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Test may be no joke. But the test is also a joke in the world of GPS and Uber. I am glad Uber plowed through various stupid regulations constraining supply to

by nojvek 2mo ago

Test may be no joke. But the test is also a joke in the world of GPS and Uber. I am glad Uber plowed through various stupid regulations constraining supply to bring a service with drastically more supply.

KaiserPro 2mo ago
> I am glad Uber plowed through various stupid regulations What like safety checks? London had a huge minicab system, which is very much not knowledge based. Addison lee also had internet booking of cabs way before uber, but with the advantage that cars were roadworthy and the drivers were safety vetted. TFL came down hard on uber 1 for safety and 2 for clogging up the fucking roads and making busses slow. (see https://bsky.app/profile/garius.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/garius.bsky.social for more info)
- creaturemachine 2mo ago
  It's very comforting when your cabbie knows exactly where you want to go with one prompt, versus being with some uber droid who can't look past their phone.
  - KaiserPro 2mo ago
    100% "which $generic_street_name? the one near covent garden, or the one near Bow?" saves both time and money
bean469 2mo ago
> But the test is also a joke in the world of GPS and Uber. Uber drivers are generally a joke compared to black cab drivers in pretty much every way
deaton 2mo ago
Uber famously pulled out of Austin for a year because Austin wanted to require background checks with fingerprinting on Uber drivers. I don't really like their style of "plowing through" regulation.
- Zak 2mo ago
  An open question is whether the rideshare model, where the service provider knows which passenger was with which driver at which time and place solves the problem that regulation was trying to address. I would have expected someone to publish research comparing crimes against passengers by rideshare drivers versus taxi drivers by now, but a quick attempt to find that came up short due to lack of data about taxi drivers.

by nojvek 2mo ago

KaiserPro 2mo ago

> I am glad Uber plowed through various stupid regulations What like safety checks? London had a huge minicab system, which is very much not knowledge based. Addison lee also had internet booking of cabs way before uber, but with the advantage that cars were roadworthy and the drivers were safety vetted. TFL came down hard on uber 1 for safety and 2 for clogging up the fucking roads and making busses slow. (see https://bsky.app/profile/garius.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/garius.bsky.social for more info)

creaturemachine 2mo ago
It's very comforting when your cabbie knows exactly where you want to go with one prompt, versus being with some uber droid who can't look past their phone.
- KaiserPro 2mo ago
  100% "which $generic_street_name? the one near covent garden, or the one near Bow?" saves both time and money

bean469 2mo ago

> But the test is also a joke in the world of GPS and Uber. Uber drivers are generally a joke compared to black cab drivers in pretty much every way

deaton 2mo ago

Uber famously pulled out of Austin for a year because Austin wanted to require background checks with fingerprinting on Uber drivers. I don't really like their style of "plowing through" regulation.

Zak 2mo ago
An open question is whether the rideshare model, where the service provider knows which passenger was with which driver at which time and place solves the problem that regulation was trying to address. I would have expected someone to publish research comparing crimes against passengers by rideshare drivers versus taxi drivers by now, but a quick attempt to find that came up short due to lack of data about taxi drivers.