5 ms·

Yeah. There's effectively never been Uber or similar in Japan either. People just respect regulations and they generally do work very well.

jorvi 8y ago
I'm European, and in general I like (well thought out) regulations, but in the case of the taxi industry Uber is actually not a bad guy but a huge blessing. In a lot of countries (80%+) taxi drivers are rude, try to price gouge, try to scam you or try to take longer routes. Uber takes all of this away. The rating system ensures drivers are polite. The estimate € (plus route tracking) ensures they don't take the scenic route, and the fact that all payment happens via the app means there is no longer 'my meter is broken/the credit card reader is broken/sorry I miscalculated its €10 more'. And because Uber is global I can use the same app wether I am in Paris, Prague, Hanoi or Seattle.. which means I don't need to install and learn 3 different apps. Edit: to be clear, I am aware why Uber gets such a bad rep, and as a tech company they might deserve it, but as a taxi company they are absolutely top notch.
- EStudley 8y ago
  >In a lot of countries (80%+) taxi drivers are rude, try to price gouge, try to scam you or try to take longer routes. I have had every experience you explained with Uber. People driving me weird ways around my city to make the trip longer, rude, attempting to add a cleaning charge with no reason, or the classic "Hey if you cancel the ride and give me $10 I can get you there."
  - icebraining 8y ago
    What happened when you complained to Uber?
    - star-castle 8y ago
      How? Uber is a current-year tech company. Like Google, there technically is a support line that technically exists, but just forget about it. I called Uber 10 times, in Houston. Got scammed 5 times. Part of the "the driver just keeps driving and never acknowledges letting you out of the car" scam is that the app takes the same approach to "uh, I'm not in the car anymore" as it does to "uh, I would like to complain to Uber". (The way to say that the ride has ended is to cancel the trip, an operation that feels like you're trying to scam the driver, so an honest person will avoid doing that while searching for the nonexistent "the ride has ended" UI.) 4/5 scams: the driver goes past your position and then waits a mile down the road to pick you up. The moment the driver was near, Uber switches to "ok go get in the car" mode. It never switches out of it. If you cancel, rather than hike an unreasonable distance to catch the car that deliberately drove past you, then Uber charges you $5.
      - icebraining 8y ago
        there technically is a support line that technically exists, but just forget about it. That's not my experience; I've complained three times over the years, and I always got my money back.
        star-castle 8y ago
        I don't believe you. No offense, but it's easier to learn that the Earth is flat, or that a place called 'Australia' exists, or that reality is entirely a consensus affair and that strenuous wishing can change it, than it is to learn that Uber is easy to contact. Some lies people don't bother spreading. Just look: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=complain+to+uber https://duckduckgo.com/?q=complain+to+uber Or look at this article about Uber deliberately hiding a contact number "to test discoverability" (meaning: if users find it too easily, it should be made harder to find) https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/10/11196352/uber-secret-emergency-hotline-panic-button-kalamazoo https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/10/11196352/uber-secret-emer... If you lucked out and found that your specific issue had a UI entry in the app, that's not the same thing as being able to explain a situation to a human and have that human do the (paid, drudge) work of wading through obscure interfaces to find the button that fixes a given problem.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    ...the classic "Hey if you cancel the ride and give me $10 I can get you there." What's wrong with that? It's just an offer that you're free to reject.
    - star-castle 8y ago
      Why do you trust it? You got into a car on an arranged deal and the driver immediately wants to back out of it--this is already a shady situation. Why do you think he'll drive you anywhere after he gets the $10? Why do you think he won't charge you for the trip on top of the $10 after alerting Uber to their own GPS records that show your phone and his car taking you to the destination you said you wanted to go to?
      - jessaustin 8y ago
        I would never pay for a ride in someone's car before the ride completed. Taxis don't expect that; who does this guy think he is? If he wants something up front he's out of luck. In fact I probably would reject the offer as I suggested above, but if I accepted I would immediately cancel the trip. If Uber want to charge for a cancelled trip they can bite my ass. It is probably "privilege" as a big heavy white dude with a perpetually surly expression that I'm not alerting on "danger" in such a situation. If I were a different person I could totally imagine reporting the driver and trying to get him fired. People worry when getting in strangers' cars. Actually once in India I did get such a misdirected cab ride, but my Indian friend noticed and convinced the cab driver to stop. He chewed the driver's ass for a while, then we got another cab.
- krapp 8y ago
  >In a lot of countries (80%+) taxi drivers are rude, try to price gouge, try to scam you or try to take longer routes. Made up percentages don't count as credible data, unless you can cite the objective and peer-reviewed analysis that demonstrates that over 80% of taxi drivers are "rude, try to price gouge, try to scam you or try to take longer routes," you're just trying to disguise your opinion as fact. Which is fine, but just say what you mean - that you imagine most taxi drivers in most countries are probably rude.
  - jorvi 8y ago
    > Made up percentages don't count as credible data, unless you can cite the objective and peer-reviewed analysis that demonstrates that over 80% of taxi drivers are "rude, try to price gouge, try to scam you or try to take longer routes," you're just trying to disguise your opinion as fact. There is little to no such data, but we can extrapolate from two things: 1. Uber, Lyft and co. would never have grown globally at such an astronomical rate (and eaten the taxi branch its lunch) if there wasn't a large demand for a 'clean' taxi experience, and 2. Wether you are aware of it or not, taxis and their drivers are one of the most oft complained about branches of industry. Seriously, ask 100 random people who have travelled internationally about their taxi experiences, and I guarantee you a large contingent will mention the same pain points I did. On a sidenote, I did not 'try to disguise your opinion as fact'. Its a normal figure of speech, when you (and others) experience almost nothing but bad experiences with something you present it as 70/80/90% or 3/4 or 4/5th or whatever is 'bad'. Trying to shut that down with a quasi-strawman adds absolutely nothing to the discussion, except for appearing pedantic or combative. > Which is fine, but just say what you mean - that you imagine most taxi drivers in most countries are probably rude. Sans the imagine, considering I've traveled most of Europe, a lot of Asia, and a little bit of North America. Add in experiences from friends who have also been to those places and/or S. America, Australia, etc., then yeah.. a pattern starts to make itself clear.
    - Xylakant 8y ago
      > 1. Uber, Lyft and co. would never have grown globally at such an astronomical rate (and eaten the taxi branch its lunch) That’s a dangerous assertion when Uber spent a sizable chunk of its investment money on promotions to make rides available at less than cost. Selling services below cost and competitors price is a way to gain market share that does not prove that your business model is in any way superior.
- Kluny 8y ago
  > they are absolutely top notch. It's easy to be top notch when you don't have to pay all the expenses you incur. By offloading all of their infrastructure costs onto their employees (that is, the cars and the phones), they can operate very cheaply. But it's not because the service is cheaper, it's because they're avoiding their bills.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    What are you comparing to? In NYC, for example, these cost were always offloaded to the drivers - they had to pay to rent the car/medallion for the shift: "The average rate a cabbie paid to take a taxi out for a 12-hour shift climbed 11 percent, to about $85, between 1990 and 1993, based on the most recent figures available from the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission." ($85 in '93 is about $150 today) https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/09/nyregion/driving-a-taxi-difficult-in-best-of-times-gets-tougher.html https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/09/nyregion/driving-a-taxi-d...
    - Kluny 8y ago
      The question is whether cab drivers get paid enough more than Uber drivers to offset that.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > in the case of the taxi industry Uber is actually not a bad guy Pre-Uber New York City taxi cab story time! Rewind lots of years. I am living on 30th & Madison. One of my roommates is an immaculately-dressed Brown graduate and young executive. Every few days, he makes an odd request of me: Can I hail him a cab? Why? Cab drivers routinely ignored his hails. The probable cause? He's black. Add to that "busted" credit card readers, refusals to drop off outside Manhattan and cell phone use. (San Francisco, Paris and Las Vegas were similar.) Note: yellow cabs have become much better since Uber.
- ghaff 8y ago
  It took some real talent on the part of Uber to get so many people to view them so negatively. I think most of us are at least a bit sympathetic to some of their early rule-breaking given how entrenched the existing cab companies were and how bad they were in many cases. As you say, there are a lot of things to dislike about Uber as a tech company and I try not to use them. (And I don't actually use cabs/Uber/Lyft all that much in spite of doing a lot of travel.) But they've definitely made it easier for people to get around in many cities. AirBnB's market, on the other hand, wasn't really broken even if the (legitimate) short-term rental agencies were more fragmented and less modern than they could have been.
ekianjo 8y ago
> People just respect regulations and they generally do work very well. Except when the regulations are inappropriate or protect the incumbents instead of promoting experimentation and innovation. There's a reason Japan is lagging behind in almost everything these days compared to its neighbors in Asia.
- lovemenot 8y ago
  Agree. Japan has a stability-at-all-costs mentality. Until the old is completely untenable, and then change can happen incredibly rapidly.
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    > and then change can happen incredibly rapidly. Problem is that fast changes in Japan has been associated with bursts of civilian violence. Pushing back what needs to be done until it's untenable is NOT a good strategy.
    - lovemenot 8y ago
      >> ... is NOT a good strategy I think you can be right under some circumstances and wrong in others. For such a strategy to be effective, what is required is for there to be a period of social / technological stability in the rest of the world. I believe that once the direction is clear, Japan's internal coherence allows it to forge ahead. Until that time though, they cannot figure out how to proceed, so they prefer to wait for clarity. Definitely more Waterfall than Agile. Again, Waterfall remains the best methodology for some types of project. But all of this is a vast generalisation. Even now, there are signs of adaptation.

jorvi 8y ago

I'm European, and in general I like (well thought out) regulations, but in the case of the taxi industry Uber is actually not a bad guy but a huge blessing. In a lot of countries (80%+) taxi drivers are rude, try to price gouge, try to scam you or try to take longer routes. Uber takes all of this away. The rating system ensures drivers are polite. The estimate € (plus route tracking) ensures they don't take the scenic route, and the fact that all payment happens via the app means there is no longer 'my meter is broken/the credit card reader is broken/sorry I miscalculated its €10 more'. And because Uber is global I can use the same app wether I am in Paris, Prague, Hanoi or Seattle.. which means I don't need to install and learn 3 different apps. Edit: to be clear, I am aware why Uber gets such a bad rep, and as a tech company they might deserve it, but as a taxi company they are absolutely top notch.

EStudley 8y ago
>In a lot of countries (80%+) taxi drivers are rude, try to price gouge, try to scam you or try to take longer routes. I have had every experience you explained with Uber. People driving me weird ways around my city to make the trip longer, rude, attempting to add a cleaning charge with no reason, or the classic "Hey if you cancel the ride and give me $10 I can get you there."
- icebraining 8y ago
  What happened when you complained to Uber?
  - star-castle 8y ago
    How? Uber is a current-year tech company. Like Google, there technically is a support line that technically exists, but just forget about it. I called Uber 10 times, in Houston. Got scammed 5 times. Part of the "the driver just keeps driving and never acknowledges letting you out of the car" scam is that the app takes the same approach to "uh, I'm not in the car anymore" as it does to "uh, I would like to complain to Uber". (The way to say that the ride has ended is to cancel the trip, an operation that feels like you're trying to scam the driver, so an honest person will avoid doing that while searching for the nonexistent "the ride has ended" UI.) 4/5 scams: the driver goes past your position and then waits a mile down the road to pick you up. The moment the driver was near, Uber switches to "ok go get in the car" mode. It never switches out of it. If you cancel, rather than hike an unreasonable distance to catch the car that deliberately drove past you, then Uber charges you $5.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      there technically is a support line that technically exists, but just forget about it. That's not my experience; I've complained three times over the years, and I always got my money back.
      - star-castle 8y ago
        I don't believe you. No offense, but it's easier to learn that the Earth is flat, or that a place called 'Australia' exists, or that reality is entirely a consensus affair and that strenuous wishing can change it, than it is to learn that Uber is easy to contact. Some lies people don't bother spreading. Just look: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=complain+to+uber https://duckduckgo.com/?q=complain+to+uber Or look at this article about Uber deliberately hiding a contact number "to test discoverability" (meaning: if users find it too easily, it should be made harder to find) https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/10/11196352/uber-secret-emergency-hotline-panic-button-kalamazoo https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/10/11196352/uber-secret-emer... If you lucked out and found that your specific issue had a UI entry in the app, that's not the same thing as being able to explain a situation to a human and have that human do the (paid, drudge) work of wading through obscure interfaces to find the button that fixes a given problem.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  ...the classic "Hey if you cancel the ride and give me $10 I can get you there." What's wrong with that? It's just an offer that you're free to reject.
  - star-castle 8y ago
    Why do you trust it? You got into a car on an arranged deal and the driver immediately wants to back out of it--this is already a shady situation. Why do you think he'll drive you anywhere after he gets the $10? Why do you think he won't charge you for the trip on top of the $10 after alerting Uber to their own GPS records that show your phone and his car taking you to the destination you said you wanted to go to?
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      I would never pay for a ride in someone's car before the ride completed. Taxis don't expect that; who does this guy think he is? If he wants something up front he's out of luck. In fact I probably would reject the offer as I suggested above, but if I accepted I would immediately cancel the trip. If Uber want to charge for a cancelled trip they can bite my ass. It is probably "privilege" as a big heavy white dude with a perpetually surly expression that I'm not alerting on "danger" in such a situation. If I were a different person I could totally imagine reporting the driver and trying to get him fired. People worry when getting in strangers' cars. Actually once in India I did get such a misdirected cab ride, but my Indian friend noticed and convinced the cab driver to stop. He chewed the driver's ass for a while, then we got another cab.
krapp 8y ago
>In a lot of countries (80%+) taxi drivers are rude, try to price gouge, try to scam you or try to take longer routes. Made up percentages don't count as credible data, unless you can cite the objective and peer-reviewed analysis that demonstrates that over 80% of taxi drivers are "rude, try to price gouge, try to scam you or try to take longer routes," you're just trying to disguise your opinion as fact. Which is fine, but just say what you mean - that you imagine most taxi drivers in most countries are probably rude.
- jorvi 8y ago
  > Made up percentages don't count as credible data, unless you can cite the objective and peer-reviewed analysis that demonstrates that over 80% of taxi drivers are "rude, try to price gouge, try to scam you or try to take longer routes," you're just trying to disguise your opinion as fact. There is little to no such data, but we can extrapolate from two things: 1. Uber, Lyft and co. would never have grown globally at such an astronomical rate (and eaten the taxi branch its lunch) if there wasn't a large demand for a 'clean' taxi experience, and 2. Wether you are aware of it or not, taxis and their drivers are one of the most oft complained about branches of industry. Seriously, ask 100 random people who have travelled internationally about their taxi experiences, and I guarantee you a large contingent will mention the same pain points I did. On a sidenote, I did not 'try to disguise your opinion as fact'. Its a normal figure of speech, when you (and others) experience almost nothing but bad experiences with something you present it as 70/80/90% or 3/4 or 4/5th or whatever is 'bad'. Trying to shut that down with a quasi-strawman adds absolutely nothing to the discussion, except for appearing pedantic or combative. > Which is fine, but just say what you mean - that you imagine most taxi drivers in most countries are probably rude. Sans the imagine, considering I've traveled most of Europe, a lot of Asia, and a little bit of North America. Add in experiences from friends who have also been to those places and/or S. America, Australia, etc., then yeah.. a pattern starts to make itself clear.
  - Xylakant 8y ago
    > 1. Uber, Lyft and co. would never have grown globally at such an astronomical rate (and eaten the taxi branch its lunch) That’s a dangerous assertion when Uber spent a sizable chunk of its investment money on promotions to make rides available at less than cost. Selling services below cost and competitors price is a way to gain market share that does not prove that your business model is in any way superior.
Kluny 8y ago
> they are absolutely top notch. It's easy to be top notch when you don't have to pay all the expenses you incur. By offloading all of their infrastructure costs onto their employees (that is, the cars and the phones), they can operate very cheaply. But it's not because the service is cheaper, it's because they're avoiding their bills.
- icebraining 8y ago
  What are you comparing to? In NYC, for example, these cost were always offloaded to the drivers - they had to pay to rent the car/medallion for the shift: "The average rate a cabbie paid to take a taxi out for a 12-hour shift climbed 11 percent, to about $85, between 1990 and 1993, based on the most recent figures available from the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission." ($85 in '93 is about $150 today) https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/09/nyregion/driving-a-taxi-difficult-in-best-of-times-gets-tougher.html https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/09/nyregion/driving-a-taxi-d...
  - Kluny 8y ago
    The question is whether cab drivers get paid enough more than Uber drivers to offset that.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> in the case of the taxi industry Uber is actually not a bad guy Pre-Uber New York City taxi cab story time! Rewind lots of years. I am living on 30th & Madison. One of my roommates is an immaculately-dressed Brown graduate and young executive. Every few days, he makes an odd request of me: Can I hail him a cab? Why? Cab drivers routinely ignored his hails. The probable cause? He's black. Add to that "busted" credit card readers, refusals to drop off outside Manhattan and cell phone use. (San Francisco, Paris and Las Vegas were similar.) Note: yellow cabs have become much better since Uber.
ghaff 8y ago
It took some real talent on the part of Uber to get so many people to view them so negatively. I think most of us are at least a bit sympathetic to some of their early rule-breaking given how entrenched the existing cab companies were and how bad they were in many cases. As you say, there are a lot of things to dislike about Uber as a tech company and I try not to use them. (And I don't actually use cabs/Uber/Lyft all that much in spite of doing a lot of travel.) But they've definitely made it easier for people to get around in many cities. AirBnB's market, on the other hand, wasn't really broken even if the (legitimate) short-term rental agencies were more fragmented and less modern than they could have been.

ekianjo 8y ago

> People just respect regulations and they generally do work very well. Except when the regulations are inappropriate or protect the incumbents instead of promoting experimentation and innovation. There's a reason Japan is lagging behind in almost everything these days compared to its neighbors in Asia.

lovemenot 8y ago
Agree. Japan has a stability-at-all-costs mentality. Until the old is completely untenable, and then change can happen incredibly rapidly.
- ekianjo 8y ago
  > and then change can happen incredibly rapidly. Problem is that fast changes in Japan has been associated with bursts of civilian violence. Pushing back what needs to be done until it's untenable is NOT a good strategy.
  - lovemenot 8y ago
    >> ... is NOT a good strategy I think you can be right under some circumstances and wrong in others. For such a strategy to be effective, what is required is for there to be a period of social / technological stability in the rest of the world. I believe that once the direction is clear, Japan's internal coherence allows it to forge ahead. Until that time though, they cannot figure out how to proceed, so they prefer to wait for clarity. Definitely more Waterfall than Agile. Again, Waterfall remains the best methodology for some types of project. But all of this is a vast generalisation. Even now, there are signs of adaptation.