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Uber

If I am in Sydney close to an armed terrorist, I would be glad to have someone come through the mayhem and pick me up for a mere four times normal rate. Capitalism is a really wonderful thing.
 
wake20 said:
Used it Saturday night. $30 bucks to go ~15 miles to the party, $75 to go home at 1am. That was...disappointing.

I'll probably continue to use it because cabs suck when you live in the suburbs.
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I feel like I could write a song called Midnight Uber Driver. Country song? Kind of a Flowers For Algernon with money until Uber implodes and he has to go back to drinking Old Milwaukee and turning tricks at the truck stop.
 
tjcmd said:
If I am in Sydney close to an armed terrorist, I would be glad to have someone come through the mayhem and pick me up for a mere four times normal rate. Capitalism is a really wonderful thing.
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Except that there was a traffic-blocking protest over the criminal way the police treated that poor, misunderstood, man.
 
BillBrasky said:
What are you thoughts on it? I'm personally very conflicted about it, and have decided to no longer use it. However I don't feel bad for taxi drivers, as they are horribly inefficient in most cities and I was pumped that they finally got sone competition.
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What are you conflicted about?
 
94Deac said:
Except that there was a traffic-blocking protest over the criminal way the police treated that poor, misunderstood, man.
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I'll bet for some extra $ Uberpeople found an alternate route too inconvenient for fare regulated shabbycabbies.
 
The company seems a bit scummy for me. The exec suggesting that they should investigate and use the details of a female reporter's personal life as payback for negative press was not OK.
 
Baconwfu said:
What are you conflicted about?
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Price gouging and the fact that they jack up their commission rates like every two weeks.

Professional cab drivers have been forced to become Uber drivers and they know this. So they're taking more and more.
 
wfumike02 said:
I know they have been getting a lot of negative press lately but are they really imploding?
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Wondering the same. I generally check Uber and Lyft and choose the one with the best rate at the time. Both seem to be popular enough within a 3-5 mile radius of Charlotte that you can always get a ride quickly.
 
i haven't really noticed a difference in prices since i started using it this summer
 
I thought Uber and Lyft have (almost) always stuck to a 20% commission?

Drivers are making less money because those 2 and a handful of other competitors are racing towards a price floor. The past few decades have seen cab lobbies artificially inflate the value of cabs while keeping the experience at a rock bottom minimum.

In DC 90% of the cabs are total pieces of shit, they just barely managed to get credit card payments in the past year, and many of them still don't or give you shit for trying to pay with a credit card. They often have no navigation and routinely screw up the dispatches for service.

Uber may have some negative corporate stuff going but the service it provides was inevitable.
 
DCDeac said:
Uber is this decade's Napster.

Regardless of how it turns out for them in particular, the cab industry put itself on a collision course with technology. Serious disruption was inevitable.
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+1

I'm a big fan of Uber and have had great experiences using it. I tend not to be out during typical surge pricing times (i'm an #old and don't stay out late so I avoid bar closing time, don't go out on big holidays like Halloween or NYE, but if I do I arrange for car service so as to not have to worry about stuff like taxi availability or surge pricing) so it works for me. It's a little more expensive than using cabs in Charleston, but the reliability, convenience, and cleanliness of the vehicles/drivers compared to the local taxis make it worth it.

I used it twice in Philly this week; to and from the airport. Cars were there in less than 5 minutes, they were clean and comfortable, and the drivers got me to and from the airport without any hassle.

One of my favorite aspects is that it's cashless.

From a security standpoint, my wife who travels for work as well, likes that there is an audit trail that is at least a little better than flagging a random cabby down and hoping he actually calls in the ride. This isn't praise for Uber background checks per se, but the fact that there is a record of who picked her up, where they went, etc.
 
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where public transportation sucks hard in philly, cabs and uber are fantastic. never had a truly bad experience with either of the latter. good stuff, private sector.
 
We won't be driving our cars in a decade. DUIs, texting, falling asleep, tailgating, crappy light timing...all gone.
 
DCDeac said:
I thought Uber and Lyft have (almost) always stuck to a 20% commission?

Drivers are making less money because those 2 and a handful of other competitors are racing towards a price floor. The past few decades have seen cab lobbies artificially inflate the value of cabs while keeping the experience at a rock bottom minimum.

In DC 90% of the cabs are total pieces of shit, they just barely managed to get credit card payments in the past year, and many of them still don't or give you shit for trying to pay with a credit card. They often have no navigation and routinely screw up the dispatches for service.

Uber may have some negative corporate stuff going but the service it provides was inevitable.
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and now the DC cabs are supposed to be outfitted with an Uber-like app in the next year. yeah I see that going swimmingly.
 
I use Lyft all the time now in Raleigh. I live a few miles from downtown, and it usually costs about $8, I pay one way and a friend pays the other way. I wouldn't even think about using a cab now that it is available.

The cab companies here did this to themselves. Even though we live so close to downtown, there were many nights when we spent over an hour past the estimated time, and then were eventually told they were not coming. My experience has been the drivers/companies are rude and more expensive because they have not had competition. Having an alternative has been great for us, and I'm sure the businesses downtown are reaping the rewards.
 
i generally check sidecar first then uber. sidecar is seemingly more driver-driendly, and there are some other benefits as well (the driver sets their pricing, you choose a car, etc.). if sidecar pricing is surging and/or there aren't drivers close i go uber. living in sf we're spoiled though with all 3 of the rideshares and flywheel for cabbies.
 
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