171–180 of 331 posts
I am a pretty loyal Uber user, and probably spend around $400 a month with them. But... I was stuck out in the cold in the boonies of long island recently, and Uber kept bugging out and not finding rides since I was fairly rural. I downloaded Lyft for the first time and it found me a ride instantly. I'm going to have to use them more often. Just my random anecdote.
$400/mo. Woah! Why not lease a car at that rate? Leases go for ~$150/mo there.
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You were not charged to connect to anyone. That is a Returned Item Fee for drivers to give the item back to you: https://help.uber.com/riders/article/lost-item-return-fee-?n...
Whether or not the driver wants it? Pull the other one.
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I'd sooner just catch a cab than have to open up multiple different apps and compare prices all the time. I always know exactly what I'm paying with a cab, and it's no hassle.
Cabs are: * Much lower quality cars (torn seats, smelly, old, safety issues...no one looks good showing up to a date in a Cab). * Much lower quality drivers (some smoke openly, talk on the phone loudly, don't listen to you, take longer routes than necessary, etc) * No accountability for service * No trip data for safety reasons * No handy log of all your recent trips * More expensive + tip required * Sometimes will p…
The service is very different though:
1. The driver often knows the best way to get to my place and all I have to do is give my address.
2. The driver knows how to drive in the city.
3. I'm rarely if ever forced into a conversation I don't want to have.
I find the whole thing so much more pleasant.
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You don't get to the size they do and simply die. They'll be acquired and vertically integrated in a way that lets them be competitive on price. You can break even on the ride if you make it up in harvesting data, showing in car advertisements, having sample products placed in cars, and a million other "fremium" style revenue harvesting techniques.
I honestly think they will eventually license and lease their platform and technology to others and just rake in money (every cab company would pay for this type of access to customers, Uber Eats is an indication other delivery services could likely license it too for a reasonable price). That is where their true value is at. Being acquired is still a long ways off when they still have this insanely high imaginary va…
Even if a taxi company would pay for lead gen, how many Uber customers would stick around when introduced to statutory taxi prices?
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Whether or not the driver wants it? Pull the other one.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. The fee is only charged if the driver returns the item, so if they cant or dont want to then there's no fee.
Uber doesn't have much of a moat or lock-in effect. I just switched one day from being a frequent Uber rider to 100% using Lyft, simply because I don't like Uber's behavior as a company. The prices are so close it doesn't make any practical difference to me. Anecdotally, among my friends I also see Lyft becoming the default, and sometimes price-checking with Uber. If Waymo or whoever came out tomorrow with a cheaper/…
And, somehow, after all that investment, the Lyft app is miles better than the Uber one too.
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Can you elaborate on how they charged you $15 to call the driver? I don't use the app.
I didn't have the driver's phone number so I had to use the Uber app to contact the driver, that's when they charged me the $15.
> A $15 fee is charged to you once your lost item is returned.[0]
[0] https://help.uber.com/riders/article/lost-item-return-fee-?n...
Uber doesn't have much of a moat or lock-in effect. I just switched one day from being a frequent Uber rider to 100% using Lyft, simply because I don't like Uber's behavior as a company. The prices are so close it doesn't make any practical difference to me. Anecdotally, among my friends I also see Lyft becoming the default, and sometimes price-checking with Uber. If Waymo or whoever came out tomorrow with a cheaper/…
I have found that the drivers for Lyft are much happier than the drivers for Uber. This holds true even when a driver drives for both services. I asked several drivers why this is and the universal response was that Lyft treats them better, so they are happier to pick up Lyft customers. I switched over to only using Lyft, but like the OP states, if Waymo came out tomorrow I'd probably switch to that.
This goes for other markets as well, it's just generally hard to get good information.
uber is pets.com. lose money to get market share with the wrong assumption you can charge more once you get users.