My key takeaways: 1. Uber is actually a higher cost/less efficient producer of urban car services than the taxi companies it has driven out of business 2. Individual Uber drivers with limited capital cannot acquire, finance, maintain and insure vehicles more economically than Yellow Cab 3. Expenses other than drivers, vehicles, and fuel account for 15 percent of traditional taxi costs but Uber charges drivers 25-30 p…
1. Taxi services are balkanized;
2. Many tax services don't allow you to order a taxi ahead of time. You have to flag one down (eg NYC). For ordering a car, you need to otherwise deal with an (expensive) car service;
3. Uber made the payment process seamless and I cannot overstate how important this is as a user. I hate dealing with NYC yellow cabs, card readers that don't work (or actually have skimmers) and a stupid touch screen where your minimum tip option is 20%, etc;
4. The ability to rate both drivers and passengers may have its issues but IME it tends to keep passengers on better behaviour and cars in better condition;
5. Taxis have weird edge cases. In NYC, for example, getting a cab at 3-4pm was nigh-on impossible because of the shift change. It also means that drivers near the end of their shift may not take you places too out of the way;
6. Whatever the costs of owning and maintaining a car are, the traditional taxi system has huge taxes in the form of medallion costs and quotas. These costs are directly passed on to consumers;
7. Uber may well have a lot of value in value-added services. They're trying this with Uber Eats, for example. I can't say if these will be successful or not. I've certainly seen cities where I've tried to use Uber Eats only to be told "There are no drivers available". Obviously the drivers haven't signed up because there are plenty on Doordash and Seamless/Grubhub.
8. I see the flexibility for drivers as a huge plus rather than the rigid shift system of being a taxi driver.
9. The barrier to entry as a driver tends to be low because for many people they have a car anyway.
Taxis died because it's a horrible user experience that was propped up by a government-enforced monopoly. Good riddance. I mean I feel bad for NYC taxi drivers who were lured into paying a fortune to buy a medallion before the market crashed, many of whom had limitd English proficiency and were the victims of predatory practices that should be illegal.