321–330 of 406 posts
A few other similar services http://libretaxi.org most of it open source except dependency on telegram http://www.twogo.com by SAP For young adults hopskipdrive.com ridezum.com zemcar.com One thing to note is that there are two apps you need from waze.The waze app is for driver of the carpool.Carpool app is for the rider.
I think you're missing Scoop.
I use this (and Scoop) in the Bay Area. It's slower and requires some decorum. A 25-minute trip may take, including waiting, 45. And a ride I might have spent on the phone or napping requires, at the very least, respectful silence. On the plus side, it's far cheaper (three or four dollars versus $10 for Line/Pool and $20 for X/Line). And conversations with drivers are usually quite delightful. On the latter, I am mix…
After all, carpooling, when done right, really starts with just basic geography - who is near you, and who is not.
We've seen incredible stories of the people we're connecting - from job advice to new tennis partners -- and even consolation over lost loved ones. One of the beautiful things of that type of community (that we think we have with Scoop) is it's an unexpected forcing function to look outside your normal bubble - which seems harder and harder to come by these days.
The really big difference between Waze Carpool and Uber/Lyft is that the driver is paid at most 54 cents a mile (e.g., gas money), and Waze will only match the driver with passengers for two trips / day. So it is not designed to be something where the driver will make a living, but really just as a way for a driver to get some company, maybe take advantage of the HOV lanes, and it gets some cars off of the road to re…
The really big difference between Waze Carpool and Uber/Lyft is that the driver is paid at most 54 cents a mile (e.g., gas money), and Waze will only match the driver with passengers for two trips / day. So it is not designed to be something where the driver will make a living, but really just as a way for a driver to get some company, maybe take advantage of the HOV lanes, and it gets some cars off of the road to re…
With Scoop, for example, all the people who Driver are just everyday folks. They're commuters like you, me, and the Riders they get matched up with. The economic incentives are like a bonus - where the real value is the improved time in the car and the time savings from the carpool lane (where applicable). And of course, other benefits around sustainability and parking that really impact and motivate some commuters.
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…
We believe that software can certainly scale your support efforts and solve a lot of the core problems / answer a lot of the questions. But commuting is an everyday, twice-a-day activity and having a place to go for questions and needs is natural.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Google is absolutely not responsible for the rapes and muggings perpetrated by users of Adwords or Waze. If you or a family member used Waze Carpool, and got raped or murdered, are you going to sit there quietly and say "oh well, not Google's fault"? As a engineer providing a software solution, it's great to sit in an office desk and say "there are precise legal limits", it's exact, precise, formal, and correct. Lik…
Could ask the same question to an auto engineer who's relative dies in a car crash. Should he quit his job, should we ban cars? While auto safety is important, cars save much more lives than they take - and the economic opportunities they enable drastically change the median quality of life in societies where they are used. In the same way, carsharing is not an enabler of crime, it's much safer than hitchhiking and w…
Just because the law "precisely" says it's not the carmaker's fault, doesn't mean the carmaker is not "on the hook" or share some of the legal burden.
I am not saying that we should ban cars or ban carsharing. I am saying, if you offer carsharing as a software service, and something goes wrong during that service, you are involved legally. It's not a precise "on/off" switch like launching a software product.
The really big difference between Waze Carpool and Uber/Lyft is that the driver is paid at most 54 cents a mile (e.g., gas money), and Waze will only match the driver with passengers for two trips / day. So it is not designed to be something where the driver will make a living, but really just as a way for a driver to get some company, maybe take advantage of the HOV lanes, and it gets some cars off of the road to re…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
This is exactly how Uber turned into a taxi service. They tried ridesharing, it turns out that people in cars do sketchy things and piss each other off, or worse. I would rather see local grassroots organizations take on this project.
Citation needed. My understanding is that the margins on actual ride-sharing, compared to being a taxi company, were too low for them.
And that they actually started as a black cab car company.
In Seattle or other cities where traffic congestion is such a problem, I'd take someone for free if I could drive in the carpool lanes. I can even imagine someone who could be paid for just being a body in the car by someone really well off.