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nm posted:The first is generally less common with iber due to the navigation. The difference being London where the cabbies loving know everything. the poster in question was talking about how uber provides a 'superior service', which in my experience is hit or miss, so saying "this happens in cabs too" pretty much supports my point there have been times that our uber has shown up just like the app said it would. there have been times when that hasn't happened too. as far as i can tell the biggest differentiator is the novelty of using an app to order a taxi with your phone rather than calling a number, and that doesn't really impress me
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Sep 15, 2016 02:14
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Halloween Jack posted:Yes, but then the driver says he can't take a credit card, or his credit card reader is broken, or crosses multiple zones as defined by his company to hike the fare, or wants to initiate a haggling process as soon as my rear end is in the seat. As a suburbanite who grew up in a rural area without cabs, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about that I do not want to loving deal with. I have only regularly interacted with cabbies for the last ten years. This has literally never happened to me. I don't know that my anecdote beats yours, but you can call the cops when they do this yeah? I mean, it's illegal.
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Sep 15, 2016 02:28
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Yeah I'm with themrguy on this one. Nobody can really get into the labor practices because nobody knows what they're loving talking about, but that's the relevant conversation. Practically speaking cabs are playing catch-up and in many cases have caught mostly-up but, since folks are going heavy with personal experiences, I know a bunch of old grouchy fucks who hate change and apps and complain like stuck pigs about the most minor bullshit and most of them loving love Uber. When there is a conversation the only thing that gets cross-talk is "should we use the local service because we know them and like them and they're local OR should we use Uber because it's a billion times better".
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Sep 15, 2016 03:16
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Spacewolf posted:It wasn't true? WTF? You read the news right? The economy is doing really well, unemployment is low, and the idea of BA holders taking succor in grad school is a 2009 era relic.
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Sep 15, 2016 04:22
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BarbarianElephant posted:If Lyft is the fair trade version of this I'll check it out. So I guess your fine with your kid dying if the driver has to hit the breaks? 
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Sep 15, 2016 04:41
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fits my needs posted:For anyone taking this post seriously, this person willingly lived in a "hacker hostel" and has obviously drunk the silicon kool aid.
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Sep 15, 2016 05:20
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Cabs in my city are nice. Since my experience reflects all of reality (which seems to be the standard in this thread), maybe you losers just need better regulations.
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Sep 15, 2016 06:06
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Cabs in Vancouver are pretty nice, too. The same regulations which have kept cabs nice have also kept Uber out.
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Sep 15, 2016 08:53
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I had to use cabs for a few months to handle a short daily commute when I had busted-up legs. It was kind of costly but by the time I'd have gotten my handicap shuttle ticket from the city bus system I'd have been healed up anyway. I found them to be pleasant and prompt and the fellow even usually helped me out with my wheelchair or other appurtenance at the time. I am also large and hideous, though not a minority. Are cabs particularly well regulated in Houston, somehow? Anyway I wonder if the reason why these people are so hot for some kind of autonomous corporation car a la this:  is because they think it will be the perfect and eternal dodge for those pesky "labor" laws
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Sep 15, 2016 09:05
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Then someone leaves a copy of Das Kapital in one of these cars And then comes the robot uprising
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Sep 15, 2016 09:12
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DE people/Peter Thiel are legit afraid that the AI that creates the Singularity might be Communist.
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Sep 15, 2016 09:31
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Peztopiary posted:DE people/Peter Thiel are legit afraid that the AI that creates the Singularity might be Communist.
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Sep 15, 2016 09:45
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Comrade, you must change your math because it seems to be reaching oppressive conclusions. Remember, Comrade, you are building a Friendly AI of Social Justice. It must be friendly to the people. -- Some Jagoff (Dude is opposed to 'political meddling in algorithms' which is just impressively dumb.) Obviously I can't prove Thiel is opposed to Friend Computer but his contributions to MIRI weren't done out of altruism.
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Sep 15, 2016 10:30
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Peztopiary posted:Comrade, you must change your math because it seems to be reaching oppressive conclusions. Remember, Comrade, you are building a Friendly AI of Social Justice. It must be friendly to the people. -- Some Jagoff I thought Thiel contributed to MIRI because he is deathly afraid of dying and wants to be kept alive as a simulation forever (i.e. why anyone actually donates to MIRI) see also: his literal vampirism
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Sep 15, 2016 11:14
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Peztopiary posted:Comrade, you must change your math because it seems to be reaching oppressive conclusions. Remember, Comrade, you are building a Friendly AI of Social Justice. It must be friendly to the people. -- Some Jagoff Nope. Gotta make that subtle play for monarchism. Does the AI get to be King, or what.
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Sep 15, 2016 11:23
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Cabs in Vancouver are pretty nice, too. The same regulations which have kept cabs nice have also kept Uber out. I'm in Victoria, so they're probably pretty close to literally the same regulations.
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Sep 15, 2016 11:31
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I just wanna make a note - I use Lyft just as much ss Uber, but even when I useLyft it's mostly the same people that work for Uber. And maybe it's just that the local cab companies suck (entirely fair, I think we actually only have one and its been around forever ) but I had a short period of 36 days where I had to take a pretty short (4ish miles) cab ride to work, because the bus i usually would catch was not in service unless I walked 2 miles, due to road construction. After using the regular cab company for 5 days, I have sworn off regular cabs for life. They were consistently taking an hour + to get to me, smelling and looking terrible, taking wrong streets and needing me to navigate for them and micromanage to avoid taking twice as long as needed (for a FOUR MILE trip). The final straw was being told that their credit card machine was broken and i would have to pay them cash now, and then they wanted to haggle, until I said I only had my card, and he kinda half heartedly hit the machine once and said 'oh, it works' Would I like Uber to obey the law and get cracked down on? Sure. But I'd also like to be able to sit in a cab without getting out and smelling like I smoked a pack before work, for the whole night. I sure wish there was some middle ground between 'disgusting but better treated cabs' and 'wonderful but terribly treated Ubers' Basically - I am not going to choose to go to a substandard service as a consumer, if they can't even make an attempt to care about my comfort. I will choose the one that feels and looks better, and leaves me feeling better afterwards. But again, maybe I was just lucky in my 30+ Uber/Lyft trips to never get a bad driver/car. KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 11:39 on Sep 15, 2016 |
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Sep 15, 2016 11:36
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KittyEmpress posted:Would I like Uber to obey the law and get cracked down on? Sure. But I'd also like to be able to sit in a cab without getting out and smelling like I smoked a pack before work, for the whole night. I sure wish there was some middle ground between 'disgusting but better treated cabs' and 'wonderful but terribly treated Ubers'.
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Sep 15, 2016 11:38
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Nessus posted:Nope. Gotta make that subtle play for monarchism. Does the AI get to be King, or what. The AI will literally make every decision of even the slightest consequence in such a way that the people who would be bothered by the concept of free will won't notice.
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Sep 15, 2016 11:39
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Nessus posted:Well if Uber manages to pull off its hat trick you'll get entirely automated cars which will probably manage to combine the worst of both worlds, BUT would definitely make Uber a great deal of money. It's also possible they might convince your city to get rid of that bus entirely. Which would be terrible, and i hate the idea of, don't get me wrong. I rarely pick Uber based on price (because 7 dollars on Uber, 9 on lyft, and 13 on traditional cab is not that big a deal?). So literally none of the idea of self driving person less cabs appeals to me. Edit: honestly I'd be pretty happy if cab regulations where I were just demanded a car be cleaned, solid no smoking laws like every other business has these days, were set up with a GPS visible to the passenger, and required to take card. And i guess maybe if they hired more people so they didn't have an hour + wait compared to getting an Uber in 9 minutes most of the time. KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 11:51 on Sep 15, 2016 |
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Sep 15, 2016 11:45
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themrguy posted:Jesus goons, you can admit that Uber provides a superior user experience than typical cabs without endorsing all their labor practices. It doesn't make you some pampered suburbanite to prefer a more convient and pleasant experience over a shittier one that's more of a hassle. Don't forget the part where Uber's standards for what vehicles they'll accept their drivers using are also both a lot higher than most conventional taxi fleets, and not maintained or provided by Uber themselves! It's pretty easy to get a nicer experience when you're not paying for your fleet, after all! Uber's whole -deal-, beyond the app-based hailing and surge pricing which are legitimately good ideas in the taxi business, is externalizing the vast majority of the costs of being a taxi company onto their drivers, and burning investor money like nitromethane to prop up this unsustainable growth and business model until they drive their competition out. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 12:11 on Sep 15, 2016 |
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Sep 15, 2016 12:05
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MiddleOne posted:So I guess your fine with your kid dying if the driver has to hit the breaks? Um.... That's the exact *opposite* of my point which is that I use Uber rather than Lyft because Uber have car seats but Lyft (and regular cabs) don't. Reading comprehension, dude.
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Sep 15, 2016 12:16
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Nessus posted:Oh I love how they just gotta bring up the French Revolution there at the end. (Naturally, the American Revolution was acceptable, it was only the French Revolution's upsetting of monarchs that was a problem.) Never mind, of course, that the rise of the warfare they describe probably had more to do with the efficiency of various weapons - in other words, a... technology. This sort of poo poo is why while I'm happy that space tech companies are pushing the envelope cheaper and faster than government, I dread their libertarian fucko founders getting to set up their own extra-terrestrial colonies or something.
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Sep 15, 2016 12:18
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Surprise Giraffe posted:This sort of poo poo is why while I'm happy that space tech companies are pushing the envelope cheaper and faster than government, I dread their libertarian fucko founders getting to set up their own extra-terrestrial colonies or something. Given how their attempts to do that on Earth have fared, I'm mostly worried for the people who will due horribly in the attempt.
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Sep 15, 2016 12:24
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Every single person who signs up for Mars! a Musk joint no longer being on Earth is of immense benefit to the rest of us.
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Sep 15, 2016 12:46
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BarbarianElephant posted:Um.... That's the exact *opposite* of my point which is that I use Uber rather than Lyft because Uber have car seats but Lyft (and regular cabs) don't. Reading comprehension, dude. You're assuming that I have background information which you did not provide. Re-read your post, without that knowledge the implications of the argument become ridiculous. Now it makes more sense. 
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Sep 15, 2016 13:12
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Chiming in from Mexico City with my two cents. Uber here is more expensive than regular cabs(specially on surges, which are frequent), but is still growing in popularity immensely. The reasons for it's popularity have been posted before in this thread (better service, pay with card, fixed amounts, etc) but there's also developing world reasons for it, such as lower likelihood of being robbed and traceability. Uber has become a middle-upper class darling. If you overlay a map of all the Uber rides with a map of the city it forms a mesh connecting the wealthy bits of town, and whole neighborhoods disappear. As for my personal experience, I've stopped taking regular cabs after a couple of incidents of being extored by them ( overcharged ridiculously because the meter "didn't work" or " no one uses the meters at this hour"). Uber is probably breaking the law, but so are regular cabs on a daily basis, so meh.
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Sep 15, 2016 13:52
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Freezer posted:
Strange, I heard Uber didn't do this but regular cabs did.
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Sep 15, 2016 14:29
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computer parts posted:Strange, I heard Uber didn't do this but regular cabs did. I don't think that's the point - just that Uber is used by the richer people who don't go into the poor areas. Liquid Communism posted:Don't forget the part where Uber's standards for what vehicles they'll accept their drivers using are also both a lot higher than most conventional taxi fleets, and not maintained or provided by Uber themselves! It's pretty easy to get a nicer experience when you're not paying for your fleet, after all!
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Sep 15, 2016 15:34
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mobby_6kl posted:I don't think that's the point - just that Uber is used by the richer people who don't go into the poor areas. Yeah, this. You can ask for an Uber anywhere, but people in the poorest neighborhoods don't tend to have credit cards and smartphones, or money to take taxis regularly.
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Sep 15, 2016 16:18
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Don't taxis typically charge a flat rate to go to/from certain areas? How are you going to get fleeced by paying cash in that situation? My wife and her family always paid cash for cabs in Mexico, and I don't remember them ever complaining about getting swindled (and we're talking about taking cabs through some dicey places/very long trips here).
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Sep 15, 2016 17:16
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I have nothing bad to say about cabs in Mexico; I used them for months around Monterrey, Veracruz and Oxaca among lots of smaller towns and never had a bad experience. In general the fares are great (and regulated) and colectivos are even better for price. I have no idea why you'd book an Uber in a developing country other than people with a little too much money wanting some novelty. Uber is pretty useful in medium-sized US cities that don't have a cab culture, but good lord is finding a cab easy in Mexico.
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Sep 15, 2016 17:38
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Panfilo posted:Don't taxis typically charge a flat rate to go to/from certain areas? How are you going to get fleeced by paying cash in that situation? The thing about cabs is that it varies from city to city. For instance, in Dublin you're a loving idiot if you don't haggle for a pre-set fee before jumping in the cab but in other cities that might just as well get you laughed off.
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Sep 15, 2016 17:42
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For example, a hotel area to the major airport, it would make more sense for them to charge a flat rate since the distances are consistent and the faster the cab gets you there, the more fares he can pick up in a day. My thought with some future Uber/cab evolution was that owner/operators could set a fare based on their own expenses, but if it were app based and consumers had access to all the different people setting their own fares, you couldn't charge an exorbitant rate and expect to get anybody. This would cause the cabs to try to outbid each other giving the consumer a reasonable rate, but still a rate dictated by the guy trying to make a living and not some wannabe corporate overlord.
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Sep 15, 2016 17:47
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Panfilo posted:For example, a hotel area to the major airport, it would make more sense for them to charge a flat rate since the distances are consistent and the faster the cab gets you there, the more fares he can pick up in a day. And this is what I initially thought Uber was doing, and sort of is what BlaBlaCar is doing, though it's more actual ride sharing and not taxi hailing thing: https://www.blablacar.com/
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Sep 15, 2016 17:58
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BlaBlaCar's business model seems a lot less problematic than Uber's, in particular because of how it's structuring its relationship with drivers. That said, for the same reasons it's not clear how it can be profitable. On the neighborhood question, reminder that the Uber interface is intentionally misleading.
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Sep 15, 2016 18:41
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I don't understand why people keep pumping money into "disruptors" who have a tiny, tiny chance of actually winning the fight against things like zoning laws and the FDA when there's billions of dollars floating around in completely unregulated markets. If I were a morally unhinged megabazillionaire i would just corner the supplement market or run a fine art scam. There's a hundred billion between those two markets alone, and literally nobody at the wheel of either.
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Sep 16, 2016 01:55
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:I don't understand why people keep pumping money into "disruptors" who have a tiny, tiny chance of actually winning the fight against things like zoning laws and the FDA when there's billions of dollars floating around in completely unregulated markets. If I were a morally unhinged megabazillionaire i would just corner the supplement market or run a fine art scam. There's a hundred billion between those two markets alone, and literally nobody at the wheel of either. They want to be in on the ground floor the next Amazon or Google. ... That's it. That's the entire reason.
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Sep 16, 2016 01:59
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ToxicSlurpee posted:They want to be in on the ground floor the next Amazon or Google. Neither of those companies were ever "disruptive" in their startup phases though. Google made a pretty cool search algorithm, which caught on, then they were smart enough to stick an ad platform to it. Amazon sold books online, then realized that Sears wasn't good at the internet and expanded into a general store. These were pretty clear opportunities to dive into with reasonably predictable revenue. When has investing in "disruptors" ever paid off in actual revenue? Practically none of the companies that we're talking about in this thread are actually in the black.
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Sep 16, 2016 02:07
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:I don't understand why people keep pumping money into "disruptors" who have a tiny, tiny chance of actually winning the fight against things like zoning laws and the FDA when there's billions of dollars floating around in completely unregulated markets. If I were a morally unhinged megabazillionaire i would just corner the supplement market or run a fine art scam. There's a hundred billion between those two markets alone, and literally nobody at the wheel of either.
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Sep 16, 2016 02:12
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