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Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

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Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#151

Post by hinkley »

codethief wrote: post #84
hinkley wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish that companies had a donation program where employees get to vote on their favorite project, and the company cuts a check every time a project hits 50 votes (including things that got 20 votes each for the last 3 election cycles)

We have something like this at our firm (IT consulting shop). Every Christmas, everyone gets to propose & vote on projects (software and otherwise) that we should fund.

Any good literature on how to convince companies to do this?

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#152

Post by JohnFen »

balderdash wrote: post #118
KMnO4 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a ride from YVR airport where no less than 30 drivers[0] cancelled on me. I would get the notification that the driver was on their way, tap it, and then catch a brief one second flash of the driver before they disappeared and I was back in the queue. [0]: I’m sure it would be much more, but I gave up and took the train instead

I feel like the regular taxi stand is now often much faster (and often cheaper) at many airports as a result of these dynamics

This is my experience as well, but it's highly dependent on what city you're in.

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#153

Post by piebro »

bri3d wrote: post #3

Does anyone know if Lyft plan to contribute their map corrections back to OSM? They mention other companies doing so in this blog post, but don't make it clear whether or not they, too, intend to. I'm curious to see how good Lyft Maps is, too. Uber Maps is, frankly, a disaster in my area, frequently suggesting illegal and/or impossible turns. I try to submit map feedback every trip (very hard as a rider, as most form…

Here is an overview of which corporation contribute how many edits based on the osm account names affiliated with the corporations: https://piebro.github.io/openstreetmap-statistics/#b34d Lyft is the eleventh most active company by edit count with a total of 4M edits and 1.5M edits in the last year.

Disclaimer: I created the stats and website.

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#154

Post by 1_1xdev1 »

mulmen wrote: post #144
panarky wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, riders are using two or three different apps, so if Uber promises a 2-minute wait and then confirms with a 6-minute wait and Lyft is promising a 3-minute wait, cancel the Uber ride and now that driver is available again.

Doesn’t that incur a cancellation fee?

Usually not in my experience, as long as it’s within a short time (5 minutes?) since booking.

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#155

Post by mustacheemperor »

ryandrake wrote: post #27
sushisource wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also find it consistently obnoxious that there is essentially no way to say "My driver was fine, but your platform did something stupid" when leaving feedback. At least, not without jumping through a million hoops. The arrogance of our industry is tiresome. I took a ride in SF a while ago and it predicted a 3 minute pick up time which turned out to be 25 minutes - no fault of the driver, and the only way I could co…

Pick up time predictions are garbage, because ride shares allow cancelations. Last time I used a ride share, I had eight drivers accept and then cancel on me. The predicted departure time was always "8 minutes away" and then "looking for another driver" over and over. I probably waited an hour.

It’s especially rich when Lyft gives you this treatment after you’ve selected the more expensive “rapid pickup” option. Nothing hits quite like the tech company gaslighting experience of being told “Just a moment…Just a few more seconds…” for upwards of five minutes by an app eager to discourage you from canceling your $5 extra “three minute pickup.”

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#156

Post by piebro »

shp0ngle wrote: post #15
DoctorOW wrote: post #6

This is yet another "We found a community project providing us with billions of dollars in free work but don't find it worth the effort to contribute anything back"

Big corps that use OSM are actually contributing a lot back into OSM by actually fixing data issues. I have seen that first-hand; at a Corp that was using OSM, they had a big team doing just that the whole working day. Just fixing issues in OSM that the customer have reported. I think they in the end decided to fork OSM and make it proprietary to keep the data in-house; but I might be wrong. I was not there anymore.…

Looking at all edits done by osm member affiliated with Grab from that wiki list (https://piebro.github.io/openstreetmap-statistics/#b34d) it seems they contributed a lot of edits (21M in total, sixth largest company contributor). The amount of edits slowed down on the last year though.

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#157

Post by throwway120385 »

bsimpson wrote: post #54
sushisource wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also find it consistently obnoxious that there is essentially no way to say "My driver was fine, but your platform did something stupid" when leaving feedback. At least, not without jumping through a million hoops. The arrogance of our industry is tiresome. I took a ride in SF a while ago and it predicted a 3 minute pick up time which turned out to be 25 minutes - no fault of the driver, and the only way I could co…

Lyft support is inconsistent. Sometimes, you'll report a minor issue and get an over-the-top "OMG - WE'RE SO SORRY! HERE'S FREE MONEY AND YOU'LL NEVER BE PAIRED WITH THIS DRIVER AGAIN!" Other times, you'll report an actual problem, like being charged more than advertised, and they'll do nothing to remediate. After being charged more than expected on a couple recent rides, I basically stopped using Lyft.

If it's anything like AirBnB, it probably depends on whether you're getting the chipper day-shift call center or the cheap outsourced offshore call center as far as what kind of support you get. My wife and I landed in a cockroach-infested but very beautiful condo through AirBnB once and the night shift guy basically accused me of being used to living with cockroaches as a business traveler and that one or two should be expected. I had to offer to send him video of me spraying the walls of the kitchen with roach spray with tens of wriggling bodies of various instar stage falling onto the counter before he would even commit to looking in to it.

I called the same support number the morning after and the support people were all very accommodating. Called them one more time that afternoon to confirm that our payments were refunded and got the same treatment as the previous night.

This experience is one of the reasons I never use AirBnB for anything anymore. Their support was awful at the exact moment I needed them to offer me any option other than sleeping in our rental car on the beach.

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#158

Post by minhazm »

humanistbot wrote: post #83
minhazm wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much simpler than that. Drivers accept and then they cancel the ride themselves if they don't like the destination or the earnings. Normally you would penalize those drivers but I imagine with Lyft losing market share they likely can't afford to penalize drivers all that much.

No, drivers don't see the destination until they arrive and the trip begins. I'm often on one side of the Bay Area trying to get to the other and had many drivers pull up, then cancel or try to get me to cancel when they see I'm going across the Bay.

That's at least not true for Lyft as of October last year. But there are many factors, like other apps, traffic, getting offered something better from another app, etc.

> With upfront pay, drivers can now see ride information and what they’ll earn before accepting a ride. Drivers will have access to trip details including the pickup and drop-off locations, estimated time and distance to complete the ride, and a map view of the full ride in addition to the fare.

https://www.lyft.com/blog/posts/upfront-pay-and-the-next-cha...

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#159

Post by Firmwarrior »

JohnFen wrote: post #152
balderdash wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the regular taxi stand is now often much faster (and often cheaper) at many airports as a result of these dynamics

This is my experience as well, but it's highly dependent on what city you're in.

Do they actually take credit cards nowadays? And do they expect gigantic tips?

I really hate shelling out $60 for a 20 minute taxi ride, then being expected to shell out an extra $20 on top of that and getting endless grief over wanting to use a credit card to top it all off

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#160

Post by JohnFen »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #159
JohnFen wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my experience as well, but it's highly dependent on what city you're in.

Do they actually take credit cards nowadays? And do they expect gigantic tips? I really hate shelling out $60 for a 20 minute taxi ride, then being expected to shell out an extra $20 on top of that and getting endless grief over wanting to use a credit card to top it all off

Every cab I've been in in the last decade has expected that you're paying by card. Many prefer it, because the drivers don't want to carry a bunch of cash. Many cab companies even have apps where you follow the progress of the cab you called, and pay for the ride.

I have no idea what the tip expectation of cab drivers are. I tip the same rate I tip for all traditionally tipped services. I don't actually care whether or not that meets their expectations.

I've known a couple of people who never tip cabbies. Nothing bad happens to them.

> I really hate shelling out $60 for a 20 minute taxi ride, then being expected to shell out an extra $20 on top of that and getting endless grief over wanting to use a credit card to top it all off

Drivers actually comment on your tip amount? And they complain about an extremely generous 33% tip?? I wouldn't use that cab company ever again.

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