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The only point that sounds even remotely correct here is "companies can afford cheaper financing to buy cars than individuals" - although Uber could easily take
by tomp 7y ago
The only point that sounds even remotely correct here is "companies can afford cheaper financing to buy cars than individuals" - although Uber could easily take care of that by buying vehicles and leasing them to drivers.
Otherwise, yeah, Uber did fundamentally improve both productivity and service quality vs. traditional cab companies. Mobile apps are an obvious service quality improvement (predictable waiting times, ease of finding cabs in remote locations, ease of payment), and allow Uber to provide the same level of service (i.e. availability / waiting times) as traditional cab companies, but with less drivers (since a user doesn't need to actually see a cab in order to hail it).
All other issues apply equally to cab companies - e.g. empty backhaul costs, cost of peak capacity, bimodal income distribution of users - except that Uber does, or at least could, solve them better with technological means - e.g. Uber Pool and Uber Eats for backhaul costs, automated and/or predictable surcharge for peak capacity issues, Uber Black to target richer users.
Overcapacity risk: in some locations, cabs were practically unlimited (e.g. Slovenia) so this existed before, in other locations limits were either because of monopoly (e.g. NYC) or skills (e.g. London), both of which Uber improves - breaking monopoly lowers prices for users (without decreasing driver wages, simply by destroying the profits of rent-seeking medalion owners), and there's no need to know every street of London in the era of Google Maps (and I definitely don't want to pay for it).
So, let's not kid ourselves - Uber is strictly better than what was before, and given its global availability, it also has a moat (when you land in city X, are you gonna load and set up local taxi cab that you don't know or trust, or just use Uber?), though there are still some regulatory / monopoly issues (e.g. in London Uber can't use bus lanes, whereas black cabs can). But I want to take Uber whenever I can and I want London cabs to die in fire.
(Having said that, I'm short on Uber as I think it's overvalued - but that doesn't mean without value. Also, I'm not against regulation - cities could improve relevant regulation e.g. preventing Uber from lying about surcharges, driver availability / location and preventing drivers from cancelling rides, but most cities choose to instead serve entrenched interests by (attempting to, yet fortunately often failing) enforcing monopolies.)
TL;DR: quoted part of article is mostly wrong.
- StreamBright 7y ago>> Otherwise, yeah, Uber did fundamentally improve both productivity and service quality vs. traditional cab companies. This was true when they started and not really true today. There are many taxi companies with proper licenses and full time employees using the same app model as Uber. Taxify (nowadays Bolt) is one example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolt_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolt_(company)
- LaGrange 7y ago> predictable waiting times, ease of finding cabs in remote locations, ease of payment As someone who used call cabs in various Polish towns and suburbs since early 2000s, is claiming this was particularly bad is short memory or is the US bad at not just mass transit but also taxi service? I could get a cab within 15 minutes pretty much in any agglomeration, and even close suburbs. I didn't even need an app.
- tomp 7y agoSame in Slovenia, yeah. Call, wait 15 minutes, cab shows up... or not. Again, Uber / Smart Phone tech improves on that, at least they tell you immediately if the driver cancels. (Admittedly, in the old days, the drivers didn't actually cancel, just gave up when they couldn't find your house or you weren't waiting outside at the very right moment... still Uber solves that, mostly.)
- LaGrange 7y ago> Same in Slovenia, yeah. Call, wait 15 minutes, cab shows up... or not ...I had that happen _once_, and: > at least they tell you immediately if the driver cancels. ...exactly that happened. Amazing, it's like they ask you for your phone number for a reason. This wasn't much of a problem pretty much since cell phones became a mainstay. I am not sure how Uber improves on that, guesses from the travel path that the driver gave up even if the driver decides not to report?
- ecnahc515 7y agoAn Uber can't pick up a new passenger without cancelling their current pickup or picking up their current passenger and finishing the ride. Either way, the passenger both can see if they're coming to pick them up, and are made aware immediately if the driver cancels. With cabs, you're expecting a cabby to call to dispatch that they're not picking you up. A cabby can easily be on the way to pick you up, find someone on the way and never let you know. That's a big difference in both what's possible, and what the reality is: cabbies never let you know if they're not coming in my experience. That said, many cab companies have an app now.