infrastructure as pleasant, equitable, and clean as possible. Some of the 10 statements, like “we support people over vehicles,” are vague but positive. But the final one speaks loudly about what city roads of the future could look like: “that autonomous vehicles (AVs) in dense urban areas should be operated only in shared fleets.”

moduspol 9y ago
> But most of the growth seems to be coming from underpriced rides. When the price normalisation happens Uber might not be a good service anymore. This point keeps getting made, but their cut is ~25%. The driver is getting ~75%. For it to be fundamentally unsustainable, it'd have to be impossible to run the entirely administrative / virtual side of the business on 25%, which is difficult to believe.
- dralley 9y ago
  They lost 4.5 billion last year.
  - moduspol 9y ago
    Does that imply it's fundamentally impossible to run the SaaS side of Uber's app (routing, payments, users, etc.) for 25% of the cost of every ride? Or does it imply they're likely spending a lot of money on development, expansion, and breaking into new markets (like Uber Eats)?

tim333 9y ago

>app is without peer It's usually good though last time I tried using it the app insisted on moving the pickup point from where I'd put the marker (by the road) to the middle of the pedestrianised complex. I thought ok whatever, called the Uber and then it headed to the wrong side of the complex with no road access and I had to cancel and run for a regular cab to not miss my flight. They didn't use to do that - I guess moving the pickup to some other location is a new 'improvement'.

kamaal 9y ago

>>UberX’s discount isn’t why I use it. You must be rich. Most people aren't. I see people rushing to work for their shifts in Uber all the time, because its cheap. Most of Uber's customers are in this category. Cost is all there is. I will take a crappy service at a low price, than amazing service at a higher price. Also I'm only using the cab for a few minutes, I'm not exactly getting married to the cab, to worry that much about these things.

parasubvert 9y ago
Cost is NOT all there is. That’s your preference, not necessarily most people’s. Cost without consideration for benefit is blind. Premium services and products succeed across all economic backgrounds and countries because people aspire for better service. See Apple. See Las Vegas (which has been moving upscale for decades). The auto industry. People pick and choose where they save their money and spend their money based on the relative benefits they want.

flexie 9y ago

I feel like most yeahsayers miss the point of why people dislike Uber. It's inherently wrong to replace tens of thousands local companies all over the world, who have had to follow legislation, with one large American company with complete disregard for labor law, taxi laws etc., even if the many of the local companies are often monopolies in the cities in which they operate and even if the American company provides a better experience for customers. Walking down the path of anarchy and replacing millions of already modestly paid jobs worldwide with even worse jobs, just because Uber provides a better app (an app!), and better service through constant reviews, is not an answer. Don't forget that Uber subsidizes their fares via the wonders of Silicon Valley venture finance. Once they have a monopoly, those prices will go up. The taxi industry is ripe for changes, but I think few of us would like to be receive personal reviews 40 times a day, and see our already modest income and job security cut even further as we are forced to become independent contractors. The answer might very well be ensure that the existing taxi companies can use similar apps (which is banned in many cities) and to provide easier access for new companies to compete with the existing taxi companies. In a not so distant future, self driving cars will also be a reality. But I'd rather suffer with the so-so service of the existing taxi industry than hand it all over to a few Silicon Valley billionaires.

parasubvert 9y ago
No, I don’t think we miss the point. I just on balance happen to disagree with those stances, even though I empathize with some of them. Ultimately, the customer is the point of business - we should not be “suffering” anything. I do agree that government should be able to slow down capitalist disruption for regulation and to preserve obsolete jobs for enough time to let the social impact get somewhat sorted out. But there have been jurisdictions where the incumbents are hopeless and cling to government regulation BECAUSE they’re hopeless (see SF’s taxis) So, it’s important to have the ability to challenge old industries and assumptions, and force a change in how people work. I don’t buy the argument that Uber is successful because it subsidizes fares. That certainly helps, but is not sustainable. It is a better service, period. One hopes it leads the way to a sustainable business for its workers and itself, or at least enables a successor to do so. I also LIKE that there is an institution funding a mission to provide a consistent, better ride service everywhere, and secondarily encourages change to these taxi laws which in many cases are corrupt and have been decried for decades (medallions!). It is also refreshing to be able to get the near-same experience in Austria, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia, US, and Canada with no extra work on my part as a customer. This disruption has a name: Software is eating the world (cf. Andreesen). It’s a good and bad thing. I’m don’t think it can or should be stopped. I agree with the argument that we should be careful in just allowing a global bunch of valley (and Seattle) bros dictate our future. I’d love to see competition. Uber (like its founder) was overzealous in its contempt for government, to its own detriment. It’s a balancing act to build a business model that challenges bullshit laws (good) but maintains respect for local governance (also good). I also think the new CEO is fixing the broken culture there, which had me stop using Uber for shout 6 months while Travis was clinging to life as CEO.