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This is not new, there have been other studies that pointed this out. An economic engine like ride sharing will not be stopped because of congestion. Unfortunat

This is not new, there have been other studies that pointed this out. An economic engine like ride sharing will not be stopped because of congestion. Unfortunately, there is going to be a lot of noise year over year. Delivery robots are going to be ubiquitous and are going to swarm streets to the extent that it will be a pest in cities and crowded areas. Remains to be seen what the lawmakers do about it.

wolverine876 6y ago
> An economic engine like ride sharing How is it an economic engine? Who benefits? The jobs don't apy well. AFAICT, the main economic beneficiary is the shareholders of the ride-sharing companies, but I genuinely wonder what the truth is.
- kortilla 6y ago
  The main beneficiaries are the millions of daily users FFS. Uber/Lyft provide service in markets where taxis were so unreliable they were fundamentally broken. In the suburbs/college towns/etc in the US, getting a taxi had to be done hours in advance if you wanted a guarantee they would even show up. Otherwise you would call a dispatcher on the phone, tell them where you were and wanted to go, then they would say something like “someone should be there in 30-60 minutes”. Then it would be about a 30% chance they would actually show. That’s right, too much to drink at a bar around closing time and you will likely end up just walking home drunk in the dark. Really great industry. This was my experience throughout all of the 00s in multiple large suburban cities and college towns. An absolutely dead industry kept alive by regulatory capture that deserved to get fucked.
  - wolverine876 6y ago
    I was alive then too. I don't recall having trouble getting around without Uber and Lyft (which, despite the story that you repeat above, provide service in markets well-served by taxis and public transit).
    - kortilla 6y ago
      Then you weren’t in the suburbs or you just drove yourself. Uber is only confusing to people who live in places with good public transit and/or good taxi services. For the 90% of the rest of US population it was a game changer. Even in Vegas (a presumably ‘healthy’ cab market), you would get scammed by cab drivers from the strip hotels to the airport by them suggesting the interstate despite it not being faster because it would accumulate them more miles. Cabs had no reasonable negative feedback systems for shitty (but not illegal) behavior so it was a terrible experience.
  - asdff 6y ago
    Have you tried calling an uber from most suburbs? It's pretty similar to the taxi experience you describe these days. Plenty of drivers just reject your ride if it's too far out from a central business district where they can easily snag another fare. My parents can't get rides where they live, 20 minutes out from their downtown and 20 minutes from their international airport. I live in a city of 4 million people and just called an uber the other day after a night of drinking, and it took 30 minutes to show up after the first one dropped my ride, so it's not just suburbs that might get the shaft with this 'taxi-like' quality of service from uber et al. Not to mention prices have gone sky high for these services. Sometimes I wonder if I really save much anymore using them vs. a yellowcab (which has an app now, too).

wolverine876 6y ago

> An economic engine like ride sharing How is it an economic engine? Who benefits? The jobs don't apy well. AFAICT, the main economic beneficiary is the shareholders of the ride-sharing companies, but I genuinely wonder what the truth is.

kortilla 6y ago
The main beneficiaries are the millions of daily users FFS. Uber/Lyft provide service in markets where taxis were so unreliable they were fundamentally broken. In the suburbs/college towns/etc in the US, getting a taxi had to be done hours in advance if you wanted a guarantee they would even show up. Otherwise you would call a dispatcher on the phone, tell them where you were and wanted to go, then they would say something like “someone should be there in 30-60 minutes”. Then it would be about a 30% chance they would actually show. That’s right, too much to drink at a bar around closing time and you will likely end up just walking home drunk in the dark. Really great industry. This was my experience throughout all of the 00s in multiple large suburban cities and college towns. An absolutely dead industry kept alive by regulatory capture that deserved to get fucked.
- wolverine876 6y ago
  I was alive then too. I don't recall having trouble getting around without Uber and Lyft (which, despite the story that you repeat above, provide service in markets well-served by taxis and public transit).
  - kortilla 6y ago
    Then you weren’t in the suburbs or you just drove yourself. Uber is only confusing to people who live in places with good public transit and/or good taxi services. For the 90% of the rest of US population it was a game changer. Even in Vegas (a presumably ‘healthy’ cab market), you would get scammed by cab drivers from the strip hotels to the airport by them suggesting the interstate despite it not being faster because it would accumulate them more miles. Cabs had no reasonable negative feedback systems for shitty (but not illegal) behavior so it was a terrible experience.
- asdff 6y ago
  Have you tried calling an uber from most suburbs? It's pretty similar to the taxi experience you describe these days. Plenty of drivers just reject your ride if it's too far out from a central business district where they can easily snag another fare. My parents can't get rides where they live, 20 minutes out from their downtown and 20 minutes from their international airport. I live in a city of 4 million people and just called an uber the other day after a night of drinking, and it took 30 minutes to show up after the first one dropped my ride, so it's not just suburbs that might get the shaft with this 'taxi-like' quality of service from uber et al. Not to mention prices have gone sky high for these services. Sometimes I wonder if I really save much anymore using them vs. a yellowcab (which has an app now, too).