4 ms·

I think what they uniquely provide is actually tracking the cab to your door. I probably called 3 cabs total before I was aware of uber, and my experience each

by uxp100 7y ago

I think what they uniquely provide is actually tracking the cab to your door. I probably called 3 cabs total before I was aware of uber, and my experience each time was wait for around an hour, even if you had pre-arranged the pickup, and when calling the dispatcher, they would just say the cab was 10 minutes away, no matter what was actually going on.

erik_seaberg 7y ago
I briefly drove airport shuttles and we'd sometimes rescue people who had been screwed over by taxi dispatchers. I don't think drivers faced any consequences for never showing up at all.
- saalweachter 7y ago
  I personally don't blame the drivers, most of the time. My impression is that taxi companies, wanting to be profitable, keep the largest number of drivers on call that can be maximally utilized -- not the smallest number needed to guarantee a certain SLO. So when you call dispatch and they tell you "30 minutes", that's a bald faced lie. It's not that the taxi driver got lost or stopped for a coffee break on the route, it's that they did not have any taxi drivers available for the next 80 minutes, and knew it. The drivers don't get punished because they did nothing wrong; there may have never been a driver assigned to go pick you up. It's like when you go to the grocery and there is one checkout open and ten people in line; it's not that the cashier is slow, it's that it is more profitable to make you wait than to have two cashiers sitting idle after you leave.
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    ...and I guess Uber's main innovation there was, make the drivers independent contractors, so you don't have to pay them for the time they're idle. :\
    - moduspol 7y ago
      And (perhaps more importantly) actually give the end user a reasonable estimation of what's going on and how long it'll take for the driver to reach you.
jpeanuts 7y ago
Perhaps even more significant is that Uber gave you the price of the trip in advance. With regular taxis you had to guess, and if you weren't familiar with area, you best guess might well be just "expensive". And then you had to worry about being ripped off. Uber gave everyone access to information about the cost of taxis - and generally people found it wasn't as expensive as they'd thought.
perl4ever 7y ago
And, you know, they always say their credit card reader isn't working, nor their fare meter.

by uxp100 7y ago

erik_seaberg 7y ago

I briefly drove airport shuttles and we'd sometimes rescue people who had been screwed over by taxi dispatchers. I don't think drivers faced any consequences for never showing up at all.

saalweachter 7y ago
I personally don't blame the drivers, most of the time. My impression is that taxi companies, wanting to be profitable, keep the largest number of drivers on call that can be maximally utilized -- not the smallest number needed to guarantee a certain SLO. So when you call dispatch and they tell you "30 minutes", that's a bald faced lie. It's not that the taxi driver got lost or stopped for a coffee break on the route, it's that they did not have any taxi drivers available for the next 80 minutes, and knew it. The drivers don't get punished because they did nothing wrong; there may have never been a driver assigned to go pick you up. It's like when you go to the grocery and there is one checkout open and ten people in line; it's not that the cashier is slow, it's that it is more profitable to make you wait than to have two cashiers sitting idle after you leave.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  ...and I guess Uber's main innovation there was, make the drivers independent contractors, so you don't have to pay them for the time they're idle. :\
  - moduspol 7y ago
    And (perhaps more importantly) actually give the end user a reasonable estimation of what's going on and how long it'll take for the driver to reach you.

jpeanuts 7y ago

Perhaps even more significant is that Uber gave you the price of the trip in advance. With regular taxis you had to guess, and if you weren't familiar with area, you best guess might well be just "expensive". And then you had to worry about being ripped off. Uber gave everyone access to information about the cost of taxis - and generally people found it wasn't as expensive as they'd thought.

perl4ever 7y ago

And, you know, they always say their credit card reader isn't working, nor their fare meter.