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I've been a supporter of Lyft as the underdog and tried my best to give them as much business as I could. I was trying to get a ride at an airport, and I got so

• vkou 3y ago
  If you're already at the airport... Why wait for a ride-hail, instead of just using the taxi line?
  • keehun 3y ago
    My airport doesn't have a taxi line. Also, traditional airport taxis in my area (which you have to call and wait for a dispatcher to dispatch a taxi anyways) are about 2-3x the cost of an uber/lyft ride.
  • CobaltFire 3y ago
    I recently had this exact thought. Then the taxi driver tried to scam me multiple ways, including demanding cash because they "forgot to start the meter" and attempted to take the long way to my home (I live about 1 mile from the airport). Won't make that mistake again.
    • misssocrates 3y ago
      It's both easy to forget why Uber/Lyft was revolutionary and easy to remember why.
    • soperj 3y ago
      If you only live a mile away, why wouldn't you walk?
      • somekyle2 3y ago
        I'm healthy and enjoy a good walk, but I wouldn't really want to bring luggage a mile from an airport, especially not if the weather isn't nice; it seems rare for foot traffic out of airports to be particularly easy.
        • soperj 3y ago
          I walk nearly a mile (1.2km) just to get to the nearest bus stop (that buses come to often) from my airport. I only travel with a backpack though. You're right in that they don't have sidewalks though out of the airport area.
      • jandrese 3y ago
        Because there are no sidewalks out of the airport. This is depressingly common. Airport designers only think about cars and busses. Maybe the train if it is near a city that has it, but even that is far from a guarantee. Usually the only access is a high speed road that connects to an even more pedestrian unfriendly highway.
        • johntiger1 3y ago
          Exactly, some airports like LGA require you to cross a highway to get to any walkable area
        • ghaff 3y ago
          Boston Logan you can definitely hop onto public transit pretty easily. But I'm pretty sure you're not just walking to anywhere in East Boston from there easily.
          • harambae 3y ago
            Indeed. Silver line (to South Station, where you can transfer further) is free to get on at the airport, precisely to encourage riding public transit out of the airport.
    • fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago
      Cabbies can be scammy for sure, they try to take advantage of people who don’t assert themselves. An approach I’ve had success with is agree on a flat cash price with the cabbie before the ride starts. If you already are halfway through ordering an Uber/Lyft you have a good idea of what’s a decent price point to offer them. Of course, check what’s in your wallet before you make the deal!
  • nawgz 3y ago
    If you're going more than 30 minutes usually the taxi line has hilarious "out of jurisdiction" charges they tack on From SFO I once went to South Bay, Uber would've been $50, taxi was $150 because of some esoterically worded rule that tripled the mileage cost outside of SF proper. I wasn't even in SF to start! What a joke
    • ghaff 3y ago
      I haven't had occasion to look at the options for years but SFO to San Jose or thereabouts used to be horrible. (Whereas BART to downtown SF is easy/cheap.)
  • PartiallyTyped 3y ago
    Taxis are often far more expensive than Uber/Lyft and such. Going from the local airport to a hotel the first time I came at $location, cost me about 20 euro, going to the airport in the middle of the night from my apartment cost about 5.
  • decafninja 3y ago
    I've been scammed once too often by traditional taxicabs. And even when not, the service has often left a bad taste in my mouth. As a result now, I'd rather wait 30 minutes for an Uber/Lyft than take the cab sitting right there.
    • jacurtis 3y ago
      I live in Chicago and find that Ubers/Lyfts are sketchier than taxis. Not to call a taxi luxurious by any means, but just compared to a lot of the sketchy cars i've had for Ubers I find taxis predictable at least. For that reason, I don't use UberX at all anymore. I always upgrade to UberLux or Uber Comfort or Uber Electric if its available. Even the Uber Comfort's are not that great most of the time. If I have to use UberX, I will just take a taxi. Taxis in my part of Chicago at least are pretty good and predictable (but other cities might not be so lucky). I think this is market specific. Because when I go back to Oregon to visit family, the UberX there are super nice. I had a brand new Tahoe on my last ride there.
  • xnx 3y ago
    My last experience with a taxi driver was him swerving 80mph through traffic. Never again.
  • jacurtis 3y ago
    I've started taking taxis from Airports instead of Ubers. There is often a line of idle taxis waiting for rides, and then a bunch of people on their phones in the corner refreshing Uber/Lyft competing over the same handful of drivers. People have the impression that Taxis are more expensive than Ubers, but that's actually rarely the case. I've found they are pretty close most of the time. I find that Uber/Lyft is cheaper for short trips (< $10) and Taxis are cheaper for longer trips ($10-50). Also, LPT for everyone. Many/Most airports actually have flat taxi rates between the airport and the city. Be sure to ask about this. A lot of big cities will have a flat price for taxies of like $20 or $30 between the airport and city. I really like this. Also, all taxis nowadays take cards and most take ApplePay too.
    • pxx 3y ago
      Do they really, though? Because even pre-Uber most taxis took cards but their machine was always conveniently broken.
      • jacurtis 3y ago
        I usually enter the car saying "I don't have any cash, only card. Is that ok?" And i've been turned down once or twice. I use cabs a lot, so I could call those experiences extreme outliars.
  • jandrese 3y ago
    Because you don't want to pay 4 times as much for the ride? My local airport has an exclusive agreement with one taxicab company and to go to my house less than 2 miles away is $20 if I take them. And that's the base price before you add in the gas surcharge, COVID surcharge, luggage surcharge, airport surcharge, depreciation surcharge, and tax. Lyft doesn't hit me with any of that bullshit. Also with Lyft I don't need to make sure I have cash, because of course the cab's card reader is always broken.
  • bastardoperator 3y ago
    Easy: - I can hail an Uber of my choice before stepping off the plane - I get free Uber rides via AMEX - I don't carry cash - Taxis are hit and miss when it comes to cleanliness
    • WWLink 3y ago
      > - Taxis are hit and miss when it comes to cleanliness So are ubers lol. Especially mid-day when the only ubers that seem to be out are old tiny cars.
  • timcederman 3y ago
    To use SFO as one example: "Destinations either 15 miles beyond the limits of the City and County of San Francisco or 15 miles beyond the boundaries of San Francisco International Airport are charged at 150% of the metered rate." Also if you need an SUV or larger vehicle for more passengers, it's much easier to just use Uber.
• jorts 3y ago
  I had that happen 6 times in a row. Incredibly frustrating experience. I was in SF and trying to get to the east bay.
• decafninja 3y ago
  Could be a coincidence, but my experience has been that Lyft have generally been faster and cheaper than Uber. However the quality of both the driver and the car has generally been higher with Uber. I'd still call Lyft over taking a traditional cab though.
  • itake 3y ago
    In Seattle, traditional cabs are 50% cheaper than Ubers to go from Seatac to the city.
    • mcast 3y ago
      Or you can take the light rail directly from the airport into the city for $2.50 (and presumably catch a cheaper taxi there).
    • runarberg 3y ago
      Do you take the cap to downtown? If so, why do you take a cab over the Link? I have taken a cab ones, but to Fauntleroy, and I was missing a ferry (which I missed anyway because the driver took a weird way). However, the transit options to West Seattle aren’t nearly as good as to downtown though.
      • decafninja 3y ago
        Cabs/Ubers/etc are too expensive to use daily, but for a one time thing (such as flying into an airport), it's so much less stressful than trying to deal with public transportation. I'll give an exception to certain cities that have superb transit options, but none of those cities are in the US.
        • runarberg 3y ago
          The transit option between SeaTac and Downtown Seattle is superb. I admit it can be improved (e.g. you have to walk through the parking garage to the station, and it is a bit slow going through Rainier valley) but for 2.50 USD it is the best option going from SeaTac to Downtown.
• Brendinooo 3y ago
  I called a Lyft the other day and saw that there was an option for priority pickup, which flags a driver who's close to you but going to pick up someone else and has him pick you up instead. In the moment it was nice: I was running late and that got me on track. But it seems really really bad for the ecosystem in general. I'm not sure I can rely on being picked up at a reasonable time again without paying for it. And once everyone realizes that and starts paying more, then we're back to where we were before. If Uber isn't doing that, maybe it's time to give them a try.
  • riceart 3y ago
    This sounds like something designed by someone with exactly one semester of college or high school Econ under their belt.
  • BowBun 3y ago
    I landed in JFK a couple of nights ago after a vacation with my GF. I get Lyft priority for free because of some credit card thing. We both called Lyft cars at the same time. She got one faster than I did, and it arrived earlier, whereas I had to wait 5 minutes to find a driver and 5 more for them to arrive. It 100% had to have been because of our destinations - mine is less lucrative for a driver to hang around in (less activity).
  • keehun 3y ago
    I forgot to mention in my original story, but I did have priority pickup for all three requests!
  • mustacheemperor 3y ago
    Priority Pickup has done a lot to turn me off from Lyft. It seems like most of the time I try to use it, it takes so long to identify a driver that I didn't save any time off the original wait time. The UI is a total dark pattern to make it feel like you're getting a driver faster, too, which I really resent. - App offers a 7 minute pickup time or a 3 minute "priority" - Select priority, app pops up a "searching for drivers" screen with a loading bar - as the loading bar gets closer to the end, it gets slower. The loading bar does not actually represent progress to completion in any meaningful way. - the app begins throwing out bs "reticulating splines" explanations like "tidying up a few last minute details!" I hate that kind of teehee-cute fake message, there are no details to tidy up, you are just waiting for a driver close by enough to agree to my ride - after a minute+ of this, tap "cancel" to call an uber instead, and get a popup pleading to wait just a few more seconds since this will happen any moment now - after another minute or two, finally get a driver 3-5 minutes away. Total elapsed time until lyft arrives: 6-7 minutes, for $5-10 more. It's not just the unreliable functionality, but the way the energy invested into this part of the product appears to have gone into fooling you into thinking it is useful, not actually being useful. I'd rather just call an Uber that will actually arrive at the time the app predicts it will show up before I call it.
• phailhaus 3y ago
  Lyft's UI is also just worse. When you order a ride, they use a particular dark pattern to make it seem as if the driver has immediately been found, when it's still searching for one.
  • ezfe 3y ago
    Uber is just as bad, for what it's worth
• jonathankoren 3y ago
  The irony here is that that every driver is both a Lyft and Uber driver.
  • steveBK123 3y ago
    its probably differences in fare & penalty rates. if they get punished $5 but Uber fare is gonna be $10 more, switch.
    • robocat 3y ago
      And perhaps Uber has some heuristics (ancient English for AI) or competitor intelligence to detect if a driver has accepted a Lyft ride. Uber can then offer a carrot to that driver to get them to cancel the Lyft ride. They could offer the best fare that turns up in the next 2 minutes. Costs Uber little, causes three damages to Lyft (Lyft lost profit, annoyed Lyft customer, driver happier with Uber).
      • steveBK123 3y ago
        Yes, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they have ways to do that and micro target better rates on fares that have a pending Lyft pickup. Remember on the driver side they run on different phones generally, but on the client side the customer is running all these apps on their single phone. A lot of these apps have privacy issues and snoop a lot on the client side. So they can basically detect frequency/recency of Lyft app being open on your phone, and then offer Uber drivers better rates for pickups at your GPS location.
• steveBK123 3y ago
  It seems to be very city specific. Had exact experience a few times while in Miami and switched back to Uber for rest of trip. Drivers are smart, they network, and they talk. I'm sure theres some idiosyncratic thing going on where Lyft is more gameable for drivers in some cities. Could be Uber-Lyft price spread plus cancel policy / penalty on drivers. Most of these guys drive around with N apps running, so they switch to more lucrative ride / app / etc on the fly.
• karaterobot 3y ago
  That's happened to me, and it does suck. On the map inside the app, I one time watched a Lyft driver take my order, then drive to a McDonald's, then cancel my order. Weird thing to do. The thing is, your Uber driver was probably also working for Lyft at the same time. The one who canceled probably was too. So I don't know if one company is better for that than the other, or if you just happened to get a game theorist Lyft driver by luck of the draw, who decided to optimize his expected value.
• prh8 3y ago
  I was in DC for business 2 weekends ago and had 3 Lyfts cancel on me. Never had that happen before on either platform. Checked my rider rating just in case and it's 4.97. Really frustrating to deal with, especially when timing matters.
  • HPsquared 3y ago
    Can you rate them if they cancel?
• psygn89 3y ago
  That was my experience last year (first time using Lyft; never used Uber). I was trying to get a ride from a Holiday Inn in Austin that sat next to the freeway. I had about 4 accept it and bail out five minutes later (even the person who accepted it the night before when I scheduled it). I had to wait around 20 minutes past my scheduled pick up time until someone decided to follow through. This was around 7am and was scheduled for surgery at 8am. I don't know if it's a perfect storm situation but I wasn't impressed. I didn't need any more anxiety, and I'll probably stick with the traditional taxi service next time.
• cameldrv 3y ago
  A huge part of what made Uber great when they first launched UberX was the driver ratings. This forced the drivers to provide good service, unlike the previous standard for taxis. The problem now is that you can't give your driver a rating until the ride actually starts. This allows the drivers to play all sorts of games before the ride starts. If I match with a driver, and he drives around aimlessly for 10 minutes, then calls me, asks where I'm going, and then demands I cancel the ride (and get charged), that should be one star, but currently it's impossible to rate this bad driver.
  • lhorie 3y ago
    I thought Uber rolled out upfront pricing some time last year, so drivers wouldn't feel compelled to be playing these games anymore.
    • xp84 3y ago
      They know fare in my recent experience, but not where you are going. Probably theoretically for “diversity” reasons but also because Uber’s interests probably line up with giving all the rides rather than only the ones going to “good neighborhoods.” Drivers on the other hand, want to know mainly so they can decline up front to take someone 50 miles in the “wrong” direction from where they are trying to be next.
  • mustacheemperor 3y ago
    When you cancel an Uber ride there is an option to choose "the driver told me to cancel" or "the driver was not moving" - I would hope that has some impact on their rating internally, but I wonder what it actually does.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• bsimpson 3y ago
  Lyft stopped being my default after a couple rides where I was charged more than I was quoted for no clear reason, and customer service just went .
  • bsimpson 3y ago
    HN ate the shrug emoji.
• soco 3y ago
  This game is played by Uber drivers as well, so it's just a matter of luck. Not sure if related to particular cities or just bad people, of which we had enough in the taxi business already.