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Indeed. And surprisingly, no one[#] has brought up that there is no such thing as as a national (or even regional) taxi service. And why is that? It's because t

Indeed. And surprisingly, no one[#] has brought up that there is no such thing as as a national (or even regional) taxi service. And why is that? It's because the economics of fleet ownership don't scale to that size. If they did, we'd have a single nationwide taxi service already. In 100 years of taxis, no one has done that. [#] Except Hubert Horan who destroyed all their BS with his series, "Can Uber Ever Deliver?"

bduerst 7y ago
The reason there isn't a national chain is because municipal laws fragment the market. You can typically schedule a cab for pickup in rural America (I've done it before), it is just expensive because you're also paying for a person's time to drive out there and back.
SilasX 7y ago
Yeah, but arguably smartphone technology reduced admin costs and raised the size of the economically optimal taxi provider. That has been around for less than a hundred years. Edit: Dangit, I thought my reply got eaten, but I was looking at a different branch. See the rephrasing here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19880565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19880565
- mimixco 7y ago
  Smartphones didn't reduce the cost of dispatch. Look what Uber spends on app development! The big costs in taxis are maintaining the fleet, a cost which Uber externalizes to its drivers, some of whom now have to sleep in their cars.
  - SilasX 7y ago
    They most certainly did. As expensive as that software is, it’s very little when amortized over the rides. It eliminates the overhead of finding a location and transmitting the info, and delivers higher value in that it gives real time data about where the car is, and lets you pay more conveniently. Also: while the drivers have physically taken over maintenance, Uber can’t push the economic cost on to them, because they have to pay enough that drivers want to continue to work even given those costs. If anything, maintenance is cheaper when handled by a big org. To the extent they realize a savings, it’s because they’re using the spare hours of existing vehicles and don’t have to take on all the dead ours they’d have from owning the cars not because they’re getting maintenance free in any meaningful sense.

bduerst 7y ago

The reason there isn't a national chain is because municipal laws fragment the market. You can typically schedule a cab for pickup in rural America (I've done it before), it is just expensive because you're also paying for a person's time to drive out there and back.

SilasX 7y ago

Yeah, but arguably smartphone technology reduced admin costs and raised the size of the economically optimal taxi provider. That has been around for less than a hundred years. Edit: Dangit, I thought my reply got eaten, but I was looking at a different branch. See the rephrasing here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19880565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19880565

mimixco 7y ago
Smartphones didn't reduce the cost of dispatch. Look what Uber spends on app development! The big costs in taxis are maintaining the fleet, a cost which Uber externalizes to its drivers, some of whom now have to sleep in their cars.
- SilasX 7y ago
  They most certainly did. As expensive as that software is, it’s very little when amortized over the rides. It eliminates the overhead of finding a location and transmitting the info, and delivers higher value in that it gives real time data about where the car is, and lets you pay more conveniently. Also: while the drivers have physically taken over maintenance, Uber can’t push the economic cost on to them, because they have to pay enough that drivers want to continue to work even given those costs. If anything, maintenance is cheaper when handled by a big org. To the extent they realize a savings, it’s because they’re using the spare hours of existing vehicles and don’t have to take on all the dead ours they’d have from owning the cars not because they’re getting maintenance free in any meaningful sense.