If they can crack the “drop off from a different place from where you picked up” nut, car sharing will be gold.
That’s why I have both memberships. Zipcar has to return to the place it lives, and Car2Go can be dropped off in any legal spot within the service area.
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This is frustrating for many reasons. First, Gabrielle claims Uber “sneakily” made her agree. By which she means the app told her in big bold letters about it, then refused to let her pay until she manually typed in the multiplier. This wan’t an asterisk and fine print situation. Second, if you think it’s too pricey, don’t use Uber during surge times. Wait an hour, or two hours for a cab to show up, (if it shows up) like you’d have to do before Uber. If you live in a city with effective cab regulations, and there are always enough cabs, and they always show up on time when you request one via a dispatcher, then please consider that you are lucky, and you might not need Uber. Some of us live in towns where the cab companies are corrupt (see the semi-recent Boston globe expose for an example), the number of cabs is too low, the bars all shut down at exactly the same time by law, public transit shuts down before that time, and it’s nice to have a new option.
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What they have innovated is that the car you request will probably show up. When you request an uber car, a specific driver answers that request. If that driver flakes out and never shows, you can give him or her a poor rating. With a cab company, you call them up, the dispatcher promises you a driver will arrive in 15 minutes, and when it doesn’t happen, you have no recourse except to call back and try again. After two or three 15 minute waits and no cab showing up, Uber is starting to look pretty good. I don’t take cabs often, but have experienced no shows on several occasions. Maybe your city has different regulations, or maybe there are just enough cabs in your market that it’s not an issue for you. Many markets have an artificially low number of cabs.
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That ‘artificial’ number of cabs is the maximum number of cabs that can be online and still break even and make a little bit of money (I guarantee you no one is getting rich, far from it). I’m sure the taxi company in your market won’t mind operating at a loss so a fraction of 1% of their customers won’t have to wait a little longer during peak times. Call ahead during peak times. It never ceases to amaze me how people that occasionally take taxis are experts on the industry, indeed, know more about the business than the people who actually have done it for a living for decades.
Also I’m guessing your no-shows occurred during peak times (outgoing flights, New Years, Halloween, etc.) Uber responds to this with Surge Pricing TM. The reason Uber has more cars right now in some markets because they are subsidizing those drivers with money from their multi-billion capitalization. Once that artificial supply is gone, you’ll be bitching about paying 8x cab fare instead of waiting 45 minutes. That’s similar to complaining about the store being out of cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving evening or having to wait in line for the bathroom at the bar at 2:15am on a Saturday. What do you propose the additional cabs you propose bringing online do to stay busy for the 20 hours a day that aren’t peak times?
You weren’t talking to me but I’m going to respond anyway.
[quote=“thirdworldtaxi, post:45, topic:45593”]
I’m guessing your no-shows occurred during peak times[/quote]
I know that Chicago is not the only city where the no-shows have to do with either the starting or ending address, or the race of the customer, rather than time of day.
[quote=“thirdworldtaxi, post:45, topic:45593”]
It never ceases to amaze me how people that occasionally take taxis are experts on the industry, indeed, know more about the business than the people who actually have done it for a living for decades.[/quote]
I used to be a commercial banker with all three major cab companies (at the time) in our portfolio. Just because you’re a cab driver doesn’t mean you’re more of an expert on the industry than anyone else on the internet who might happen to be responding to you.
First of all, in my market the cab companies won’t be operating at a loss, the drivers will. The medallion owners push all the risk and hardship onto the drivers, just like Uber does. Some even report having to bribe garage staff to get access to the more reliable vehicles. So painting Uber as a big corporation is accurate, but no different than the cab companies (I am in Boston by the way, have you read the Globe piece exposing how crappy the companies treat drivers here, and how dysfunctional the bureaucracy managing them is?). So far, when I have asked the Uber drivers if they like doing it, they say yes.
The whole point of surge pricing is to encourage drivers to work during the times when demand is highest. If I need to get my homemade cranberry sauce to grandma, who lives across the country, in time for Thanksgiving, I don’t complain about paying Fedex extra money for overnight shipping, and I don’t complain about having the option to pay an Uber driver double if I really really need to get to the airport.
I don’t need to be an expert in the entire industry to know that when I request a car via Uber, it shows up, and the credit card reader is never mysteriously “broken” until I threaten to call the cops because I know the rules, at which point it suddenly starts working again.
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But maybe you’d be happier if you didn’t worry about the kind of relationship that strangers have with their friends if they and their friends are okay with it.
This is the thing that is really distressing about Uber, though. We all just say, “Well of course a person with more money deserves better access to services.” Swap surge pricing in for waiting and you have one more system that rewards being rich.
And that’s fine, that’s fine. It couldn’t be otherwise.
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Are you kidding? Are you are claiming that Uber drivers are just friends picking up friends? It’s a cab service. They pick up fares, drive them where they ask to go, work long shifts, and get paid by the mile and the minute. They buy multiple vehicles to lease to other Uber drivers who can’t afford to buy new cars at usury-level interest rates. What about that looks like buddies just carpooling and splitting gas to you? Are you driving trollies or being obtuse?
Even though I have strong opinions about the damage that commercial banking has done to this country, I would never dream of telling you how the industry should operate, because I have no experience working as a banker. I do however, have a lot of experience working as a professional driver.
That’s a little hyperbolic. I never made any such ridiculous claim as being the sole expert of the internet. I deal with so much ignorance about my profession on an hourly basis, you don’t believe that? I actually had a guy accuse me of cheating him the other night because I was ‘driving faster’. I said what do you mean? He said ‘you’re driving fast to run the meter up’. I said ‘but were going 5 miles down this road regardless of what speed we are going’. He said ‘if you go faster it’s more miles’. There is an incredible amount of ignorance regarding how taxis operate being discussed right now, and even more deliberate and naive mis-information about how Uber operates. When I see bullshit spouted by people who don’t know what they are talking about, I’m going to try to have a dialogue with them.
Can you explain to me how you think managing taxi company finances authorizes you to comment on the logistics of driver/passenger supply/demand dynamics? I’m not being a smartass, just honestly asking. I spend 12 hours a day actually working with these problems, and I love it. I love my job, and I’m very good at it. I deal with unbelievably difficult situations almost daily, occasionally endure verbal and sometimes physical assault, and still treat every passenger with dignity, respect, and honesty, and meet some of the most amazing people I could hope to meet. I make around minimum wage, but have never been happier.
You don’t seem to have a lot of experience with Uber. It is common practice for drivers to cancel calls if the passenger is looking problematic, i.e. antsy, drunk, with 3-4 people, not going far, etc. If the driver cancels before they pick up, you do not get to rate the driver. There are hundreds of posts similar to the following on the Uber driver forum:
Of course Uber drivers tell you they like their job, they live in abject terror of getting a single bad rating from a passenger. They are afraid of coming across as ‘bitchy’, and getting a less than 5 star rating. A rating average of less than 4.7 stars or less gets you deactivated. That’s one drunk asshole that you refuse to let get stoned in your car giving you a single 1 star rating, and your livelihood disappears.
Surge pricing, while I applaud and agree with the idea conceptually, does little to bring more cabs online. What it actually does is reduce demand. So if 40 people need a cab, and there are only 10 cabs available, price goes up 4x and 30 people aren’t able or willing to pay that rate, and no longer want a taxi.
So what Ubers ‘innovative’ surge pricing does de facto, is auction cabs to the highest bidder during peak times. Have fun with that.
I’ve driven a cab for a few years, and I researched Uber very thoroughly for several months with the intent of possibly driving for them. After I saw how they operate, how they treat the drivers, and where the money is coming from, I decided that it wasn’t for me.
Here is what the drivers are too afraid to say to your face.
How would you like to go to work every day, knowing that if you upset a single person for any reason, you could lose your job?
I was responding to a comment that said, “I don’t like it when people beg their friends for money.” It was someone complaining about the woman in question’s crowdfunding. Sorry, when replying to more than one person I should have made sure to include the quote from the first thing to be clear.
Let’s see…
Amazingly, due diligence on a company includes investigating their supply and demand pipelines. To see if they’re a worthy credit risk, have sound managerial practices, good cash flow, etc.
As an aside, you don’t seem to understand the difference between an accountant and a commercial loan officer. One of us seems to have more experience with regard to how the financial aspects of companies are run.
When you first started posting on the subject in another thread, I thought of you as just another poster with a knowledgeable viewpoint. Now i see your focus is too narrow to be instructive. You’ve gone from being a cabbie with something to say to a cabbie who doesn’t really know what he’s talking about outside of the actual mechanics of driving a cab.
Oh, so sorry. I get fired up about this subject a little, so my reading comprehension was probably -5 points rage-mode as well. Sorry if I was being rude.
Which is exactly what I claimed when I said I have no experience being a banker. And why I don’t feel entitled to pontificate and foist my opinions on how your business should be run (I don’t recall you specifying which you were). What did you discover, ahem, when you did due diligence on Uber that makes you qualified to speak to their business practices? After due diligence on the taxi companies, the most poignant thing you have to offer about them is still trite stereotypical anecdotes about broken credit card machines?
Of course you’ll know the entire combined US taxi market is worth about 1 billion, and Uber has raised 18 billion? And you want to equivocate a few cab companies to an enormous tech company that openly states it’s goal is unmitigated monopoly and arbitrarily changes rates/policies/rules on a whim, already has a reputation for exploitation and heinous treatment of it’s drivers, and refuses to follow any city or state regulations?
I’ve contributed several points to this discussion regarding the sustainability of a subsidized artificial glut of supply, what it’s actually like to drive for Uber and drive a taxi, and plenty of critical viewpoints of a massive, well-designed marketing blitz led by David Plouffe (now Uber VP), the former campaign director for Obama’s 2008 campaign. I don’t recall you contributing a single thing to the discussion other than nefarious anecdotes and attempted character assassination. Until you say something of value, you are just another bored asshole on the internet with nothing really to say.
Poor reading skills.
'Faster = more miles? Wow. That is a problem that goes FAR beyond not knowing how taxi meters work… O_0
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