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It sounds like you had a bad experience. Almost everyone I know uses Uber regularly and almost every experience is positive. If it's 3am sometimes it takes long

It sounds like you had a bad experience. Almost everyone I know uses Uber regularly and almost every experience is positive. If it's 3am sometimes it takes longer, if you just got out of a bar and there's 50 other people next to you trying to get an uber you might have to walk a bit, if you're in a remote place sometimes they cancel. It's annoying. But mostly I can have a taxi outside my house in 3 minutes. I know exactly when they'll get there and there's no cash needed. It's a hugely better process than the old phone-a-number and hope minicabs and taxi services. That would take 15 minutes minimum, often much longer, and you had no idea when it would arrive.

tim333 7y ago
I agree it's better than the old way although the >A driver committed. The wait got shorter. Then it got longer. And longer. And then our trip was cancelled without reason has happened to me a lot too. I wish they would fix that some how. I'm not sure what it's about. You'd think the drivers would either come get you or not rather than say they are coming and then flake.
- Zach_the_Lizard 7y ago
  I think they get penalized if they cancel, so they try to get passengers to cancel of they can help it. Not sure what their penalities are, though. I've had to be aggressive with drivers sometimes to get them to cancel to avoid charging me. This is particularly common around airport trips for me. Not sure why.
chippy 7y ago
Similar to the Airbnb tales recently on HN we forgive them these bad experiences. Where in the past we would never use the companies again if we had bad experiences now we just discount them "oh, but it's worth it and its so useful now regardless of the minor pain", "most of the time it Just Works", "you had a bad experience with an individual but the service as a whole is great" I think it's partly because of the ease of use - usability, partly because of brand investment and loyaly, but with Uber and Airbnb, there are no direct competitors that have the same user experience. That people are willing to put up with hosts cancelling their uber stays or swapping them for something dodgy and that people are willing to put up with bad Uber experiences speaks volumes. I also think it might be because when things go wrong, we users will blame the driver not the company, we will blame the airbnb host, not the company.

tim333 7y ago

I agree it's better than the old way although the >A driver committed. The wait got shorter. Then it got longer. And longer. And then our trip was cancelled without reason has happened to me a lot too. I wish they would fix that some how. I'm not sure what it's about. You'd think the drivers would either come get you or not rather than say they are coming and then flake.

Zach_the_Lizard 7y ago
I think they get penalized if they cancel, so they try to get passengers to cancel of they can help it. Not sure what their penalities are, though. I've had to be aggressive with drivers sometimes to get them to cancel to avoid charging me. This is particularly common around airport trips for me. Not sure why.

chippy 7y ago

Similar to the Airbnb tales recently on HN we forgive them these bad experiences. Where in the past we would never use the companies again if we had bad experiences now we just discount them "oh, but it's worth it and its so useful now regardless of the minor pain", "most of the time it Just Works", "you had a bad experience with an individual but the service as a whole is great" I think it's partly because of the ease of use - usability, partly because of brand investment and loyaly, but with Uber and Airbnb, there are no direct competitors that have the same user experience. That people are willing to put up with hosts cancelling their uber stays or swapping them for something dodgy and that people are willing to put up with bad Uber experiences speaks volumes. I also think it might be because when things go wrong, we users will blame the driver not the company, we will blame the airbnb host, not the company.