Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 527 posts

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

#511

Post by deaddodo »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #176
trustfundbaby wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also helps that Europe and its cities are ... smaller.

I don't know if you're thinking about area or population, but by either metric London is bigger than any city in the US, and has a much better public transport system.

> but by either metric London is bigger than any city in the US

That's not even NEAR true.

Los Angeles metro is 12,562 sq km, whilst "Greater London" is 1,569 sq km.

The LA Metro has 12.8m residents, while GL has 8.6m.

So, by either metric, they're much smaller.

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

#512

Post by CalRobert »

sokoloff wrote: post #442
CalRobert wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bicycles and Land Rovers are both operated on the street. Humans are on the street as well, with varying degrees of protection. I often use the street while mounted on a bicycle. If my skull is crushed by a Land Rover's tire that will be a markedly different experience from my skull being hit by a bicycle tire. Please elaborate; I don't really understand what you mean.

GP's point was that bicycles are fairly often operated on sidewalks. Percentage-wise, way more frequently than cars/trucks are operated on sidewalks.

GP's point was asinine as well. They have failed to address the core issue - the difference between operating a two+ tonne metal box and a 15 kilo bicycle, and how getting hit by either of those varies.

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

#513

Post by wcummings »

Karunamon wrote: post #363
subpixel wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace "poor" with "black" and you have the reason public transportation has been suppressed in large parts of the US. When I lived in Atlanta a suburban city official explained that "we all know the sort of people who hang around bus stops" while killing plans to expand bus service.

I'm sorry but that official's statement does not even kinda imply race. Like it or not, bus stops and train stations accessible by everyone are hotbeds of panhandling, pickpockets, and sometimes worse. An area where people just pass through on their way to somewhere else far away, distracted and in a hurry, is a great place for criminal behavior.

Train stations are as safe or safer than the surrounding areas if crime statistics are to be believed.

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

#515

Post by cr1895 »

gydfi wrote: post #493
cr1895 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is true for you where you live, but it is certainly not true in other places.

I dunno. Go anywhere in the world and look at how billionaires and Presidents get around. Do they catch buses or do they choose to get around in private, possibly chauffeured, vehicles? (Let me just pre-empt someone's example of some billionaire somewhere who loves catching buses, I'm sure there's one out there somewhere.)

Frankly who cares how Presidents and billionaires get around? It's entirely irrelevant to your unsubstantiated claim that "public transport is intrinsically a worse and less convenient experience than having a private driver."

For what it's worth, the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte cycles to work just like most everyone else in the Netherlands.

Netherlands, of course, being an example of a place having public transport which is exceptionally good and quite often more convenient and more practical than having a private chauffer.

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

#516

Post by Nadya »

malandrew wrote: post #508
Frondo wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public transit doesn't need to be profitable. It's a public good. It's one of the things we all pay a little for to have access to as part of living in a city or community. They shouldn't lose too much money or be too expensive to run, but that's the conversation to have, not how much profit they generate.

It is exactly this attitude that leads to cost disease. If the government absolutely must handle some need, I still expect them to be efficient and constantly improve productivity: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost...

You can be as efficient as possible and work towards improving productivity and still lose money. That's exactly why those sorts of things are supported by taxes.

And with how much Japan has innovated and improved their railways over the years I don't think this really applies to them. Maybe more of an American thing where we've spent $400,000,000,000 (and expected to spend $1,500,000,000,000) on a "one size fits all" fighter jet for our military that's been a complete failure in nearly every regard.

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

#517

Post by patrickaljord »

jarjoura wrote: post #250
patrickaljord wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately you, and many others are the ones benefitting from drivers being underpaid. To be fair, these drivers would be out of jobs without Uber. They are not qualified enough to find better paying jobs. Being underpaid is still better than not being paid at all. However, there's a limit to how little Uber can pay its drivers before they start looking for better paying jobs elsewhere. Uber needs to balance thi…

That's not entirely fair or accurate to call them out on lack of skill. Many of the drivers I've met along the way over the years have all enjoyed the flexibility. College kids making extra party/food money, stay at home moms who are avoiding being bored. Just the other day I had a driver who was in between jobs and was using the time for interviews. Any serious driver who is full time will most likely move up to the…

Sure, most of the happy Uber drivers (and there are many obviously if not the service wouldn't grow so much) are the ones you describe. The ones that are not so happy are the ones that rely on Uber to put food on the table, these people tend to lack skills to find better jobs (usually because they were born in underprivileged areas). Some of these people bet a bit too much on their Uber driving carrer at the start and now they're angry. Which is understable but it is also true that no one forced them to make that investment.

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

#518

Post by erroneousfunk »

ryhamz wrote: post #242
mahyarm wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH, driving is a harder skill to learn than being a McDonalds fry cook.

So is speaking fluent English (even as a native speaker). The thing is that both are so common that they aren't really skills in the US market. Knowing how to drive is nearly ubiquitous in the US in the 18+ year old population. So, let's say the metric is "additional training required after age 18". Driving: likely none. McDonalds: likely a little!

Being a professional driver (even aided by GPS and Waze) and speaking fluent English are absolutely valuable skills on the US market.

One in five US residents speaks a language other than English at home. Of those that speak a language other than English, only 58% speak English "very well" Older people are less likely to speak English "very well" than younger people. https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acs-22.pdf

So when you're looking at the bottom 10% or so of the workforce, speaking fluent English is a HUGELY marketable job skill.

Also, yes, a lot of people can drive. But, again, we're looking at the bottom segment of the workforce. It's easier to find "absolute numbers" rather than percentages, but according to one source only 89% of US adults are licensed to drive http://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/11/07/americans-arent-as-dep... Multiple studies of the prevalence of government issued photo IDs (not just driver's licenses) corresponds to this: http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2012/jul/11/eric-...

And if you want to drive for Uber, you need to meet Uber's requirements. You need to be 21 or older. You need to have 3 years of driving experience (you can't just go out and get a license if you decide you want to drive for Uber). Clean driving record, background check, no criminal history at all in the last 7 years...

You need to have a clean 4-door sedan in good condition that can pass an inspection.

Even if you manage to jump through all those hoops, driving for Uber can be customer service in the extreme. Sure, I can drive myself to the grocery store and back like a champ, but Uber drivers are driving on unfamiliar roads to unknown destinations every day. And they're doing it with a paying customer in the backseat. I live in Boston, and there are certain sections of town where the GPS routinely doesn't work/jumps around, and those sections happen to be a minefield of winding one-way streets and construction.

How do you deal with GPS issues? Surprise construction? Traffic that Waze didn't predict? How do you mollify customers when things go wrong? Can you drive defensively and still make a timely arrival to your destination? I've taken a lot of Ubers and have seen some REALLY bad drivers, and some really fantastic ones that handled the car like a pro.

My point is, working as a cook at McDonalds requires far fewer resources and job skills than driving an Uber, hands down. You could make a more compelling argument for working the register, but cooking fries is trivial and requires very few skills or resources.

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

#519

Post by erroneousfunk »

Fomite wrote: post #118
dawnerd wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel Uber does a (slightly) better job vetting their drivers. I've had a few very questionable rides with Lyft. Most drivers are great but I've had more bad drivers on lyft.

I've had more poor, "I'm in a taxi cab in all but name" drives on Uber.

I used to have those a lot, but I think Uber's eliminated a lot of the "off duty taxi drivers" in the last couple years. I used to get picked up by literal taxi cabs when I called for an Uber pretty frequently. Now, "marked, taxi, or salvage vehicles" are not allowed.

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

#520

Post by foldr »

paulddraper wrote: post #498
baddox wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow your argument. This car example seems to qualify under your definition of thought crime.

Sorry for being unclear. I mean to say that intent (and other aspects of mental state) can influence the severity of punishment. It shouldn't determine whether something is legal, however. Hitting pedestrians ought to be illegal regardless of whether you intended to do it or not.

Accidentally killing someone is not, in general, illegal. It typically would be if you did it while driving a car, as in this instance it would probably result from negligence on your part. But if you, say, trip over, bump into someone and then accidentally knock them off a ledge, you haven't committed a crime.
Post reply on HN