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Waze Carpool

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Re: Waze Carpool

#71

Post by ghaff »

yoran wrote: post #42
maeln wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you live but in my country (France), carpooling is very popular. Waze being a very popular application here, it's very probable that they manage to take on BlaBlaCar which basicly has a monopoly when it comes to carpooling here.

I've always wondered why something like BlaBlaCar does not exist in the US. Or why BlaBlaCar does not expand to the US. True, people are more used to taking domestic flights because of distances but I can think of routes, such as between NYC and Boston, where carpooling could be a good alternative to the train and cheap buses. I'm sure there are others too.

Downtown to downtown, bus is pretty cheap though. They all advertise low-ball rates and I'm not sure what a more realistic price is but it seems to be in the range of $20-$40 or so.

Re: Waze Carpool

#72

Post by Cthulhu_ »

dawhizkid wrote: post #12

The reason why I would not consider Google to legitimately compete with Uber/Lyft at scale in this arena is because it's not part of their nature to staff customer support at the level required to run operationally-intensive businesses. The rate in which something goes wrong in the real world (esp where money in exchanged) is much higher than in a pure software world, and Google is going to try to take the FAQ/chatbo…

Maybe Waze does customer support as a sub-company of Google?

Re: Waze Carpool

#74

Post by vonnik »

It's hilarious that this came out the day after Steve Yegge lambasted Google for failing to innovate. This is a perfect example of Google arriving half way through the race. Everyone else is on the final lap, they're on the first, and they think they're running neck and neck.

Re: Waze Carpool

#75

Post by Cthulhu_ »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #54
cornholio wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Uber, they appear to talk about a real carsharing system, as opposed to a taxi service with a lower entry barrier. The prices will be much lower since we are talking about the marginal cost of adding another passenger to an already happening trip - and with full info on where people are going, Waze effectively has an endless supply of trips that are happening, it's just a matter of displaying a pop-up "Hey, Al…

You just described the pure software world solution. What happens when the commuter I pick up vomits in my car? Or steals something from my car? What happens if I get picked up by a person who changes their mind about where they're going? Or decide to take an unplanned detour to go to the store, or back home to grab the laptop they forgot, or to score some heroin? What happens when the driver gropes me? Or I grope th…

That's probably a similar, if not the same problems that AirBnB has to deal with regularly; how do they solve it? IIRC though, for that one it's more of an outlier - most people are decent people.

Re: Waze Carpool

#76

Post by pizzetta »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #72
dawhizkid wrote: post #12

The reason why I would not consider Google to legitimately compete with Uber/Lyft at scale in this arena is because it's not part of their nature to staff customer support at the level required to run operationally-intensive businesses. The rate in which something goes wrong in the real world (esp where money in exchanged) is much higher than in a pure software world, and Google is going to try to take the FAQ/chatbo…

Maybe Waze does customer support as a sub-company of Google?

Google does decent support for their paid services. Free is different but paid tends to be decent.

Re: Waze Carpool

#77

Post by Cthulhu_ »

gcb0 wrote: post #26
scandox wrote: post #13

I was in Israel last year and they just love Waze. Everything is Waze this and Waze that. They have an absolute belief in Waze as a brand. Most have no idea it is owned by Google, nor seemed very interested when I mentioned it. So I'd say if they can get this working anywhere, it will be in a traffic-riddled country full of people who obsess over journey times and who absolutely love this brand.

oh and the ads! waze in Israel shows ads on the screen every time your speed is close to stopped, and then slide them up when you start moving. it's awful. irresponsible. and gave me lots of anxiety every single time. it's probably fine for people that just want traffic info, but for actual gps guidance usage it is hell.

Can't you just give them money to get rid of that? I mean they have to make money somehow.

Re: Waze Carpool

#78

Post by tawrahim »

ruairidhwm wrote: post #59

Looks just like BlaBlaCar. Nice.

I spent about 3 months in Europe and I was totally amazed with the efficiency of BlaBlaCar! That actually ended up inspiring me to work on http://www.thetripbuddyapp.com/ - To be honest I wished transportation in the US was as efficient as Europe.

Re: Waze Carpool

#79

Post by cornholio »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #54
cornholio wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Uber, they appear to talk about a real carsharing system, as opposed to a taxi service with a lower entry barrier. The prices will be much lower since we are talking about the marginal cost of adding another passenger to an already happening trip - and with full info on where people are going, Waze effectively has an endless supply of trips that are happening, it's just a matter of displaying a pop-up "Hey, Al…

You just described the pure software world solution. What happens when the commuter I pick up vomits in my car? Or steals something from my car? What happens if I get picked up by a person who changes their mind about where they're going? Or decide to take an unplanned detour to go to the store, or back home to grab the laptop they forgot, or to score some heroin? What happens when the driver gropes me? Or I grope th…

The same thing that happens in the non-Waze case: you kick them out, call the police, get mugged etc.

The pure software world exists from Google's perspective, they provide zero support and then it's just a matter of individual choice if you want to use the service or not.

Google can go a long way into making this significantly safer than random pick-up: you can select female only drivers or riders, only riders from your area, they can implement a minimal account age that uniquely identifies the wazer simply via ride history - even if they use an anonymous login and fake credit card data, and so on.

It's a bit harder to protect against rogue riders since they need to be able to use the app immediately, but still, phone number and credit card verification is much better the letting a random stranger into your car. If not too intrusive, they could even ask riders for a frontal picture that the driver can verify and that remains on record. So for people who would carpool anyway, it's a much better option.

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