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It's also important to realize that the reason Uber and Lyft were able to crush the taxi industry is in part because the taxi industry was absolutely horrible t

It's also important to realize that the reason Uber and Lyft were able to crush the taxi industry is in part because the taxi industry was absolutely horrible to consumers. The simple act of being able to know what I'm going to be charged beforehand, and know that the driver has little ability to scam me out of as much money as they can extract from me at my destination made Uber and Lyft SO much better. That should be the bare minimum, and yet the taxi industry couldn't figure that out for the most part. I do not care about them breaking taxi laws or regulations. Their treatment of their "employees" absolutely needs improvement, but my god I do not care about the taxi industry as a whole.

abirch 4y ago
I'm old enough to remember calling a taxi company the day before a flight to arrange a pickup at my place for 5:30. Then calling them again 5:00 the day of the flight and them telling me that the one guy didn't come in so now they couldn't pick me up until 7 -- My flight departure time! Then me frantically calling other taxi companies. I had to skip my shower. They seemed to hate their customers
- mulmen 4y ago
  Uber did exactly this to a friend of mine just a couple months ago. Except they didn't even offer the 7am pickup. They just cancelled the ride 15 minutes before the pickup.
  - agumonkey 4y ago
    Uber, once the taxi killer, soon the exact swap-in replacement :)
    - gryn 4y ago
      just like online streaming promised to replace the tv, now more and more a drop-in replace for it in a (not so) different distribution technology.
      - agumonkey 4y ago
        Yeah, it removed the linear time constraints but it's just a TV.
        autoexec 4y ago
        They want the time constraints back too. So many streaming services these days still have shows that air episodes at regular times rather than a while season at once. They also drop content regularly, offer to steam content for limited times, or only provide recent episodes. They can't wait to back to the point where they can dictate people's schedules and induce FOMO in their customers. They just have to condition us slowly into accepting it after netflix spoiled us.
  - gruez 4y ago
    Well the main thing with taxis is that getting any ride to show up on demand is a shitshow, whereas with ubers you just have to wait 5-10 minutes (at least in my area).
    - mulmen 4y ago
      Except when you reserve an Uber and it never shows up, as I literally just described.
  - bradgessler 4y ago
    It happened to me. The Uber app assured me that a driver was on the way, then it was late, then it canceled, and not a single driver was available within the area. This was at 6a to catch an 8a flight in a Bay Area town that’s 35 min from SFO. Uber and Lyft are now exactly like cab companies, the only difference being that their “credit card machine works” Private car services work remarkably well if you’re done with Uber, Lyft, or taxis not showing up.
- dahdum 4y ago
  I had the same issues with airport trips and taxis, frequently having to build in an extra 1-2 hours on top of the typical airport buffer to make sure I'd get there. So many no-shows, empty promises, and lies by dispatch. So many scams, fare spiking, outright hostility, and shenanigans from drivers. I signed up for Uber after a panicked morning in Denver with 2 no-showing taxis. Never looked back after that, though I use Lyft 90% of the time now. I have no tears at all for anyone involved in the taxi industry.
  - ptspts 4y ago
    Once I needed to catch an early flight, and no Uber drivers were available in my vicinity. But most of the time Uber and Lyft worked for me. If there is a train to the airport, I usually prefer it, because it avoids (unpredictable) traffic jams.
- BoorishBears 4y ago
  This is a funny thread because Uber at least has started doing both these things. Uber will show a message saying you won't see the fare until there's a ride. Their FAQ claims it can happen if you hail faster than they can calculate a price, but it happens awfully often to me. I've also noticed their scheduled rides are really unreliable. They seem to start searching way too late, and I've almost missed a flight over them not finding an available car in Miami of all cities...
  - admax88qqq 4y ago
    The scheduled rides feature is buggy in the app, there's two different entry points that behave differently. But FWIW I scheduled a 5am flight to the airport in mexico city with Uber and it was great
dmitriid 4y ago
> It's also important to realize that the reason Uber and Lyft were able to crush the taxi industry is in part because the taxi industry was absolutely horrible to consumers. No. The reason was that Uber has been losing billions of dollars a year, every year, for over a decade and hasn't imploded as a company. Providing a nice ride hailing UI is just the cherry on top. Same with Lyft, but on a slightly smaller scale.
nostromo 4y ago
It's funny though: cabs have gotten better and Uber has gotten worse. I've switched back to taking cabs from the airport. Ubers are slower (cabs are sitting there just waiting) and much, much expensive now (like 2x the cost of a cab). The product isn't any better anymore. The cars are rundown and often smelly. It is nice to be able to put in an address and not deal with a credit card payment at the destination -- but that's about the only benefit left.
- floren 4y ago
  > The cars are rundown and often smelly. I don't take Uber/Lyft often but yes, it seems like at least 25% of the time it's obvious that the driver smokes in the car when not driving customers. I've also been in a lot of vehicles which very clearly had blown shocks (based on the noises I heard when we went over even mildly rough road)
- germandiago 4y ago
  I would be interested in why Uber got so bad compared to traditional cabs. In Spain they forbid all this stuff because they sold cab licenses, but the prices are abusive.
  - bonzini 4y ago
    Because pay for the drivers is awful when you consider the actual cost of maintaining a car that runs for hundreds of miles every day. So the only ones that survive are those that do not do proper maintenance and those that game the system (e.g. by reporting fake customer no-shows).
    - bombcar 4y ago
      This is exactly it - Uber tries to have "fancy cars" as compared to cabs, but there's a reason cabs are made out of washable materials; the first time someone vomits in the back of the Uber it's never really coming back out (there's a "vomit" button in the driver app apparently, it's that common).
- 4y ago
hourago 4y ago
> is in part because the taxi industry was absolutely horrible to consumers. But mostly because it didn't had to pay the same fees. It treated employees as independent contractors and negate their rights. And it burned millions on AstroTurfing and ads. The Mafia also can overtake business where others where there before.
- iamtheworstdev 4y ago
  > mostly That's a strong word here. I'm sure it had nothing to do with taxis being government sanctioned monopolies in most places that they operated. Wonder what the going rate for a NYC taxi medallion is these days. I bet it's 1/5th of what it was fifteen years ago.
mola 4y ago
You're not caring about them corrupting democracies world wide ? They not only "took care" of taxis, they also pushed for less workers rights (so they can keep not employing their workers) Pushed the stupid unsustainable "gig economy" propaganda. And what for? For a business model that make no sense (unless they become a monopoly)?
- yupper32 4y ago
  I can dislike them both at the same time.
gamblor956 4y ago
In LA I've never actually had an issue with taxis. OTOH, I've lost count of the number of Ubers and Lyfts that just never showed up, or cancelled en route, or tried to go the wrong way to pad mileage.
elforce002 4y ago
Nice. It's ok to brake laws just because the service is/was bad. One can extrapolate this type of thinking to any facet of human interaction and the results are scary. Forget about the slippery slope, we're sliding hard with this one.
sanjiwatsuki 4y ago
The *majority* of times I've taken a taxi in my life, the driver has tried to scam me. It was ridiculous. I guess I just look like an easy mark or something. It was very routine for them to turn off the meter in the middle and say "don't worry, I know the cost of the trip" It's absurd that it's happened multiple times to me. No Uber driver has ever tried to scam me. I'd gladly pay a premium for it.
throw123123123 4y ago
When Uber showed up in Argentina, the taxi industry threw stones at their offices and flipped cars of uber drivers... The reality is that most of the sentiment against uber is against the new kid in the block, not at all a moral or policy position.
GoodJokes 4y ago

abirch 4y ago

I'm old enough to remember calling a taxi company the day before a flight to arrange a pickup at my place for 5:30. Then calling them again 5:00 the day of the flight and them telling me that the one guy didn't come in so now they couldn't pick me up until 7 -- My flight departure time! Then me frantically calling other taxi companies. I had to skip my shower. They seemed to hate their customers

mulmen 4y ago
Uber did exactly this to a friend of mine just a couple months ago. Except they didn't even offer the 7am pickup. They just cancelled the ride 15 minutes before the pickup.
- agumonkey 4y ago
  Uber, once the taxi killer, soon the exact swap-in replacement :)
  - gryn 4y ago
    just like online streaming promised to replace the tv, now more and more a drop-in replace for it in a (not so) different distribution technology.
    - agumonkey 4y ago
      Yeah, it removed the linear time constraints but it's just a TV.
      - autoexec 4y ago
        They want the time constraints back too. So many streaming services these days still have shows that air episodes at regular times rather than a while season at once. They also drop content regularly, offer to steam content for limited times, or only provide recent episodes. They can't wait to back to the point where they can dictate people's schedules and induce FOMO in their customers. They just have to condition us slowly into accepting it after netflix spoiled us.
- gruez 4y ago
  Well the main thing with taxis is that getting any ride to show up on demand is a shitshow, whereas with ubers you just have to wait 5-10 minutes (at least in my area).
  - mulmen 4y ago
    Except when you reserve an Uber and it never shows up, as I literally just described.
- bradgessler 4y ago
  It happened to me. The Uber app assured me that a driver was on the way, then it was late, then it canceled, and not a single driver was available within the area. This was at 6a to catch an 8a flight in a Bay Area town that’s 35 min from SFO. Uber and Lyft are now exactly like cab companies, the only difference being that their “credit card machine works” Private car services work remarkably well if you’re done with Uber, Lyft, or taxis not showing up.
dahdum 4y ago
I had the same issues with airport trips and taxis, frequently having to build in an extra 1-2 hours on top of the typical airport buffer to make sure I'd get there. So many no-shows, empty promises, and lies by dispatch. So many scams, fare spiking, outright hostility, and shenanigans from drivers. I signed up for Uber after a panicked morning in Denver with 2 no-showing taxis. Never looked back after that, though I use Lyft 90% of the time now. I have no tears at all for anyone involved in the taxi industry.
- ptspts 4y ago
  Once I needed to catch an early flight, and no Uber drivers were available in my vicinity. But most of the time Uber and Lyft worked for me. If there is a train to the airport, I usually prefer it, because it avoids (unpredictable) traffic jams.
BoorishBears 4y ago
This is a funny thread because Uber at least has started doing both these things. Uber will show a message saying you won't see the fare until there's a ride. Their FAQ claims it can happen if you hail faster than they can calculate a price, but it happens awfully often to me. I've also noticed their scheduled rides are really unreliable. They seem to start searching way too late, and I've almost missed a flight over them not finding an available car in Miami of all cities...
- admax88qqq 4y ago
  The scheduled rides feature is buggy in the app, there's two different entry points that behave differently. But FWIW I scheduled a 5am flight to the airport in mexico city with Uber and it was great

dmitriid 4y ago

> It's also important to realize that the reason Uber and Lyft were able to crush the taxi industry is in part because the taxi industry was absolutely horrible to consumers. No. The reason was that Uber has been losing billions of dollars a year, every year, for over a decade and hasn't imploded as a company. Providing a nice ride hailing UI is just the cherry on top. Same with Lyft, but on a slightly smaller scale.

nostromo 4y ago

It's funny though: cabs have gotten better and Uber has gotten worse. I've switched back to taking cabs from the airport. Ubers are slower (cabs are sitting there just waiting) and much, much expensive now (like 2x the cost of a cab). The product isn't any better anymore. The cars are rundown and often smelly. It is nice to be able to put in an address and not deal with a credit card payment at the destination -- but that's about the only benefit left.

floren 4y ago
> The cars are rundown and often smelly. I don't take Uber/Lyft often but yes, it seems like at least 25% of the time it's obvious that the driver smokes in the car when not driving customers. I've also been in a lot of vehicles which very clearly had blown shocks (based on the noises I heard when we went over even mildly rough road)
germandiago 4y ago
I would be interested in why Uber got so bad compared to traditional cabs. In Spain they forbid all this stuff because they sold cab licenses, but the prices are abusive.
- bonzini 4y ago
  Because pay for the drivers is awful when you consider the actual cost of maintaining a car that runs for hundreds of miles every day. So the only ones that survive are those that do not do proper maintenance and those that game the system (e.g. by reporting fake customer no-shows).
  - bombcar 4y ago
    This is exactly it - Uber tries to have "fancy cars" as compared to cabs, but there's a reason cabs are made out of washable materials; the first time someone vomits in the back of the Uber it's never really coming back out (there's a "vomit" button in the driver app apparently, it's that common).
4y ago

hourago 4y ago

> is in part because the taxi industry was absolutely horrible to consumers. But mostly because it didn't had to pay the same fees. It treated employees as independent contractors and negate their rights. And it burned millions on AstroTurfing and ads. The Mafia also can overtake business where others where there before.

iamtheworstdev 4y ago
> mostly That's a strong word here. I'm sure it had nothing to do with taxis being government sanctioned monopolies in most places that they operated. Wonder what the going rate for a NYC taxi medallion is these days. I bet it's 1/5th of what it was fifteen years ago.

mola 4y ago

You're not caring about them corrupting democracies world wide ? They not only "took care" of taxis, they also pushed for less workers rights (so they can keep not employing their workers) Pushed the stupid unsustainable "gig economy" propaganda. And what for? For a business model that make no sense (unless they become a monopoly)?

yupper32 4y ago
I can dislike them both at the same time.

gamblor956 4y ago

In LA I've never actually had an issue with taxis. OTOH, I've lost count of the number of Ubers and Lyfts that just never showed up, or cancelled en route, or tried to go the wrong way to pad mileage.

elforce002 4y ago

Nice. It's ok to brake laws just because the service is/was bad. One can extrapolate this type of thinking to any facet of human interaction and the results are scary. Forget about the slippery slope, we're sliding hard with this one.

sanjiwatsuki 4y ago

The *majority* of times I've taken a taxi in my life, the driver has tried to scam me. It was ridiculous. I guess I just look like an easy mark or something. It was very routine for them to turn off the meter in the middle and say "don't worry, I know the cost of the trip" It's absurd that it's happened multiple times to me. No Uber driver has ever tried to scam me. I'd gladly pay a premium for it.

throw123123123 4y ago

When Uber showed up in Argentina, the taxi industry threw stones at their offices and flipped cars of uber drivers... The reality is that most of the sentiment against uber is against the new kid in the block, not at all a moral or policy position.

GoodJokes 4y ago