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It's hard to find a specific number, but that seems like it's even more than "traditional" taxi companies take. So the enshittification has come full circle -

It's hard to find a specific number, but that seems like it's even more than "traditional" taxi companies take. So the enshittification has come full circle - Uber is now priced basically the same as traditional taxis and takes a possibly bigger cut for themselves without any of the overhead or capex of a traditional taxi company. Filing this away under: don't ever believe tech company hype.

TeMPOraL 1y ago
Always have been. What they never were, was "the underdog fighting taxi mafia". That's just propaganda. They beat "taxi mafias", plural, with divide-and-conquer, market after market, and they did that as a multinational corporation with ~infinite money supply thanks to VC funding. Uber is a story of the Goliath going from town to town and beating everyone's Davids.
- CamperBob2 1y ago
  Whatever. When I call an Uber, it shows up. That's more than I could ever say for taxis.
  - floren 1y ago
    Shows up sometimes. Sometimes it wanders off for 10 minutes because the driver is finishing a Lyft ride first but accepted your fare anyway, or they got lost, or they stopped to pick up food (all of these have happened to me)
    - TeMPOraL 1y ago
      Yes, this. Sometimes they cancel because they claim they have a malfunction. Sometimes they cancel because fuck you, that's why. Almost cost me an appointment with the doctor when our small kid got sick and a driver strung us for 15 minutes of extra wait time while he circled a grocery store, then claimed his car broke down. I don't trust those companies with important stuff anymore, I either go straight for public transport, or in some cases (airport) I pre-book an early enough departure to still be able to catch a bus to airport if the driver doesn't show.
  - gs17 1y ago
    Similar, I've been scammed by a taxi once out of three times, Uber/Lyft never out of dozens. The worst with an Uber I've had was a guy who didn't know you could make multiple stops.
    - AStonesThrow 1y ago
      I wouldn't say that Uber or Lyft (or other NEMT rideshares) ever scammed me, but I've had enough shitty experiences and felt burned enough times that their reputation is on-par with classical taxi services IMHO. On the other hand, Waymo has never scammed me; I've never had a conflict with a shitty Waymo driver; and in fact I'm rather happy to participate in their testing phase and give generous feedback about minor things that could be better after each trip.
- orangecat 1y ago
  Uber won by offering services that people wanted and that existing taxi oligopolies were not providing: reliable pickups, not complaining about your destination, and not having "broken" credit card readers.
  - Y-bar 1y ago
    Is it because I use taxis in Europe that I have never experienced any of those when riding a taxi? Here they all are required by law to have their cost stayed up front, printed on a sticker in the window. Most of them have had apps for booking, with geolocation, ETA, and mobile payments for >10 years now. Never had a single refusal, or complaint, or incorrect drop-off. Even in places which are lower class run-down areas. They have always sent a wheelchair-compatible car when requested.
    - Den_VR 1y ago
      My experience with taxi in Italy (Napoli) was getting scammed by the driver and nearly missing my flight as he wanted to demand double fare because he had no guaranteed pickup from the Airport.
    - cbdumas 1y ago
      My taxi driver on my last time in France (in 2022 I believe) almost made us miss our train from Marseilles to Paris as he drove us around looking for an ATM because he insisted he "left his credit card reader at home". I do not miss taxis and their scummy drivers one bit.
    - slavik81 1y ago
      My very first experience in Germany back in 2019 was being driven from the train station to my hotel by a taxi that never turned their meter on. They just told me it was 20 EUR when they dropped me off.
  - TeMPOraL 1y ago
    It's easy to offer a better service when you're cheating. And when a cheater wins, the service invariably gets much worse very quickly. Uber was able to offer "reliable pickups, not complaining about your destination, and not having 'broken' credit card readers" for a competitive price by a combination of: - Not servicing people with mobility issues - Not servicing unprofitable areas in the city - Subsidizing fares with their ~infinite VC money supply to a degree that didn't even pretend to be sustainable - Offering unsustainably favorable conditions to drivers to create the initial impression of premium, high-quality service - Blatantly breaking the local laws, and using their ~infinite VC money supply to avoid law enforcement and tie up any cases against them The last three points being a plain and obvious bait&switch. The business was based on hoping they'll destroy local transportation businesses and gain reputation with people to make regulators face public backlash faster than they run out of money. Market by market, they succeeded to a greater or lesser degree, and then perfectly predictably, they behaved like the paragons of honesty and virtue they always were: the drivers got shafted, service went to shit, and all good it did was to replace local businesses with multinational franchise of shit pseudo-taxi. A McDonald'ification of the taxi market, if you like, except McDonald's doesn't suck as much.
- Pxtl 1y ago
  Killing the anachronistic and corrupt feudal medallion systems that some big North American cities used was a good thing, and that was one of their explicit goals... I'm no libertarian but there's plenty of municipal regulation that has an abominable effect on quality of life. But once that was dead and all taxi competitors no longer have to pay medallion-holding gentry for the right to do business? Uber is just a massive pile of debt and some slick marketing that adds very little value. Now that my local taxi companies have mobile software basically as good as Uber plus decades of established good name in my community? I've no reason to use Uber.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
  >What they never were, was "the underdog fighting taxi mafia". The only people who ever fight mafias, are up-and-coming crime syndicates themselves. I wonder if a state could cap their cut of the fare to say, $1. Index it to CPI every 3 years, so they don't have future legislators itching to bump that number up so often. Would this be fought out in courts, by secret meeting lobbyists, or would they just add a bunch of fees to it in such a way that it becomes opaque again (the fees could be paid by the driver, for instance, so it's totally under the radar of any customers/passengers)?
benterix 1y ago
> It's hard to find a specific number, but that seems like it's even more than "traditional" taxi companies take. It's incomparable. I talked local taxi drivers and they told me they just paid a flat monthly rate like €200-€300/month.
Den_VR 1y ago
Uber is still better than a Taxi from the consumer side. Transparent and low friction interactions are worth a modest premium, especially when traveling in places where you don’t speak the language very well. And as for Colorado, I’ve had my share of Uber bills there. It’s 30% tolls, 40% Uber, 30% Driver in my experience.

TeMPOraL 1y ago

Always have been. What they never were, was "the underdog fighting taxi mafia". That's just propaganda. They beat "taxi mafias", plural, with divide-and-conquer, market after market, and they did that as a multinational corporation with ~infinite money supply thanks to VC funding. Uber is a story of the Goliath going from town to town and beating everyone's Davids.

CamperBob2 1y ago
Whatever. When I call an Uber, it shows up. That's more than I could ever say for taxis.
- floren 1y ago
  Shows up sometimes. Sometimes it wanders off for 10 minutes because the driver is finishing a Lyft ride first but accepted your fare anyway, or they got lost, or they stopped to pick up food (all of these have happened to me)
  - TeMPOraL 1y ago
    Yes, this. Sometimes they cancel because they claim they have a malfunction. Sometimes they cancel because fuck you, that's why. Almost cost me an appointment with the doctor when our small kid got sick and a driver strung us for 15 minutes of extra wait time while he circled a grocery store, then claimed his car broke down. I don't trust those companies with important stuff anymore, I either go straight for public transport, or in some cases (airport) I pre-book an early enough departure to still be able to catch a bus to airport if the driver doesn't show.
- gs17 1y ago
  Similar, I've been scammed by a taxi once out of three times, Uber/Lyft never out of dozens. The worst with an Uber I've had was a guy who didn't know you could make multiple stops.
  - AStonesThrow 1y ago
    I wouldn't say that Uber or Lyft (or other NEMT rideshares) ever scammed me, but I've had enough shitty experiences and felt burned enough times that their reputation is on-par with classical taxi services IMHO. On the other hand, Waymo has never scammed me; I've never had a conflict with a shitty Waymo driver; and in fact I'm rather happy to participate in their testing phase and give generous feedback about minor things that could be better after each trip.
orangecat 1y ago
Uber won by offering services that people wanted and that existing taxi oligopolies were not providing: reliable pickups, not complaining about your destination, and not having "broken" credit card readers.
- Y-bar 1y ago
  Is it because I use taxis in Europe that I have never experienced any of those when riding a taxi? Here they all are required by law to have their cost stayed up front, printed on a sticker in the window. Most of them have had apps for booking, with geolocation, ETA, and mobile payments for >10 years now. Never had a single refusal, or complaint, or incorrect drop-off. Even in places which are lower class run-down areas. They have always sent a wheelchair-compatible car when requested.
  - Den_VR 1y ago
    My experience with taxi in Italy (Napoli) was getting scammed by the driver and nearly missing my flight as he wanted to demand double fare because he had no guaranteed pickup from the Airport.
  - cbdumas 1y ago
    My taxi driver on my last time in France (in 2022 I believe) almost made us miss our train from Marseilles to Paris as he drove us around looking for an ATM because he insisted he "left his credit card reader at home". I do not miss taxis and their scummy drivers one bit.
  - slavik81 1y ago
    My very first experience in Germany back in 2019 was being driven from the train station to my hotel by a taxi that never turned their meter on. They just told me it was 20 EUR when they dropped me off.
- TeMPOraL 1y ago
  It's easy to offer a better service when you're cheating. And when a cheater wins, the service invariably gets much worse very quickly. Uber was able to offer "reliable pickups, not complaining about your destination, and not having 'broken' credit card readers" for a competitive price by a combination of: - Not servicing people with mobility issues - Not servicing unprofitable areas in the city - Subsidizing fares with their ~infinite VC money supply to a degree that didn't even pretend to be sustainable - Offering unsustainably favorable conditions to drivers to create the initial impression of premium, high-quality service - Blatantly breaking the local laws, and using their ~infinite VC money supply to avoid law enforcement and tie up any cases against them The last three points being a plain and obvious bait&switch. The business was based on hoping they'll destroy local transportation businesses and gain reputation with people to make regulators face public backlash faster than they run out of money. Market by market, they succeeded to a greater or lesser degree, and then perfectly predictably, they behaved like the paragons of honesty and virtue they always were: the drivers got shafted, service went to shit, and all good it did was to replace local businesses with multinational franchise of shit pseudo-taxi. A McDonald'ification of the taxi market, if you like, except McDonald's doesn't suck as much.
Pxtl 1y ago
Killing the anachronistic and corrupt feudal medallion systems that some big North American cities used was a good thing, and that was one of their explicit goals... I'm no libertarian but there's plenty of municipal regulation that has an abominable effect on quality of life. But once that was dead and all taxi competitors no longer have to pay medallion-holding gentry for the right to do business? Uber is just a massive pile of debt and some slick marketing that adds very little value. Now that my local taxi companies have mobile software basically as good as Uber plus decades of established good name in my community? I've no reason to use Uber.
NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
>What they never were, was "the underdog fighting taxi mafia". The only people who ever fight mafias, are up-and-coming crime syndicates themselves. I wonder if a state could cap their cut of the fare to say, $1. Index it to CPI every 3 years, so they don't have future legislators itching to bump that number up so often. Would this be fought out in courts, by secret meeting lobbyists, or would they just add a bunch of fees to it in such a way that it becomes opaque again (the fees could be paid by the driver, for instance, so it's totally under the radar of any customers/passengers)?

benterix 1y ago

> It's hard to find a specific number, but that seems like it's even more than "traditional" taxi companies take. It's incomparable. I talked local taxi drivers and they told me they just paid a flat monthly rate like €200-€300/month.

Den_VR 1y ago

Uber is still better than a Taxi from the consumer side. Transparent and low friction interactions are worth a modest premium, especially when traveling in places where you don’t speak the language very well. And as for Colorado, I’ve had my share of Uber bills there. It’s 30% tolls, 40% Uber, 30% Driver in my experience.