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Uber didn’t succeed because they cut prices, if that had been all they would have been just a moderately more successful taxi company. They succeeded because th
by talltimtom 8y ago
Uber didn’t succeed because they cut prices, if that had been all they would have been just a moderately more successful taxi company. They succeeded because they realized that cutting prices and a bit of branding would mean unlocking a huge untapped market. They became the way Evereyone got too and from every club/party/pub, where taxis where just never an option.
- reaperducer 8y agoThere's a little more to it than that. In some cities, the taxis refuse to leave the city center. In New York, for example, hailing a hack outside of Manhattan or the trendy boros was virtually impossible. "Car service" became a thing because cabs left more than half the city unserved. But even those were limited in availability in some areas. In Las Vegas, it was rare to see a taxi outside of the entertainment corridor. If you called for a taxi, they'd ignore you. The new state taxi commissioner even tried it, himself. He phoned three times for a taxi from a mall just a mile from The Strip, and every time he was ignored. That's why Uber works in many places. And the app showing the position of the other cars encourages drivers to fan out into underserved areas. Some people have even done that math and found that Ubering around town is cheaper for them than owning+maintaining+insuring+fueling a car.