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Lyft Is Said to Seek New Funding as Its Rival Uber Stumbles

nytimes.com

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Re: Lyft Is Said to Seek New Funding as Its Rival Uber Stumbles

#421

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

mercutio2 wrote: post #403
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Motion sickness. If I read in a car (whether paper or screen) then I feel like crap for the rest of the day, basically. It's not at all uncommon. Plus the train has tables, 240V sockets, wifi (which selects the best from several different providers, so better coverage than my phone), all of that. There are seats available from our station on pretty much every train, and the journey time is more reliable than the car.

I'm a huge fan of trains and hate cars, but the motion sickness bifurcation you describe is unusual, so I would avoid trying to use motion sickness to carry water in pro-train arguments. The vast majority of people who experience motion sickness in cars will also experience motion sickness in trains. It took years for me to really understand why so many people don't love trains like I do: motion sickness makes the fr…

Sure. In this particular thread I'm just answering two generalised statements ("Public transport is intrinsically worse", "Why can't you work in a car?") rather than making a universal case.

I'd be genuinely interested to know stats for car and train motion sickness, though: I haven't found any on a quick Google. Motion sickness in general appears to be ~30% of the population. Obviously it's not a simple scale: my wife, for example, will get car-sick (without reading) on a fast, bendy journey more easily than I will; neither of us get train-sick; I get sea-sick much worse than she does.

Re: Lyft Is Said to Seek New Funding as Its Rival Uber Stumbles

#422

Post by rad88 »

untog wrote: post #383
smileysteve wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tipping has been studied and has been associated with discrimination on gender, race, and class. http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/restaurants/a23132/why-tip...

It's a long way to go from that to saying that Uber have enacted a policy specifically because of it.

Uber enacted their tipping policy to keep total control over prices and moreover to keep prices low.

When they were sued by their own workers because of this and had their backs against the wall, they had to claim it was because of this racist hand-wavy BS.

It was a ret-con and an incredibly cynical and insulting thing to do, but that's now the official reason they didn't allow tips.

Re: Lyft Is Said to Seek New Funding as Its Rival Uber Stumbles

#423

Post by naravara »

nojvek wrote: post #76
mdorazio wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: one of the reasons I prefer Uber is that it doesn't allow or encourage in-app tipping. Tipping sucks, is economically dysfunctional, and socially awkward. If the drivers aren't making enough from base fares then the fares need to go up - it's not my job to be a charity.

But when a driver goes above and beyond, it feels good to tip. One driver offered me water and a towel when it was too hot. He genuinely gave a shit about me and lyft made tipping easy. I found lyft's customer service better. Honesty lyft's pink branding and mustache logo gives off a fun and underdog vibe. Not many companies go for pink. Their 50% female executive represention probably plays a role. Uber on the other…

>But when a driver goes above and beyond, it feels good to tip. One driver offered me water and a towel when it was too hot. He genuinely gave a shit about me and lyft made tipping easy. I found lyft's customer service better.

Other people's livelihoods shouldn't depend on your sense of generosity. When I go above and beyond at my job I get a pat on the back and satisfaction of doing a good job. I don't do good work out of mercenary sensibilities.

Re: Lyft Is Said to Seek New Funding as Its Rival Uber Stumbles

#424

Post by thex10 »

c0ntrarian wrote: post #358
wcummings wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Yes, but poor people use public transportation to come from bad neighborhoods to good neighborhoods to rob us! We must ban all expansion of public transportation!" This is why the (Boston) red line doesn't extend to Arlington.

I am sorry, good sir, but I must vehemently disagree with your reasoning. Arlington is not such a bad area, especially when compared to Dorchester, to which the Red Line does connect. In addition, the Red Line links through Mattapan cough Murderpan via trolley. So, I consider your comment thoroughly debunked.

Wow such confidence. Too bad your understanding is lacking.

Arlington is indeed not such a bad area. But folks in Arlington and Lexington (the planned terminus for the red line) were the ones that objected to the expansion. They didn't want increased traffic (all the people trying to park to take the train would make their towns less quaint and all), and they didn't want the urbans/poors/etc to be able to easily visit.

Re: Lyft Is Said to Seek New Funding as Its Rival Uber Stumbles

#425

Post by Nadya »

devy wrote: post #407
mtw wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is reliable public transport. The way i see it, Uber is half price because it is sustained by VC money and ever-decreasing pay for drivers. Taxis or Ubers are in theory your own private vehicle or limo. It should be special occasions. Because you're late to the meeting. Or have to go the airport. Or because you had a drink too much. Having a private vehicle for everyday transport is a luxury and it shoul…

I totally concur with the OP and the solution is NOT public transit. Public transit is designed to maximize the service to cover majority of the population but NOT 100% of the use cases and population due to the limited funding and resources governments are allowed to allocate to public transit. I've been to 20 out of 30 world's mega cities. None that I've seen has a "reliable public transportation" that covers all t…

For all of your mega city visits, have you been to Tokyo? If so what did you find unreliable about it? The one criticism I can see is when transport is slowed/halted due to typhoons.

I found that the public transportation in most of Japan was well enough, such that I never thought to myself "If only I had a car/rental right now..."

Not to mention how punctual the transportation is. Compared to where I live, where delays of 10-45+ minutes are expected, the trains in Japan would apologize for being even a single minute late. The three weeks I took the JP Rail I never had a single train be late.

On the Yamanote Line, the longest I had to wait to catch a train to another part of town was 4 minutes. To me, that's absurd. My local station only runs a train once every few hours and if you miss your train you're waiting 3-4 hours for the next one to arrive. Missing a train in Tokyo is a mild inconvenience instead of a waste of most of your day.

Re: Lyft Is Said to Seek New Funding as Its Rival Uber Stumbles

#426

Post by [deleted] »

foxfired wrote: post #127

Here is how I see it. I rely on those rides to go to work every single day and here what it (would) costs me. Uber: $250 a month.(Majority) Lyft: $500 a month (Whenever Uber is too expensive) Bus : $100 a month (1h:15 for 6 miles and 3 buses... No) Politics and all internal conflicts aside, there is a need for these services whether we like it or not. When I need to make a decision in the morning I take whatever is t…

[deleted]

Re: Lyft Is Said to Seek New Funding as Its Rival Uber Stumbles

#427

Post by [deleted] »

foxfired wrote: post #127

Here is how I see it. I rely on those rides to go to work every single day and here what it (would) costs me. Uber: $250 a month.(Majority) Lyft: $500 a month (Whenever Uber is too expensive) Bus : $100 a month (1h:15 for 6 miles and 3 buses... No) Politics and all internal conflicts aside, there is a need for these services whether we like it or not. When I need to make a decision in the morning I take whatever is t…

[deleted]

Re: Lyft Is Said to Seek New Funding as Its Rival Uber Stumbles

#428

Post by pentae »

foxfired wrote: post #127

Here is how I see it. I rely on those rides to go to work every single day and here what it (would) costs me. Uber: $250 a month.(Majority) Lyft: $500 a month (Whenever Uber is too expensive) Bus : $100 a month (1h:15 for 6 miles and 3 buses... No) Politics and all internal conflicts aside, there is a need for these services whether we like it or not. When I need to make a decision in the morning I take whatever is t…

As a consumer, the only power I have to deal with this situation is to tip my drivers who give good service. I actually hate tipping, and think it should be included, but I don't have any control over Ubers business model. So I tip. Unless the driver annoyed me for whatever reason, then I don't.

Re: Lyft Is Said to Seek New Funding as Its Rival Uber Stumbles

#429

Post by cmdrfred »

naravara wrote: post #416
cmdrfred wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree but the issue becomes any sweeping legislation or tax increase to fund such a program will negatively many millions of people without any benefit to them. These people are marginalized already and can't take a hit like that so their more wealthy counterparts in the cities can have a higher standard of living. It can only really be implemented at the city level in a fair manner, thus it isn't really a national…

>I agree but the issue becomes any sweeping legislation or tax increase to fund such a program will negatively many millions of people without any benefit to them. Except, you know. Less drunk driving, less traffic, less pollution, fewer road fatalities, and less tax money spent on road maintenance. Those little things. And what "many millions of people?" Public transit is mostly paid for by municipal taxes, not fede…

> Except, you know. Less drunk driving, less traffic, less pollution, fewer road fatalities, and less tax money spent on road maintenance. Those little things.

How do people who are not served by public transit feel any of these effects?

> And what "many millions of people?" Public transit is mostly paid for by municipal taxes, not federal.

My point exactly, this is how it should be but municipalities are rather cash strapped at the moment so you likely won't see increased spending on anything. Thus "more public transit" isn't really possible without federal intervention.

> Federal taxes paid for a bloated highway system that negatively impacts many people even though we have long since hit the point of diminishing returns on more highway infrastructure.

This ignores the positive impacts. If only local roads existed very little trade would be able to take place vastly lowering GDP. Can the system be run in a more cost effective manner, certainly but that would require pushing out the public sector unions that demand unrealistic wages. Pick your poison.

Re: Lyft Is Said to Seek New Funding as Its Rival Uber Stumbles

#430

Post by paulddraper »

baddox wrote: post #413
paulddraper wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thoughtcrime, they called it. - George Orwell, 1984

I don't see the comparison. One is criminalizing citizens having negative thoughts about an oppressive government. The other is prohibiting rulers from promising to discriminate against a religion and then passing a thinly-veiled bill to do so.

If an action that is normally legal becomes illegal if you have wrong thoughts while doing it, you are essentially legislating thoughtcrimes.

The immigration suspension ought to be legal or illegal because of what it is, not what its author thinks.

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