SF Yellow Cab to file for bankruptcy

I've never had any of these experiences when riding in cabs. The cars were always ok, the drivers were polite and well spoken, they took direct routes and never demanded cash.

I use Uber for one simple reason: It's 30% cheaper than a cab. It isn't the quality of the cars, the personality of the drivers or the nature of the service. All of those things vary from case to case for every transportation service. Uber's only compelling feature is their lower price.

From what I understand, the average Uber driver makes very little money, < $9/hr after Uber's fees and vehicle maintenance costs. And the low customer prices are effectively being subsidized by venture capital money. How long can this last? Could this be another Groupon situation, where the Ponzi scheme doesn't fall apart until after Uber's IPO?

This is not surprising at all.

Traveling around the world, cab drivers are often times some of my favorite people. I like the profession, generally finding cab drivers to be interesting and knowledgeable of local areas. In San Francisco, I try to take regular cabs when I can just to meet people and support the old profession and working class folks.

Bay Area, about a week ago. It was dark, cold, and raining around 5:30pm. Myself and the wife, who is at term and therefore obviously pregnant, got off at the train station and attempted to take a cab to alleviate the few minute wait in the rain for a Lyft or Uber.

I didn't have any cash. I know by now that you have to ask if they take credit card ahead of time; fine.

Me: "Hi, do you take credit card?"

Them: "No, no credit card. It's broken."

Me: "You've got stickers on your window that say you take them?"

Them: "Well, how far are you going?"

Me: "No thanks, I'll try the next one.

Me: "Hello, do you take credit card?"

Them: "Maybe. Where are you going? Minimum 15 dollar."

I know that it's about 12 dollars to my house. I tell him where we're going, and he just shakes his head.

Me: "Fine, screw it. I'll just get a Lyft."

I pulled out my phone, standing in front of a line of Taxis, and got a Lyft. About 6-8 minutes later, they picked us up, and took us on our way.

An entire line of cab drivers, my pregnant wife and I standing there in the rain and cold, and not a single one of them trying to actually take the fare.

During the 15 minutes or so of this interaction, and us waiting for Lyft, not a single cab was taken by the very strong flow of people leaving the train station at rush hour. Lots of pickups from friends and family. Plenty of Uber cars. Pink mustaches in quite a few windshields.

It was like something out of a movie. An entire line of real people, sitting there in their cars, often complaining about a lack of business, or how times have changed, or how insurance is X, or Uber is Y.

Not a single one with enough gumption to step up to the plate, smile, and say: "Where to mister?"

The first and last yellow cab I took in San Francisco: the driver didn't know where the Presidio was, took us somewhere completely different, and then argued with us for a solid five minutes insisting we'd given him the wrong address (we hadn't, multiple times, with the zip code, explaining that it was near the Golden Gate bridge). The driver had a GPS unit in the car. I couldn't even get angry; brain was already saturated with amazement.

I haven't used Uber a lot, but when I have the drivers universally love it. I've had them spend an entire 20 minute trip telling me how much the love Uber and how great it is to work for/with them. Are they really exploitative or is this just perception from outsiders?

Boston only started to unionize in 2007, for example. Prior to the labor union being formed, the taxi cartel has long had an artificially restricted monopoly on medallions, which ensures a lack of competition and discourages innovation, causing them to stagnate and become ripe for disruption. I'm sure having unionized labor doesn't help in keeping costs down and the driver unions have gone on strike over things like requiring GPS, but you have failed to demonstrate that the labor union is the primary cause of their current troubles. If that were the case, you ought to be able to show that prior to 2007, Boston's taxi companies were constantly innovating and upping their game and that it's only after unionization that they have stagnated.

In fact, the GPS strike was due to the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission enacting rules that required the use of GPS -- this was something that the taxi companies could have introduced themselves if they were at all competitive, but due to their cartel status why should they even bother?

[0] http://theunionnews.blogspot.com/2007/08/steelworkers-organi...