12 ms·

Uber and Lyft surge pricing drives SF customers back to taxis

225 points by edward 5y ago

kelnos 5y ago
This is a good outcome! Uber and Lyft have dragged taxi companies into the 21st century, with apps like Flywheel making the process of getting a traditional taxi not the horrifying experience it used to be (call a dispatcher, get told 20 minutes, wait an hour, cab never shows). I frankly don't care what service takes me home. I just want it to be safe, reliable, clean, and reasonably priced, and I want the driver to be accountable for any issues. If a taxi now fits that bill, great. Competition and choice are good things.
- Traster 5y ago
  I'm not sure. I think if we look at the net of what's happened: Uber execs and investors made (m/b)illions, taxi drivers got absolutley hosed - most now essentially are just extracting against the equity in their cars, and riders have got a marginally more reliable service. So to put this in terms - the rich got much richer, and the middle class benefitted by exploiting the working class. That's doesn't seem like a good outcome to me (not least because the billionaires that benefit literally spunk their profits into outer space befroe thinking about paying tax).
  - pkaye 5y ago
    If only the taxi drivers would have fixed their broken credit card machines.
  - joe_the_user 5y ago
    Pre-Uber, driving a taxi was a survival job for most and they could (and often did) switch to Uber. The only drivers who made significant money drove 24-7 and had a relationship with their customers. I doubt they were hurt either. The group that I assume got screwed were owners of local taxi companies and they were just corrupt cronies of the local government and screw them.
  - chronofar 5y ago
    So the quality of service of a product is secondary to the wage dynamics of those who provide it? The point of the person you responded to is that for the consumer this was an unambiguous win, the industry is better for riders in nearly every way. Marginally does not even begin to approach it, it is a giant leap forward in quality of service that further extends to many things (reducing drinking and driving for instance). I’d say the real problem with the outcomes here may be venture capital. That is what made the rich richer and allowed them to explode on a model that didn’t require them to be profitable. It’s possible this business model can’t succeed without that support, it’s also possible it could with higher prices, better wages and more time.
    - shard972 5y ago
      u just ignored his point and doubled down on this was great because the middle class benefited at the expense of the lower class.
    - Traster 5y ago
      Yes the rich provided the middle class a new way to exploit the poor. The reason taxis were expensive is because taxi drivers have to pay rent and buy food. The incredible innovation of Uber is that drivers are pushed into poverty wages. In a functioning democracy that would be prevented by regulations like the minimum wage and union protections.
      - chronofar 5y ago
        The problem with taxis has nothing to do with their prices. Look through this thread at various folks mentioning problems with the old systems and see how often price is among them. I’ll happily pay more, and various studies in the past have shown that ridesharing services charge much less than they could (in the name of growth and stamping out competition powered by venture money). How many Uber/Lyft drivers were taxi drivers before you think? I’d say not a hugely large percentage. In other words, the “exploited” here are also apparently compelled to flock to such a job in previously untold numbers. This in turn drives down prices, and the reverse trend since the pandemic is the reason they’re back on the rise. The convenience provided here is not just for riders but for drivers. All this to say your perspective reeks of political oversimplification that forces you to ignore various factors at play, many of them good, to churn out rhetoric. This ironically prevents seeing actual solutions to the problem you claim to care about.
  - erulabs 5y ago
    Slightly off topic, but every cent that was spent "on space", was also spent "on earth". If you pay someone to build a rocket, that human lives on earth, not in space. Where the rocket goes is not the same place as where the money goes. This extremely basic economic misunderstanding undermines any other point you were trying to make.
messe 5y ago
Competition working as expected then? Especially now that labour laws are starting to catch up to Uber and Lyft.
- yoavm 5y ago
  > Especially now that labour laws are starting to catch up to Uber and Lyft So perhaps it's not just competition, and we should give some credit to the regulation too.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    No, it's just competition. The cabs were already regulated.
    - endisneigh 5y ago
      They're referring to Uber and Lyft, most likely.
    - mrgordon 5y ago
      You missed the point. The other person was saying that now Uber and Lyft are more regulated so they have little advantage over taxis now.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - messe 5y ago
    > So perhaps it's not just competition, and we should give some credit to the regulation too. Or we could accept that "competition" doesn't just have to occur within a free market, and that a regulated market can be efficient while also accounting for externalities that a free market cannot. EDIT: to clarify, I am agreeing with you overall. I didn't mean my tone to come across as agressive, which re-reading it, I feel it does.
xur17 5y ago
I ran into this recently on a flight that arrived much later than it was scheduled. The airport was busy from several flights arriving at once, and uber / lyft surge prices were insane. It was too late for a bus, so I wandered over to the taxi stand. No one was working there, but a few minutes later a few cards started showing up, and I ended up getting in one. What was weird is that all of the "taxis" were regular cars with magnetic "taxi" labels on them, and at the end of the ride, my driver charged me on a square terminal, with no option / chance to tip. I honestly don't know if it was just some enterprising person that showed up at the airport, or what the heck happened.
- drewg123 5y ago
  I recently had a similar experience in Richmond, VA. Normal pricing is $35 for uber/lyft and $78 for a taxi to my house from the airport. With the surge pricing, they wanted over $100 with a 10-20 minute wait for pickup, so I just took a taxi and avoided waiting.
standardUser 5y ago
I was a longtime SF resident and remember very well how truly awful the taxi service was in SF before the rideshare apps. You'd call a cranky operator to request a taxi and an hour or two later one might show up. Hail a taxi downtown (if you can find one) and ask to go to the Richmond district only to have the driver tell you to get out of the car because they don't want to go that far. And of course the credit card machines were always "broken" so you had to pay with cash. Now I'm in NY and I use taxis almost as often as rideshares. The Curb app makes it easy to find a taxi and the prices are almost always lower. But half the time I can't get a taxi through the app at all and have to wander the streets or use Lyft/Uber.
- telesilla 5y ago
  The combo now of some cities such as Barcelona making an Uber-style taxi app is working great, where the city declined to allow Uber but built their own. Some of them combine bike and motorcycle sharing in the apps. For me, this has been a huge gain for which I'm thankful for the tech revolution started by Uber. Also, in some dangerous cities it's now safer given the ride is fully tracked.
  - seg_lol 5y ago
    This is awesome! The ride sharing platforms should plug into the universal transportation app that serves public transit, cabs, car share, etc. I gotta see Barcelona.
    - all2 5y ago
      This sounds like an excellent idea and also a terrible idea. In the US that would mean allowing the same bureaucratic organization that manages Medicare/Medicaid to manage a transportation app. And then you'd deal with the Intuits of transportation that would legally hobble any meaningful development in favor of their bespoke (and expensive) ride-hailing service... And so on. Maybe I'm just a cynic about these things. We could instead regulate a distributed ride-sharing communications system that companies could build apps for and drivers could hook in to. Well regulated industries tend to thrive (look at internet/cellphone providers in Japan).
okareaman 5y ago
I quit driving Uber and Lyft during the pandemic. I had a high rating from passengers. I could be coaxed back into driving, but they don't seem to care that I quit. They've not reached out to me, much less offered incentives. It seems weird to me that the press is filled with stories about how they can't find drivers. It seems like something else is going on, like maybe they are not interested in ride share anymore.
- cactus2093 5y ago
  I wonder if you've opted out of promotional emails from them in the past? Do you still have the app installed on the same phone you used as a driver? As a consumer I get push notifications and emails from them every week if I haven't ordered food in a while with new deals, etc. I would strongly suspect they're doing the same thing for drivers these past couple months and maybe they just don't have a way to reach you. If they aren't even doing that it would be truly bizarre, there are billions of dollars on the line and it's their entire business.
  - okareaman 5y ago
    We used to communicate by email, which hasn't changed and is still valid. They have reems of personal data about me including my bank routing number, my phone number, my driver's license, etc... I got one email from Lyft offering a $200 bonus for 10 rides in a day, but nothing from Uber. $200 for 10 rides is not exactly incentive to get off my retired butt and do some driving again. I'm now looking at python freelancing for a little extra cash. Edit: I logged into my Uber driver app. Nothing beyond the usual promos (bonuses for driving in San Francisco.) Nothing like, "Hey, we noticed you haven't been driving. We want you back! How can we help you get started again?"
    - roflulz 5y ago
      my uber driver told me she was offered $100 bonus after giving just 3 rides if she started driving again...
      - 5y ago
yupper32 5y ago
Outside of NYC, every taxi experience has been an absolute nightmare. Scams, CC machines never working, unreliable, sketchy, going a longer route to rack up the meter. Sometimes they'd just never show up when you called one and you'd just be stuck. That's why I went to Uber/Lyft. Not just because of pricing (though that was a bonus). NYC taxi service has always been great though. And there are enough that like 70% of the time (in Manhattan at least) I can just walk to the street, put my hand up, and have a ride in a minute or two. CC machine always works, etc.
- deathanatos 5y ago
  Every article like this, there are comments like yours. Yet, I've taken a taxi many times, and nearly every time it was: call #, request taxi, "okay, 15 minutes", 15 minutes later taxi arrives, we drive to destination, pay by CC. I've had a problem exactly once: I caught a taxi at the airport in Denver, CO, and like most airports, the pricing plan from the airport is different than to the airport (which is priced like a normal ride). Upon arrival at the destination, the cabbie didn't want to honor that agreement — "how would I make money if I charged that much?" — which, had I not been in shock from hearing about the stupidest remark I'd ever heard, I should have really told him exactly how he should make money. But that was once, out of probably dozens of experiences. I've had far more trouble with, say, … airlines. I've taken Lyft/Uber too, and honestly, it just isn't much different? The wait is about the same (relative to location, that is, less in crowded city centers). The difference is the ordering: with Lyft/Uber it is by app instead of by call. Slightly nicer, admittedly (can drop the pin, no need to understand often poor quality audio) but both apps absolutely murder cell batteries.
  - reedciccio 5y ago
    Uber is the same app anywhere in the world. Lyft is the same all over the US. You don't have to memorize or discover different ways to call a cab in all the places you're traveling to. That's the main advantage I see.
  - yupper32 5y ago
    Well since articles more often have comments like mine, maybe you're in the minority of locations that have a decent taxi service? Last time I took a taxi, it was on the East coast and it took an hour for someone to show up. I called 3 times to the dispatch and each time they said 10min. Then the car showed up and they said the CC machine was broken and I had to pay in cash. I didn't have cash. Then suddenly the CC machine was fine and I finally was able to get my ride.
ggregoire 5y ago
I paid $100 for a Uber from Manhattan to JFK the other day, I was absolutely shocked. A taxi is $50. I read on internet it was the same prices, I guess the information I found was outdated.
- jackson1442 5y ago
  Uber was trying to charge me something like $50 (before tip, of course) for a ride from the airport to a nearby hotel. It was about 2:15 AM and it said my arrival time would be around 4:30 AM. I found a cab waiting outside and made it there in about 10 minutes for $25. This was in Vegas last weekend, for reference.
  - greggman3 5y ago
    Lyft is $40 to go 2 miles in SF quite often. With tip it's rarely less than $20
- hellcow 5y ago
  Uber tried to charge me $90 to go 25 minutes away from LAX -- the Uber lot had almost no people waiting (not a busy time, and the middle of the day), and it had a 25 min wait. I took a cab instead, $50 including tip and 3 mins in line. I don't see how Uber's going to survive if they can't match cab prices...
lame-robot-hoax 5y ago
I’ve seen this even locally in Denver. Pre-pandemic I could get a ride to a destination a mile or two away for $8-$12. Now those trips recently have cost me anywhere from $20-$35 if I elected to take them.
psanford 5y ago
I have to image the loss of uberpool/lyft line has had a major impact on both the overall supply of available cars and also the perception of a larger increase in how much a ride costs.
- rhino369 5y ago
  I’m sure it’s reduced supply, but prices are much higher. I’ve never used pool/line and I’ve still got sticker shock. I think the bigger issues are that most drivers found new jobs given demand was so low for so long. And unemployment payments are still pretty high in many states. You probably lose money driving an Uber if you qualify for unemployment insurance right.
sschueller 5y ago
So ultimately we gained nothing other than now having worse worker protections than before [1] and better regular taxis. We could have reached the same result by just overhauling how taxies worked without exploiting the ones that already have barely anything and making a few rich. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQzw8MVlQlo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQzw8MVlQlo
- dwohnitmok 5y ago
  > We could have reached the same result by just overhauling how taxies worked without exploiting the ones that already have barely anything and making a few rich. "overhauling how taxis worked" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. I have a hard time seeing how that would've ever happened in the absence of something like a Lyft or Uber. That's an extraordinarily difficult task.
- jfengel 5y ago
  Yes. But unfortunately, the taxi companies didn't realize this until it was much, much too late. They got their lunches eaten by tech companies who liked to move fast and break things, such as decades of worker protections, well supplied with money and not overburdened with ethics. There is a parallel universe where some tech worker came along and created apps and sold them to the taxi companies. That would have led to much better taxi service -- though still a monopolist keeping the number of cabs small to protect their own profits.
  - astrange 5y ago
    This implies taxi drivers had worker protections, which isn't true.
    - jfengel 5y ago
      Most of them at least had jobs. Taxi driving wasn't great but they are at least employees. Some even have a union.
      - 5y ago
misiti3780 5y ago
This is happening in NYC too. I almost always use yellow cabs from JFK->Manhattan/BK because they are considerably cheaper. If I can hail a yellow cab anywhere, I would prefer it to Uber/Lyft.
- cweill 5y ago
  +1 surge pricing in NYC has gotten out of hand. It's not uncommon for rides that used to cost $12 to cost $25 on a good day, and $35+ on a bad day.
dawnerd 5y ago
Funny I’m back to using taxis in Orlando. Had way too many terrible drivers on Lyft and Uber that I’m not sure we’re even legally driving. My faith in both companies “inspecting” cars completely lost. Plus they have a bad problem over there of people hiring other people to drive for them.
- vkou 5y ago
  > Plus they have a bad problem over there of people hiring other people to drive for them. Since the drivers are just contractors, as Uber insists, it stands to reason that they should be able to subcontract. :)
  - dawnerd 5y ago
    except it's a violation of the TOS they agree to. When someone shows up that doesn't match the profile it's a big issue.
    - CameronNemo 5y ago
      Sounds like it's Uber's issue.
julienb_sea 5y ago
I just opened flywheel in downtown Seattle, no cars available. Unfortunate. At least Uber/Lyft are operational. This seems a symptom of the massive drop in demand causing a lot of drivers to leave the system. Hopefully this will self-adjust over a period of time, because I admit right now its pretty ridiculous the prices in Seattle. It is 1.5-2x more for essentially any ride, and surges are even more ridiculous.
rehitman 5y ago
Am I only one who is against regulation? Seems that in few of these big cities we are back to where we were 10 years ago. I remember when I was student in Toronto, taxi cab was so expensive that taking one was completely out of reach for student. If you miss a bus at night, sometimes it was better to wait until next morning or just walk. At the same time you would see lines of taxis in the Front street ideal and not working because prices were so much higher that what people could pay. Combination of price fixing, super expensive taxi license, different insurance that legally drivers had to buy made it completely impossible to move a taxi with lower price. I think at the end both drivers and customers are hurt by this.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  Is there any evidence that this is due to regulation and not just market forces coupled with a finite pool of burnable vc funding?
  - pseudo0 5y ago
    Toronto taxi medallion prices peaked at $360k CAD prior to Uber entering the market [0]. That seems like pretty strong evidence of the system being coopted to serve the interests of medallion holders rather than consumers. [0] - https://globalnews.ca/news/1780260/toronto-taxi-licence-prices-are-plummeting-is-uber-to-blame/ https://globalnews.ca/news/1780260/toronto-taxi-licence-pric...
  - gms 5y ago
    Market forces alone (in particular: competition) don’t lead to consumers being hurt.
    - spywaregorilla 5y ago
      Market forces lead to consumers being hurt all the time due to externalities, information asymmetry, monopolistic / monopsonistic / platform owner powers, etc.
BB212 5y ago
I'm a bit confused. The number quoted in the article said there are only 500 taxi's in SF right now? That seems super low and not significant - since all the estimates I can find for SF ubers in the area are in the tens of thousands. I'm sure once more people will become drivers if surge continues - and people will be looking for work again
grayhatter 5y ago
Or, they're like me and still pissed about Prop 22. Anyone fancy starting a delivery startup? I would absolutely pay a premium to anyone that can deliver groceries while alleviating the feeling of being complicit in the abuse of employees that I currently get from Instacart. Uber; for people suffering from morality.
- grayhatter 5y ago
  And to preempt the inevitable; I'm not opposed to prop 22 itself. It's a position that's not completely devoid of reason. My aggravation with all of them is the shear amount of money they all spent lobbying for it. I received a half dozen phone calls or texts from people introducing themselves dishonestly. Only for them to go on to misrepresent the reality of prop 22. Which I could forgive if not for the clause preventing anyone from trying to alter, correct, or modify the laws they paid to enact.
filereaper 5y ago
Uber bet the house on self-driving cars, that's what was supposed to make all of this sustainable. Seems all these efforts have failed, and I'd be curious how many short positions are out there against them. I've been at the receiving end of these Uber & Lyft shortages. Can't get a ridershare below $80 at SFO after 9pm even if you've pre-scheduled one. The drivers also keep cancelling in an attempt to pump rates higher. Its incredibly frustrating. I've pretty much given up and now rent a car when I would have taken an Uber when I'm out of town.
- staticassertion 5y ago
  I see Cruise cars all the time in SF - it definitely does not feel like all of the self-driving efforts have failed.
  - filereaper 5y ago
    Great, when do Cruise and all the others actually come out of R&D and solve the issues faced by me and others on this thread. Otherwise you're beating a dead horse.
    - staticassertion 5y ago
      Others in this thread? Beating a dead horse? Am I missing something? I'm the only comment in response to yours, which is a top level comment. I see no other conversation on the topic. Anyway, my point is that self driving is clearly not in a "well, it didn't work" state - it's ongoing, and seems to be making good progress. I have no timeline for you.
      - hammeiam 5y ago
        I think it's relative. The technology is progressing, but as you said no one has a timeline. So if you're a company betting billions (and billions) of dollars on getting self-driving out the door in 5 years, and now it's year 5 and you have no timeline... "well, it didn't work"
  - 5y ago
tjbiddle 5y ago
Uber & Lyft have missed such a golden opportunity for brining cab drivers onto their platform. GoJek and Grab (SEA Ridesharing alternatives and "super-apps") both have a "Taxi" option when selecting the type of car you want. I'm assuming it's similar to just merging this "FlyWheel" app that the US has into their own.
- lifeformed 5y ago
  Uber has taxis listed as an option in Taiwan. I think they are legally required to do that though.
chrisgd 5y ago
Curious what happens as business travel bounces back. Never using ride share at home, i only have Uber for when traveling and don’t foresee downloading any taxi apps or searching one out for each city.
- tolbish 5y ago
  I hear a lot of good things about the Curb taxi app. But I also hear a lot of bad things about it.
renewiltord 5y ago
Yeah, rideshare in SF is getting pretty expensive. I only ever use it when I'm doing drugs and stuff and can't drive. But SF public transit is totally shit. I recall the only reason we'd ever use it is that a bunch of us were going there together and we get to hang out. My time is way too precious to wait for the 38 or the 44 to stop 15 times a mile. I can beat them in my car, even with transit lanes.
Bombthecat 5y ago
In germany, taxis are more reliable and cheaper. The good thing uber brought, was that taxi companies finally created an app / apps!
- benhurmarcel 5y ago
  Do they take cards now (Visa/Mastercard, not EC)?
  - Bombthecat 5y ago
    Thats a good question, i think i paid once with my amazon visa. But I'm not sure, it was a card though :) Nonetheless, you pay through the app.. Sooo why would you need the card?
habosa 5y ago
Uber is a great service for the customer. It made getting places within cities convenient and reliable. I don't think there's anyone who misses calling cab companies late at night. However their pricing was never real. They took billions of VC dollars to make it seem like Uber could be better AND cheaper which drove every tradition cab company out of business. It also meant that all of the benefits of Uber accrued to the rider and the shareholders, the driver's didn't do so well. Now they have to raise prices to a rate that's actually profitable. Meanwhile the taxi companies got their act together a bit. They have apps now, they take credit cards. So things will end up better across the board, just maybe not cheaper. Consumer benefit aside. Ubers pricing strategy should probably have been illegal. You should not be able to flood a market like that. In international trade this is called dumping [0]. I wish we had a similar law for tech companies that want to destroy incumbents with VC money. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)
- rorykoehler 5y ago
  I don't understand how this practice of using VC money to offer services below cost to undercut competition isn't illegal. In Ireland loss leading (offering certain goods below cost to entice customers who will then spend on other goods/services) is illegal. Not sure about other countries but doing what Uber did is straight up theft with huge negative externalities for society.
  - username_my1 5y ago
    It’s the common practice in food delivery and mobility in Germany. New startup, vc money, bankrupt others… run out of money Then repeat
  - nullc 5y ago
    Dumping for anti-competitive purposes is unlawful in many places uber operates, including California. But when has breaking the law ever really concerned uber? At this juncture if they were threatened with it they'd just override the legislature via an amendment, again.
cletus 5y ago
Literally nobody wants taxis in the US. When I first moved to NYC Uber wasn't really a thing so had to take cabs at times. Even in Manhattan it sucked in so many ways. Examples include: - The stupid in-car advertising you had to turn off - Cab card readers seemed to be a common method of skimming - Getting a cab around shift changes - Tricks to get a cab to go to somewhere they didn't want to go (ie anywhere that isn't Manhattan below 96th). - Language barrier. The number of times I've had 14th mistaken for 40th was unbelievable. - Just the general friction of the interaction and payment. - Cab cleanliness. - Inability to call for a cab or schedule one. I came from Australia and was honestly perplexed by this at first. Years ago I took a few cabs in SF and used to joke with people that the interaction went something like: "Take me to the end of the street" "That'll be $30" I once caught a cab from SFO to Mountain View, which is outside their normal range so there was a 50% surcharge. The guy made many mistakes in just getting off 101 onto 85. Missing exits, going around, that sort of thing. I had to give directions from my phone. The thing turned into $130 since he was running the meter the whole time. I ended up giving him no tip for this on principle even though it was being expensed and he yelled at me. As a cab drive if you can't handle "101 South to 85 South to El Camino North" then you have a problem. I'm still skeptical about surge pricing in general. I'm not convinced it has much if anything to do with demand vs supply or that drivers see any of it. But a more interesting story might be how surge pricing has changed in SF over time. For example: does it occur more often? Why? Are less drivers driving? Why? Recently I tried to use Uber Eats in Miami and it was literally impossible. Why? "No drivers available". Basically no one drove for Uber Eats. They all drove for DoorDash, Seamless/Grubhub or Postmates instead.

225 points by edward 5y ago

This is a good outcome! Uber and Lyft have dragged taxi companies into the 21st century, with apps like Flywheel making the process of getting a traditional taxi not the horrifying experience it used to be (call a dispatcher, get told 20 minutes, wait an hour, cab never shows). I frankly don't care what service takes me home. I just want it to be safe, reliable, clean, and reasonably priced, and I want the driver to be accountable for any issues. If a taxi now fits that bill, great. Competition and choice are good things.

Traster 5y ago
I'm not sure. I think if we look at the net of what's happened: Uber execs and investors made (m/b)illions, taxi drivers got absolutley hosed - most now essentially are just extracting against the equity in their cars, and riders have got a marginally more reliable service. So to put this in terms - the rich got much richer, and the middle class benefitted by exploiting the working class. That's doesn't seem like a good outcome to me (not least because the billionaires that benefit literally spunk their profits into outer space befroe thinking about paying tax).
- pkaye 5y ago
  If only the taxi drivers would have fixed their broken credit card machines.
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  Pre-Uber, driving a taxi was a survival job for most and they could (and often did) switch to Uber. The only drivers who made significant money drove 24-7 and had a relationship with their customers. I doubt they were hurt either. The group that I assume got screwed were owners of local taxi companies and they were just corrupt cronies of the local government and screw them.
- chronofar 5y ago
  So the quality of service of a product is secondary to the wage dynamics of those who provide it? The point of the person you responded to is that for the consumer this was an unambiguous win, the industry is better for riders in nearly every way. Marginally does not even begin to approach it, it is a giant leap forward in quality of service that further extends to many things (reducing drinking and driving for instance). I’d say the real problem with the outcomes here may be venture capital. That is what made the rich richer and allowed them to explode on a model that didn’t require them to be profitable. It’s possible this business model can’t succeed without that support, it’s also possible it could with higher prices, better wages and more time.
  - shard972 5y ago
    u just ignored his point and doubled down on this was great because the middle class benefited at the expense of the lower class.
  - Traster 5y ago
    Yes the rich provided the middle class a new way to exploit the poor. The reason taxis were expensive is because taxi drivers have to pay rent and buy food. The incredible innovation of Uber is that drivers are pushed into poverty wages. In a functioning democracy that would be prevented by regulations like the minimum wage and union protections.
    - chronofar 5y ago
      The problem with taxis has nothing to do with their prices. Look through this thread at various folks mentioning problems with the old systems and see how often price is among them. I’ll happily pay more, and various studies in the past have shown that ridesharing services charge much less than they could (in the name of growth and stamping out competition powered by venture money). How many Uber/Lyft drivers were taxi drivers before you think? I’d say not a hugely large percentage. In other words, the “exploited” here are also apparently compelled to flock to such a job in previously untold numbers. This in turn drives down prices, and the reverse trend since the pandemic is the reason they’re back on the rise. The convenience provided here is not just for riders but for drivers. All this to say your perspective reeks of political oversimplification that forces you to ignore various factors at play, many of them good, to churn out rhetoric. This ironically prevents seeing actual solutions to the problem you claim to care about.
- erulabs 5y ago
  Slightly off topic, but every cent that was spent "on space", was also spent "on earth". If you pay someone to build a rocket, that human lives on earth, not in space. Where the rocket goes is not the same place as where the money goes. This extremely basic economic misunderstanding undermines any other point you were trying to make.

messe 5y ago

Competition working as expected then? Especially now that labour laws are starting to catch up to Uber and Lyft.

yoavm 5y ago
> Especially now that labour laws are starting to catch up to Uber and Lyft So perhaps it's not just competition, and we should give some credit to the regulation too.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  No, it's just competition. The cabs were already regulated.
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    They're referring to Uber and Lyft, most likely.
  - mrgordon 5y ago
    You missed the point. The other person was saying that now Uber and Lyft are more regulated so they have little advantage over taxis now.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- messe 5y ago
  > So perhaps it's not just competition, and we should give some credit to the regulation too. Or we could accept that "competition" doesn't just have to occur within a free market, and that a regulated market can be efficient while also accounting for externalities that a free market cannot. EDIT: to clarify, I am agreeing with you overall. I didn't mean my tone to come across as agressive, which re-reading it, I feel it does.

xur17 5y ago

I ran into this recently on a flight that arrived much later than it was scheduled. The airport was busy from several flights arriving at once, and uber / lyft surge prices were insane. It was too late for a bus, so I wandered over to the taxi stand. No one was working there, but a few minutes later a few cards started showing up, and I ended up getting in one. What was weird is that all of the "taxis" were regular cars with magnetic "taxi" labels on them, and at the end of the ride, my driver charged me on a square terminal, with no option / chance to tip. I honestly don't know if it was just some enterprising person that showed up at the airport, or what the heck happened.

drewg123 5y ago
I recently had a similar experience in Richmond, VA. Normal pricing is $35 for uber/lyft and $78 for a taxi to my house from the airport. With the surge pricing, they wanted over $100 with a 10-20 minute wait for pickup, so I just took a taxi and avoided waiting.

standardUser 5y ago

I was a longtime SF resident and remember very well how truly awful the taxi service was in SF before the rideshare apps. You'd call a cranky operator to request a taxi and an hour or two later one might show up. Hail a taxi downtown (if you can find one) and ask to go to the Richmond district only to have the driver tell you to get out of the car because they don't want to go that far. And of course the credit card machines were always "broken" so you had to pay with cash. Now I'm in NY and I use taxis almost as often as rideshares. The Curb app makes it easy to find a taxi and the prices are almost always lower. But half the time I can't get a taxi through the app at all and have to wander the streets or use Lyft/Uber.

telesilla 5y ago
The combo now of some cities such as Barcelona making an Uber-style taxi app is working great, where the city declined to allow Uber but built their own. Some of them combine bike and motorcycle sharing in the apps. For me, this has been a huge gain for which I'm thankful for the tech revolution started by Uber. Also, in some dangerous cities it's now safer given the ride is fully tracked.
- seg_lol 5y ago
  This is awesome! The ride sharing platforms should plug into the universal transportation app that serves public transit, cabs, car share, etc. I gotta see Barcelona.
  - all2 5y ago
    This sounds like an excellent idea and also a terrible idea. In the US that would mean allowing the same bureaucratic organization that manages Medicare/Medicaid to manage a transportation app. And then you'd deal with the Intuits of transportation that would legally hobble any meaningful development in favor of their bespoke (and expensive) ride-hailing service... And so on. Maybe I'm just a cynic about these things. We could instead regulate a distributed ride-sharing communications system that companies could build apps for and drivers could hook in to. Well regulated industries tend to thrive (look at internet/cellphone providers in Japan).

okareaman 5y ago

I quit driving Uber and Lyft during the pandemic. I had a high rating from passengers. I could be coaxed back into driving, but they don't seem to care that I quit. They've not reached out to me, much less offered incentives. It seems weird to me that the press is filled with stories about how they can't find drivers. It seems like something else is going on, like maybe they are not interested in ride share anymore.

cactus2093 5y ago
I wonder if you've opted out of promotional emails from them in the past? Do you still have the app installed on the same phone you used as a driver? As a consumer I get push notifications and emails from them every week if I haven't ordered food in a while with new deals, etc. I would strongly suspect they're doing the same thing for drivers these past couple months and maybe they just don't have a way to reach you. If they aren't even doing that it would be truly bizarre, there are billions of dollars on the line and it's their entire business.
- okareaman 5y ago
  We used to communicate by email, which hasn't changed and is still valid. They have reems of personal data about me including my bank routing number, my phone number, my driver's license, etc... I got one email from Lyft offering a $200 bonus for 10 rides in a day, but nothing from Uber. $200 for 10 rides is not exactly incentive to get off my retired butt and do some driving again. I'm now looking at python freelancing for a little extra cash. Edit: I logged into my Uber driver app. Nothing beyond the usual promos (bonuses for driving in San Francisco.) Nothing like, "Hey, we noticed you haven't been driving. We want you back! How can we help you get started again?"
  - roflulz 5y ago
    my uber driver told me she was offered $100 bonus after giving just 3 rides if she started driving again...
    - 5y ago

yupper32 5y ago

Outside of NYC, every taxi experience has been an absolute nightmare. Scams, CC machines never working, unreliable, sketchy, going a longer route to rack up the meter. Sometimes they'd just never show up when you called one and you'd just be stuck. That's why I went to Uber/Lyft. Not just because of pricing (though that was a bonus). NYC taxi service has always been great though. And there are enough that like 70% of the time (in Manhattan at least) I can just walk to the street, put my hand up, and have a ride in a minute or two. CC machine always works, etc.

deathanatos 5y ago
Every article like this, there are comments like yours. Yet, I've taken a taxi many times, and nearly every time it was: call #, request taxi, "okay, 15 minutes", 15 minutes later taxi arrives, we drive to destination, pay by CC. I've had a problem exactly once: I caught a taxi at the airport in Denver, CO, and like most airports, the pricing plan from the airport is different than to the airport (which is priced like a normal ride). Upon arrival at the destination, the cabbie didn't want to honor that agreement — "how would I make money if I charged that much?" — which, had I not been in shock from hearing about the stupidest remark I'd ever heard, I should have really told him exactly how he should make money. But that was once, out of probably dozens of experiences. I've had far more trouble with, say, … airlines. I've taken Lyft/Uber too, and honestly, it just isn't much different? The wait is about the same (relative to location, that is, less in crowded city centers). The difference is the ordering: with Lyft/Uber it is by app instead of by call. Slightly nicer, admittedly (can drop the pin, no need to understand often poor quality audio) but both apps absolutely murder cell batteries.
- reedciccio 5y ago
  Uber is the same app anywhere in the world. Lyft is the same all over the US. You don't have to memorize or discover different ways to call a cab in all the places you're traveling to. That's the main advantage I see.
- yupper32 5y ago
  Well since articles more often have comments like mine, maybe you're in the minority of locations that have a decent taxi service? Last time I took a taxi, it was on the East coast and it took an hour for someone to show up. I called 3 times to the dispatch and each time they said 10min. Then the car showed up and they said the CC machine was broken and I had to pay in cash. I didn't have cash. Then suddenly the CC machine was fine and I finally was able to get my ride.

ggregoire 5y ago

I paid $100 for a Uber from Manhattan to JFK the other day, I was absolutely shocked. A taxi is $50. I read on internet it was the same prices, I guess the information I found was outdated.

jackson1442 5y ago
Uber was trying to charge me something like $50 (before tip, of course) for a ride from the airport to a nearby hotel. It was about 2:15 AM and it said my arrival time would be around 4:30 AM. I found a cab waiting outside and made it there in about 10 minutes for $25. This was in Vegas last weekend, for reference.
- greggman3 5y ago
  Lyft is $40 to go 2 miles in SF quite often. With tip it's rarely less than $20
hellcow 5y ago
Uber tried to charge me $90 to go 25 minutes away from LAX -- the Uber lot had almost no people waiting (not a busy time, and the middle of the day), and it had a 25 min wait. I took a cab instead, $50 including tip and 3 mins in line. I don't see how Uber's going to survive if they can't match cab prices...

lame-robot-hoax 5y ago

I’ve seen this even locally in Denver. Pre-pandemic I could get a ride to a destination a mile or two away for $8-$12. Now those trips recently have cost me anywhere from $20-$35 if I elected to take them.

psanford 5y ago

I have to image the loss of uberpool/lyft line has had a major impact on both the overall supply of available cars and also the perception of a larger increase in how much a ride costs.

rhino369 5y ago
I’m sure it’s reduced supply, but prices are much higher. I’ve never used pool/line and I’ve still got sticker shock. I think the bigger issues are that most drivers found new jobs given demand was so low for so long. And unemployment payments are still pretty high in many states. You probably lose money driving an Uber if you qualify for unemployment insurance right.

sschueller 5y ago

So ultimately we gained nothing other than now having worse worker protections than before [1] and better regular taxis. We could have reached the same result by just overhauling how taxies worked without exploiting the ones that already have barely anything and making a few rich. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQzw8MVlQlo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQzw8MVlQlo

dwohnitmok 5y ago
> We could have reached the same result by just overhauling how taxies worked without exploiting the ones that already have barely anything and making a few rich. "overhauling how taxis worked" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. I have a hard time seeing how that would've ever happened in the absence of something like a Lyft or Uber. That's an extraordinarily difficult task.
jfengel 5y ago
Yes. But unfortunately, the taxi companies didn't realize this until it was much, much too late. They got their lunches eaten by tech companies who liked to move fast and break things, such as decades of worker protections, well supplied with money and not overburdened with ethics. There is a parallel universe where some tech worker came along and created apps and sold them to the taxi companies. That would have led to much better taxi service -- though still a monopolist keeping the number of cabs small to protect their own profits.
- astrange 5y ago
  This implies taxi drivers had worker protections, which isn't true.
  - jfengel 5y ago
    Most of them at least had jobs. Taxi driving wasn't great but they are at least employees. Some even have a union.
    - 5y ago

misiti3780 5y ago

This is happening in NYC too. I almost always use yellow cabs from JFK->Manhattan/BK because they are considerably cheaper. If I can hail a yellow cab anywhere, I would prefer it to Uber/Lyft.

cweill 5y ago
+1 surge pricing in NYC has gotten out of hand. It's not uncommon for rides that used to cost $12 to cost $25 on a good day, and $35+ on a bad day.

dawnerd 5y ago

Funny I’m back to using taxis in Orlando. Had way too many terrible drivers on Lyft and Uber that I’m not sure we’re even legally driving. My faith in both companies “inspecting” cars completely lost. Plus they have a bad problem over there of people hiring other people to drive for them.

vkou 5y ago
> Plus they have a bad problem over there of people hiring other people to drive for them. Since the drivers are just contractors, as Uber insists, it stands to reason that they should be able to subcontract. :)
- dawnerd 5y ago
  except it's a violation of the TOS they agree to. When someone shows up that doesn't match the profile it's a big issue.
  - CameronNemo 5y ago
    Sounds like it's Uber's issue.

julienb_sea 5y ago

I just opened flywheel in downtown Seattle, no cars available. Unfortunate. At least Uber/Lyft are operational. This seems a symptom of the massive drop in demand causing a lot of drivers to leave the system. Hopefully this will self-adjust over a period of time, because I admit right now its pretty ridiculous the prices in Seattle. It is 1.5-2x more for essentially any ride, and surges are even more ridiculous.

rehitman 5y ago

Am I only one who is against regulation? Seems that in few of these big cities we are back to where we were 10 years ago. I remember when I was student in Toronto, taxi cab was so expensive that taking one was completely out of reach for student. If you miss a bus at night, sometimes it was better to wait until next morning or just walk. At the same time you would see lines of taxis in the Front street ideal and not working because prices were so much higher that what people could pay. Combination of price fixing, super expensive taxi license, different insurance that legally drivers had to buy made it completely impossible to move a taxi with lower price. I think at the end both drivers and customers are hurt by this.

spywaregorilla 5y ago
Is there any evidence that this is due to regulation and not just market forces coupled with a finite pool of burnable vc funding?
- pseudo0 5y ago
  Toronto taxi medallion prices peaked at $360k CAD prior to Uber entering the market [0]. That seems like pretty strong evidence of the system being coopted to serve the interests of medallion holders rather than consumers. [0] - https://globalnews.ca/news/1780260/toronto-taxi-licence-prices-are-plummeting-is-uber-to-blame/ https://globalnews.ca/news/1780260/toronto-taxi-licence-pric...
- gms 5y ago
  Market forces alone (in particular: competition) don’t lead to consumers being hurt.
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    Market forces lead to consumers being hurt all the time due to externalities, information asymmetry, monopolistic / monopsonistic / platform owner powers, etc.

BB212 5y ago

I'm a bit confused. The number quoted in the article said there are only 500 taxi's in SF right now? That seems super low and not significant - since all the estimates I can find for SF ubers in the area are in the tens of thousands. I'm sure once more people will become drivers if surge continues - and people will be looking for work again

grayhatter 5y ago

Or, they're like me and still pissed about Prop 22. Anyone fancy starting a delivery startup? I would absolutely pay a premium to anyone that can deliver groceries while alleviating the feeling of being complicit in the abuse of employees that I currently get from Instacart. Uber; for people suffering from morality.

grayhatter 5y ago
And to preempt the inevitable; I'm not opposed to prop 22 itself. It's a position that's not completely devoid of reason. My aggravation with all of them is the shear amount of money they all spent lobbying for it. I received a half dozen phone calls or texts from people introducing themselves dishonestly. Only for them to go on to misrepresent the reality of prop 22. Which I could forgive if not for the clause preventing anyone from trying to alter, correct, or modify the laws they paid to enact.

filereaper 5y ago

Uber bet the house on self-driving cars, that's what was supposed to make all of this sustainable. Seems all these efforts have failed, and I'd be curious how many short positions are out there against them. I've been at the receiving end of these Uber & Lyft shortages. Can't get a ridershare below $80 at SFO after 9pm even if you've pre-scheduled one. The drivers also keep cancelling in an attempt to pump rates higher. Its incredibly frustrating. I've pretty much given up and now rent a car when I would have taken an Uber when I'm out of town.

staticassertion 5y ago
I see Cruise cars all the time in SF - it definitely does not feel like all of the self-driving efforts have failed.
- filereaper 5y ago
  Great, when do Cruise and all the others actually come out of R&D and solve the issues faced by me and others on this thread. Otherwise you're beating a dead horse.
  - staticassertion 5y ago
    Others in this thread? Beating a dead horse? Am I missing something? I'm the only comment in response to yours, which is a top level comment. I see no other conversation on the topic. Anyway, my point is that self driving is clearly not in a "well, it didn't work" state - it's ongoing, and seems to be making good progress. I have no timeline for you.
    - hammeiam 5y ago
      I think it's relative. The technology is progressing, but as you said no one has a timeline. So if you're a company betting billions (and billions) of dollars on getting self-driving out the door in 5 years, and now it's year 5 and you have no timeline... "well, it didn't work"
- 5y ago

tjbiddle 5y ago

Uber & Lyft have missed such a golden opportunity for brining cab drivers onto their platform. GoJek and Grab (SEA Ridesharing alternatives and "super-apps") both have a "Taxi" option when selecting the type of car you want. I'm assuming it's similar to just merging this "FlyWheel" app that the US has into their own.

lifeformed 5y ago
Uber has taxis listed as an option in Taiwan. I think they are legally required to do that though.

chrisgd 5y ago

Curious what happens as business travel bounces back. Never using ride share at home, i only have Uber for when traveling and don’t foresee downloading any taxi apps or searching one out for each city.

tolbish 5y ago
I hear a lot of good things about the Curb taxi app. But I also hear a lot of bad things about it.

renewiltord 5y ago

Yeah, rideshare in SF is getting pretty expensive. I only ever use it when I'm doing drugs and stuff and can't drive. But SF public transit is totally shit. I recall the only reason we'd ever use it is that a bunch of us were going there together and we get to hang out. My time is way too precious to wait for the 38 or the 44 to stop 15 times a mile. I can beat them in my car, even with transit lanes.

Bombthecat 5y ago

In germany, taxis are more reliable and cheaper. The good thing uber brought, was that taxi companies finally created an app / apps!

benhurmarcel 5y ago
Do they take cards now (Visa/Mastercard, not EC)?
- Bombthecat 5y ago
  Thats a good question, i think i paid once with my amazon visa. But I'm not sure, it was a card though :) Nonetheless, you pay through the app.. Sooo why would you need the card?

habosa 5y ago

Uber is a great service for the customer. It made getting places within cities convenient and reliable. I don't think there's anyone who misses calling cab companies late at night. However their pricing was never real. They took billions of VC dollars to make it seem like Uber could be better AND cheaper which drove every tradition cab company out of business. It also meant that all of the benefits of Uber accrued to the rider and the shareholders, the driver's didn't do so well. Now they have to raise prices to a rate that's actually profitable. Meanwhile the taxi companies got their act together a bit. They have apps now, they take credit cards. So things will end up better across the board, just maybe not cheaper. Consumer benefit aside. Ubers pricing strategy should probably have been illegal. You should not be able to flood a market like that. In international trade this is called dumping [0]. I wish we had a similar law for tech companies that want to destroy incumbents with VC money. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)

rorykoehler 5y ago
I don't understand how this practice of using VC money to offer services below cost to undercut competition isn't illegal. In Ireland loss leading (offering certain goods below cost to entice customers who will then spend on other goods/services) is illegal. Not sure about other countries but doing what Uber did is straight up theft with huge negative externalities for society.
- username_my1 5y ago
  It’s the common practice in food delivery and mobility in Germany. New startup, vc money, bankrupt others… run out of money Then repeat
- nullc 5y ago
  Dumping for anti-competitive purposes is unlawful in many places uber operates, including California. But when has breaking the law ever really concerned uber? At this juncture if they were threatened with it they'd just override the legislature via an amendment, again.

cletus 5y ago

Literally nobody wants taxis in the US. When I first moved to NYC Uber wasn't really a thing so had to take cabs at times. Even in Manhattan it sucked in so many ways. Examples include: - The stupid in-car advertising you had to turn off - Cab card readers seemed to be a common method of skimming - Getting a cab around shift changes - Tricks to get a cab to go to somewhere they didn't want to go (ie anywhere that isn't Manhattan below 96th). - Language barrier. The number of times I've had 14th mistaken for 40th was unbelievable. - Just the general friction of the interaction and payment. - Cab cleanliness. - Inability to call for a cab or schedule one. I came from Australia and was honestly perplexed by this at first. Years ago I took a few cabs in SF and used to joke with people that the interaction went something like: "Take me to the end of the street" "That'll be $30" I once caught a cab from SFO to Mountain View, which is outside their normal range so there was a 50% surcharge. The guy made many mistakes in just getting off 101 onto 85. Missing exits, going around, that sort of thing. I had to give directions from my phone. The thing turned into $130 since he was running the meter the whole time. I ended up giving him no tip for this on principle even though it was being expensed and he yelled at me. As a cab drive if you can't handle "101 South to 85 South to El Camino North" then you have a problem. I'm still skeptical about surge pricing in general. I'm not convinced it has much if anything to do with demand vs supply or that drivers see any of it. But a more interesting story might be how surge pricing has changed in SF over time. For example: does it occur more often? Why? Are less drivers driving? Why? Recently I tried to use Uber Eats in Miami and it was literally impossible. Why? "No drivers available". Basically no one drove for Uber Eats. They all drove for DoorDash, Seamless/Grubhub or Postmates instead.