It isn’t just the pricing that makes me prefer Uber. As a non-driver, I often have to use cabs and I always dread using them. Maybe cabs are better in places with a “cab culture” like NYC, but in San Diego (where I now live), for example, they are just awful. You call for a cab and it may be close to an hour before one shows up. If they show up at all (I once missed a flight because the cab never showed despite the dispatcher saying “it’s coming; it’s coming” every time I called back). Plus typically too many cab drivers just don’t seem to focus on actually driving cabs; they will spend the whole ride making a personal call on their Bluetooth headset. Worst of all, typically cab drivers want me to direct them! The whole idea of a cab is that I give the driver an address and he takes me there. Either know the city (preferably) or buy a GPS. My experience with Uber is just so much better than that. They show up in minutes (and you can see where they are), and they either know the address I want to go or they use their GPS to get there. And they actually focus on driving, not chatting with their friends on the phone. The lower price is just a bonus; I’d prefer to use them even if they were the same price. Yes, I wouldn’t want Uber to control the taxi industry; I understand the worry that they could be the Amazon of cabs. But I’m not sure how likely that would be given that there are already competing apps.
The worry is not that they will be the amazon of cabs.
The worry is that they operate outside of the exisiting medallion system, and flaunt it, in my town.
Screw Uber. Rules are for civilizations.
Not at all. I live in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and the only time I see a taxi is when it’s hauling ass out of the neighborhood. UberX has been a godsend.
“Plenty”. Taxis, Lyft, public transport. That’s three. Is that plenty?
As far as the article being “rubbish” and the “apalling” “economic ignorance”, you seem to have completely missed the fact that the article is arguing that Uber is positioning itself to become a monopoly/monopsony rather than arguing that it has already attained that status.
Too many problems with your rant to go through them all in detail.
As an aside uber tells you what your fare will be before you request a ride. There are no surprises outside of anything that could go wrong in a car.
Also owning your own car, especially used, can generally be cheaper. Where it isn’t is if you travel a lot (me), prefer to have a beer but not a DUI (also me), if parking is horrendous, or mass transit doesn’t reach. I spent a decade with only a bike and the bus. And it is nice to have more options.
The surge pricing is practical, although maddening. I have been completely angry to see a 2x or 3x price. However, I do believe that Uber’s statements reflect the market reality. To increase supply when demand is high, they have to get more drivers on the road. Because they don’t require drivers be on the road at any particular time, they use surge pricing to give an incentive. Drivers are all in competition with one another, so they cannot all decide to stay off the clock until surge pricing kicks in.
But the unpredictability of the price is also completely annoying. If Uber’s business model succeeds and they become the dominant or nearly sole player in a market, it will be reality, whether we like it or not. It’s a reason that people like regulated prices: it prevents either reasonable responses to market conditions or gouging (or both).
Ah, my mistake! I mistook you for a person who wanted to have a discussion instead of using ad hominem attacks and assertions! My apologies for attempting to start a civil discussion instead of going off the handle at you instantly, which is your method of discourse.
As an aside uber tells you what your fare will be before you request a ride. There are no surprises outside of anything that could go wrong in a car.
Yes, I’m aware of that. I’ve used the app and read their FAQ. I just mean a surprise as in after you see the continued price hikes and realize you would probably just be better off with your own car.
Where it isn’t is if you travel a lot (me)
Wouldn’t a rental car still be a better value?
prefer to have a beer but not a DUI (also me)
That’s about the only reason I can see using Uber consistently on weekends, but unless you’re an alcoholic I would think you’d still want your own car during the majority of times you’re not drunk.
Maybe Uber should make an advertising poster that appeals to alcoholics who should never get behind the wheel, I dunno. 
if parking is horrendous
I always just factor in parking garages, etc. into the cost of ownership of a car which still seems cheaper to me than paying Uber and their price hikes (someone please correct me if I’m wrong). If you live in the city and you’re circling around looking for parking, you’re doing it wrong. If you’re physically able to ride a bike and you don’t have a bike rack (or space inside your car for a bike), you’re doing it wrong.
or mass transit doesn’t reach.
Once again, sounds like your own car would be more economical in that case as well. Especially in that case.
I see your point. I do hope that Uber doesn’t become of monopoly, but the United States has a horrible track record in that regard. If Uber becomes the Comcast of “taxis”, the consumers will certainly get screwed. But, then again, that seems to be the American way.
“Completely annoying”
Completely agreed. There are times I will pay an unreasonable amount for something because I am in an unreasonable position. But it lends zero good will to entities that take advantage of that.
2x surge? I get it. 3x or more? I tend to get slappy at that point.
Why (unless you are a cab owner who has invested money into buying a medallion) would anyone care about the medallion system? I like rules when they encourage quality of service – I want my doctor and lawyer to prove that they know their profession and having medical and law licenses is a way to do that. But that isn’t how the medallion system works – it merely exists to create artificial scarcity of cabs.
Are you kidding? The barrier to entry into getting into social networking is that you need a social network. That is a pretty high barrier because you can’t just buy one of those. Your service doesn’t work unless you have a pile of users already, and no one wants to use your service unless you have a pile of users. The barrier to entry into social networking is probably one of the highest in existence.
As for Uber, the barrier is very low. I might not jump ship for G+ or Diaspora because my friends are not there, but my fucking cab company? I’ll happily dump them without a second thought for whoever is cheap and reliable, my friend’s opinions be damned. The only serious barrier to entry into Uber’s market is the clusterfuck of insanely corrupt laws that are used to pay off and literally bribe the buddies of city mayors and council people.
The current system is shit. I’ll happily risk an absurdly low barrier to entry market one day maybe becoming a monopoly over the mayoral bribery scheme that we currently have. Seriously, the current system is just a legalized bribery scheme. The mayor hands his friends a monopoly that fucks passengers and drivers alike, and impairs the basic infrastructure of the city. There is a real cost to all the other businesses in the city when people can’t reliably get from point A to point B. They end up going out less, and that hurts all the other non-campaign bribery based businesses.
This is like listening to someone telling me that bribery and graft is just the grease to make the system work and it isn’t so bad. Fuck that. The current system is corruption from top to bottom. Fuck what Uber wants, that system should be torn the shreds simply because it is evil, corrupt, damaging to cities, and awful. You can rationalize the insane system all you want, but the bare truth is that it is purely and completely a corrupt bribery scheme and serves literally no other purpose. People would be seeing red and pissed if any other business in the city was handled the way cabs are.
Excellent reply. Amazon is no longer the price leader in products that it dominated in and reduced competition in, just like Walmart raises prices in markets when it kills local businesses. Uber can reasonably afford to stop price competition (if not price above cabs for UberX) at the point at a calibrated position in which potential entrants can’t summon the funds to launch because there’s not enough motivation for regular users to shift.
Of course, once we all have self driving cars they’ll be able to drive us to the pub, then go wait somewhere (go home / charge up?), then pick us up.
Hooray! No need for cabs ever (I hate cabs - those stupid meters ticking up while you’re not moving, really does my head in).
Uber is positioning itself to become a monopoly/monopsony rather than arguing that it has already attained that status.
How can it do that without regulatory control?- see current taxi regulations.
Without regulatory capture anyone can start a small competing company. I’ve worked in IT for a long time. Setting up a basic app/cart/DB isn’t a large hurdle.
It seems many people here a missing what makes Uber, lyft, etc. disruptive, or what it actually disrupts, namely government supported market control. That’s all that’s happening. Seems people would support it without question.
It’s not the system. It’s the precedent. And my only interest is as a citizen who thinks uber really ought to work within the law, as does every other service provider on that level playing field.
I believe in a level, REGULATED, playing field.
Reform the system, don’t look disdainfully down your nose at the current law as you break it and laugh all the way to the bank. That would be organized crime. But by all means WORK to further level the playing field from where it is, but that doesn’t mean steamrollering the existing stated lawful will of your customers, which is get a medallion for my town.
Is that difficult to understand? Or is ignorance of the law a good defense?
I think the barrier to entry is on the other side: the drivers. You can have all the users in your city using your cool new app to find a car, but if there are few drivers it will be a spotty and slow service. And drivers won’t switch without a compelling competitive reason, which is exactly what Uber is attempting to give them right now according to the article (giving out iPhones). I don’t see a competitor being able to compete with that easily without good funding and good marketing (but its not impossible and certainly not as hard as entering the social networking game).
I agree with you that owning a car is a cheaper alternative to only using Uber/Lyft as your transportation method. But just for reference we are a one car household and also use Uber and Car2Go to supplement that. I live on the edge of Seattle and bus service is good during core commuting times so I use it regularly for that. Outside of that, I use Car2Go/Uber if I’m going out for the evening and don’t want to keep track of my car, or if I can’t take the car because someone else is using it. I probably only use either service once a month so its better than getting a second car and definitely better than trying to find a taxi outside of the core of downtown.
But it’s not a level playing field, and it’s regulated in favor of the current taxi cartels, who use political maneuvering to make sure it stays regulated in their favor.
Is Uber basically your backup for when a Car2Go isn’t available nearby?
But just for reference we are a one car household
Yes, that makes sense. So, a personal car is available when it’s needed.
I probably only use either service once a month so its better than getting a second car and definitely better than trying to find a taxi outside of the core of downtown.
That’s sounds very reasonable to me in that circumstance. By having access to a shared car in your household along with Car2Go and perhap Uber as a backup for Car2Go, it would seem you’ve got a good system that beats the expense of a second car.
It looks like it’s a situation where YMMV depending externalities involved. (Yes, horrible YMMV pun intended.)
It is according to the law.
By all means, they should conspire to commit fraud, using telecommunications devices. No worries here, couldn’t imagine a better course of action for them.
As for me, I’m a member of my community, and I support the system, flawed as it is, because it can change. I happen to not really love some aspects of the medallion system, but the regulated rates and mandated insurance coverages are pretty helpful. Plenty of work to be done, but again, my point which you seem to get away from at the first opportunity is that there IS a current system.
Right? So uber breaks the law, and I have some right to be bothered by that, or are we going to argue about what I have a right to think and feel? Wouldn’t that be typical. Judge away Heather.
