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Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

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Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#181

Post by dvtrn »

vinay427 wrote: post #64
dvtrn wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the first time in 11 years I'm thinking of switching off T-Mobile after relocating to Chicago. Much of my day is spent in the loop and despite their best claims buildings are a bane. Can anyone recommend a carrier with better QOS here or is this just inherent to my new life in a giant city? I'll get over it and adapt, just keeping my options open.

The GP was referring to a problem with GPS, not their cellular connection. In any case, I haven't noticed any issues with T-mobile in San Francisco, so maybe T-mobile has some weaknesses unique to the Chicago area.

I'm fully aware but in the context of GPS reception on cellular devices--prompting me to ask what I thought was a tangential question. Apologies that this was such a severe faux pas to end up downvoted into the negatives.

Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#182

Post by tvanantwerp »

smudgymcscmudge wrote: post #38
tvanantwerp wrote: post #28

I've frequently used Uber Pool, and have noticed that it's started forcing a waiting period of a minute to "find the best match". I've also noticed that I'm getting matched with drivers further and further away from me, frequently waiting up to ten minutes. The matching algorithms sure don't seem improved, so maybe they're just covering up a decreasing number of drivers in my area.

Have you checked your rating lately? Maybe it’s getting harder to find drivers willing to pick you up.

4.83

Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#183

Post by scrollaway »

StavrosK wrote: post #163
tomp wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about Beat? I heard it works different than Uber, you can actually choose your driver based on your desired characteristics (e.g. speaks English, has A/C, ...).

Beat is pretty much the best of both worlds for me. It doesn't have Uber's "let's flaunt all the laws because disruption" attitude, but it still has all the advantages, and every single driver I've booked with Beat has been fantastic. I'm never getting a taxi without using Beat these days.

Hm. I'll try it out... Thanks for the recommendation.

Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#184

Post by StavrosK »

scrollaway wrote: post #183
StavrosK wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beat is pretty much the best of both worlds for me. It doesn't have Uber's "let's flaunt all the laws because disruption" attitude, but it still has all the advantages, and every single driver I've booked with Beat has been fantastic. I'm never getting a taxi without using Beat these days.

Hm. I'll try it out... Thanks for the recommendation.

No problem, you'll love it. The best is that you can pay via credit card so you don't need to fuss with change at the end of the trip, you just get out of the taxi and that's it.

Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#185

Post by ta2987 »

cm2012 wrote: post #105
elvirs wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, as a weekend uber driver that drives only when prices go up I have to tell you that those 7-8 dollar trips pay us only 3 dollars and some change. Driving 7-10 minutes to pick you up and then drive for 7-10 minutes to your destination is not worth it because that comes to $10 per hour minus gas and maintenance and depreciation. Drivers have to pay for lease/finance, maintenance, insurance and still pay rent on t…

That's why I always tip $5 on short trips.

Sucks to be you.

Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#187

Post by cm2012 »

gambiting wrote: post #149
cm2012 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I always tip $5 on short trips.

Stop with this already. You are basically sending a letter to Uber, saying "hey, I think it's ok for you to pay drivers like crap, because I'm absolutely willing to subsidize them instead! Thanks!"

Uber doesn't really set prices. Supply and demand does.

Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#188

Post by askafriend »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #180
askafriend wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, but when I get into a car it's not Uber Maps on the phone, it's Google Maps. So I'm not very concerned about a guy who worked at Uber for less than two years. Navigation might be Google Maps or Waze, but everything else is Uber. My point is that Uber is 100% serious about mapping and they are investing a ton of resources into it. They're likely one of the few players who are doing this at scale, international…

> They are absolutely 100% disruptive (even more so if you're a woman and safety is important to you). Ah, I thought things like "God mode", Boobr, and doxxing critics felt creepy and unsafe. But that's just me, and I'm not a woman. > There's a reason drivers drive for these services. Sure. We like to call those predatory financing and exaggerated claims about compensation. Your buzzword laden defense of Uber misses…

> Ah, I thought things like "God mode", Boobr, and doxxing critics felt creepy and unsafe. But that's just me, and I'm not a woman.

Have you talked to actual women? Ask them if they feel safer in an Uber, in a Taxi or in BART. Seriously go try this experiment. Assuming you're in the Bay Area, ask 10 of your closest female friends.

Also remember that Uber is just one ride sharing company.

> Sure. We like to call those predatory financing and exaggerated claims about compensation. Your buzzword laden defense of Uber misses the point though: scaling Uber is significantly easier than scaling a transit agency like an airline or BART.

People are not stupid. If it was a raw deal for them then they'll jump ship (there are huge communities of drivers that constantly crunch numbers, share spreadsheets, etc). You can drop in and drop out at any time. That's one of the benefits of doing Uber. Work at McDonald's? Now you have to fight to get enough work hours for pay, you can be overworked, you can be shortchanged, you can have grueling schedules, you can't take vacations easily, the actual work is stressful....have you sincerely ever worked a job like that?

> Your buzzword laden defense of Uber misses the point though: scaling Uber is significantly easier than scaling a transit agency like an airline or BART.

I think you forget that the OP that prompted my response said "I genuinely don't know what their expenses are other than giving away shit for free", which is what I was responding to.

If you genuinely agree with the OP and you've made up your mind, then I don't think there's anything I can say to convince either of you that scaling Uber isn't a matter of giving away shit for free and building an app in a weekend.

You're welcome to believe what you want.

Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#189

Post by lsc »

Shivetya wrote: post #160
lsc wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If I understand the math correctly, BART claims about 126 million rides (2015) and cost $906M (~$7 a ride, comparable to some uber pool fares) I think a better comparison than total cost is how much money they are losing. The difference between what I'm paying and what I feel like I'm getting with uber feels like... a lot, and that lines up with everything I've read of their financial situation. If you are willing t…

BART and other big city light rail systems are plagued with billions in deferred maintenance because while politicians love ribbon cutting and pontificating they balk when the bill comes due. Across the US there is about a hundred billion in such deferred maintenance and the vast majority of it is for light rail systems that were built more because they could and sounded good than built where they would be used. Wors…

> BART and other big city light rail systems are plagued with billions in deferred maintenance because while politicians love ribbon cutting and pontificating they balk when the bill comes due.

Yeah, that is part of why I support systems that lean towards higher up front and lower ongoing costs.

>plus in the current meta where "soon" there will be self driving cars and buses all which are EV it will completely transform public transit. I just hope to be there will it does.

Self-driving won't help with congestion problems. unshared on-demand vehicles (and it doesn't really matter here if the on-demand vehicle is driven by a human gig economy worker or a computer) help with parking, but if anything, they make congestion worse, as they've gotta drive to pick me up in addition to driving to my destination. (of course, shared on-demand vehicles can help with congestion, at least when they are shared.)

The only "game changer" here is that potentially a self-driving uber could be cheaper (either by directly lowering operating costs, or if we get the hang of things, by lowering the number of injuries caused by mistakes.)

The problem is that if you charge less, I'm going to use the non-shared on-demand service more often; I only use the shared service to save a few bucks.

My point here is that we can probably predict what self driving cars will get us by looking at what heavily subsidized ride sharing services get us. self-driving cars might even get us less; if I could get uber-like point to point without having to park service out of a personally-owned car at a price point that isn't much more than a regular personally-owned car? I'd probably share rides a whole lot less than I do now.

Re: Uber is experimenting with letting riders wait longer for a cheaper fare

#190

Post by gambiting »

cm2012 wrote: post #187
gambiting wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop with this already. You are basically sending a letter to Uber, saying "hey, I think it's ok for you to pay drivers like crap, because I'm absolutely willing to subsidize them instead! Thanks!"

Uber doesn't really set prices. Supply and demand does.

By that logic, no one sets prices for anything - Coca-Cola doesn't set a price of a can of coke, the law of supply and demand does.
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