It's a good idea, and in Georgia there's a program to pay you to car pool (http://gacommuteoptions.com/Save-Your-Commute/Earn-Cash.-Win...).
I see this as something similar. But I was never able to find someone to car pool with.
Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service
41–50 of 486 posts
Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service
#42Honestly I wish they wouldn't try to compete on price. Maybe I'm alone with this, but I'd rather not feel obligated to tip a driver because the ride is so cheap. Pay them a living wage, let me pay the exact fee, and let me not have to carry goddamn cash like I used to in the era of Taxis. e: Addressing common replies: "This is for people commuting already" -- okay, point taken; my point about Uber/Lyft still stands.…
"Living wage"? Are you suggesting that uber and other drivers are all dead? \s (I know "living wage" is the hip buzzword, but it is a poor phrase, is hyperbolic, and creates a false picture that when these workers finish their shift they are going to go find some secluded gutter to die in from malnutrition)
No it doesn't.
Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service
#43read: "Google ride-share is to Uber as Windows Phone is to Android". Late to the party, tragically deficient in first-mover network effect advantage, and on the decline in credibility since they're shutting down all moonshots, including, as we saw as recently as today, halving the staff at Google Fibre. Talk about panic catch-up with no intrinsic advantage, nor vision. "Mountain View, start your photo-copiers". We kn…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Treo was way before Andriod. First mover advantage is rarely an advantage at all. My guess is that google sees this as optionality and testing to get things right like insurance etc. in anticipation of self driving cars. At the very least it allows them to extract more value from Uber when Google finally have self driving cars ready to sell them. I really don't see how Uber is worth…
Makes sense. But they've shown no staying power in any of their other long term initiatives. Google Fibre (halving staff). Self driving car (looking for investors/partners). Robotics (disinvesting). Google+ (firing the boss after 2 years). Glass (debacle buried under the carpet). Motorola (flipped for a few billion pronto and now struggling). Shopping (trounced by Amazon). Cloud? (for second place, Microsoft Azure is ripping them a new one). Music/Video premium services? (spare me as my eyes roll towards anybody else). And they're now miraculously going to do Uber? Which requires enormous long term financial commitment? With the above record? Unlikely. This company knows how to do ads, and that's it. It fails at everything else.
Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service
#44Honestly I wish they wouldn't try to compete on price. Maybe I'm alone with this, but I'd rather not feel obligated to tip a driver because the ride is so cheap. Pay them a living wage, let me pay the exact fee, and let me not have to carry goddamn cash like I used to in the era of Taxis. e: Addressing common replies: "This is for people commuting already" -- okay, point taken; my point about Uber/Lyft still stands.…
I took an Uber home from the train station last week and it was less than $15. I'm not sure how much a taxi would've been, probably at least $25. I don't feel good about it. How can someone provide good service if they're taking home so little? I fear that soon Uber will be overrun with poor service because all the quality drivers have been driven out by low costs.
Then people will stop using it and they'll address it. A lot of drivers are part time and use it just to supplement their income.
Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service
#45Honestly I wish they wouldn't try to compete on price. Maybe I'm alone with this, but I'd rather not feel obligated to tip a driver because the ride is so cheap. Pay them a living wage, let me pay the exact fee, and let me not have to carry goddamn cash like I used to in the era of Taxis. e: Addressing common replies: "This is for people commuting already" -- okay, point taken; my point about Uber/Lyft still stands.…
There should never be an obligation to tip. The whole point of tipping is that it's not obligatory. I get that we've messed that up for a lot of professions, like restaurant servers, but Uber et al have a chance to reset the social norms at least around taxi-esque services and they should take it.
We need to tip in America because the prevalent attitude here is "I don't get paid enough for this shit." It's not so much about paying people a living wage, as much as changing the way people view their jobs and obligations.
Everyone wants to change the world, but how many people will actually pick up a stray piece of trash and throw it in a bin?
Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Once they have a critical mass of robberies, stabbings, etc., then the machine learning can easily filter out undesirable drivers. Not a problem.
Are you ironic? Do you see what's strange in that? Machine learning isn't exempt of racism. Google has a lot of background on people, but it's generally accepted as unethic to filter undesirable people based on generalizations, even if they were statistically correct.
I can't tell if you're continuing the jocular tone of your parent or if you're serious that this is the concern that actually came to your mind first. I charitably hope it's the first.
Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service
#47Honestly I wish they wouldn't try to compete on price. Maybe I'm alone with this, but I'd rather not feel obligated to tip a driver because the ride is so cheap. Pay them a living wage, let me pay the exact fee, and let me not have to carry goddamn cash like I used to in the era of Taxis. e: Addressing common replies: "This is for people commuting already" -- okay, point taken; my point about Uber/Lyft still stands.…
> Honestly I wish they wouldn't try to compete on price.
Waze Carpool is more targeted at actual ridesharing (and designed specifically to support to/from work carpooling), not a taxi service using "ridesharing" as a misleading name.
Its not really trying to compete with price as it is offering a slightly different service (its kind of like UberPOOL, except its really focusing on -- though not strictly limited to -- the case where the driver is also one of the passengers with a need to go to the destination, or from the source, or, ideally, approximately both.)
Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service
#48Honestly I wish they wouldn't try to compete on price. Maybe I'm alone with this, but I'd rather not feel obligated to tip a driver because the ride is so cheap. Pay them a living wage, let me pay the exact fee, and let me not have to carry goddamn cash like I used to in the era of Taxis. e: Addressing common replies: "This is for people commuting already" -- okay, point taken; my point about Uber/Lyft still stands.…
If you've had a nice ride than it makes sense to tip but no one should feel pressured out of obligation.
Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service
#49Honestly I wish they wouldn't try to compete on price. Maybe I'm alone with this, but I'd rather not feel obligated to tip a driver because the ride is so cheap. Pay them a living wage, let me pay the exact fee, and let me not have to carry goddamn cash like I used to in the era of Taxis. e: Addressing common replies: "This is for people commuting already" -- okay, point taken; my point about Uber/Lyft still stands.…
FTA: the price is intended to be low enough that one wouldn't try to use this to be a taxi driver. It reminds me of the days when someone offered to chip in for gas in exchange for carpooling. Disclaimer: I'm a Google employee but have never heard anything about this before.
EDIT: Oh, nevermind.
Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Living wage"? Are you suggesting that uber and other drivers are all dead? \s (I know "living wage" is the hip buzzword, but it is a poor phrase, is hyperbolic, and creates a false picture that when these workers finish their shift they are going to go find some secluded gutter to die in from malnutrition)
No it doesn't.
Frankly, I think that was the intention of the person who coined the term "living wage". But that's perfectly fine. It's like saying "pro-life" instead of saying "anti-choice". Use whatever phrase helps you get your message across.
I'm not in the habit of saying "living wage," but if I wanted to say, "a person can't live on 5 dollars an hour" in a pithy manner, that's what I'd say. A literal-minded person might get annoyed at that, but most people understand that it's an ethical statement, not a literal one.