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Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

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Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#101

Post by outcoldman »

lxgr wrote: post #88
outcoldman wrote: post #83

My experience with Uber/Taxi in Sweden. Got out of ferry, need to go to the airport, 40 minutes drive. There are a lot of taxies at the ferry terminal, sure, I talked to them, asked how much is to Airport, they all replied "by meter". Well I know you can set any rate to your meter. And all of them drove that route a lot of times, nobody gave me an estimate. So I have ordered Uber. Uber driver asked me how much Uber i…

> Well I know you can set any rate to your meter. Do you mean meter manipulation? I think that's pretty hard at least in the places I've taken taxis in. What's much more common for taxis (and much harder to prove) is taking a circuitous/slower route on purpose. >But what I need: easy way to order a car, know exactly how much I am going to pay Same for me, and Uber has been hit and miss on both lately. I've both had d…

Somebody replied about the Italy. My experience was exactly that, in Italy. After I sat in the taxi I saw them manually entering the rate. Hotel told me one approximate price, but it ended up way higher. They saw a tourist, they used opportunity.

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#102

Post by outcoldman »

daghamm wrote: post #98
d1sxeyes wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Uber are providing an estimate that taxi drivers won’t. Kind of the whole point of the comment.

But one driver said he will match Ubers price? Isn't that a kind of estimate?

Just to confirm, that was an Uber driver, that I was able to get only because I used an Uber app.

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#103

Post by cute_boi »

outcoldman wrote: post #100
daghamm wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I declined, just because I want to support Uber." Why? They are not providing anything real service in this case. As with any gig work, the payout drops down to horrible levels once the company is established and has no real competitors. This may explain why some drivers now want to avoid Uber for longer rides.

Because if we will agree with drivers, in that case Uber is not going to have profit, and Uber will be gone from that city/country. And we will be back to the taxi world.

In addition to this, if there is any issue like accidents getting Uber support is way easy.

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#104

Post by jsnell »

lxgr wrote: post #88
outcoldman wrote: post #83

My experience with Uber/Taxi in Sweden. Got out of ferry, need to go to the airport, 40 minutes drive. There are a lot of taxies at the ferry terminal, sure, I talked to them, asked how much is to Airport, they all replied "by meter". Well I know you can set any rate to your meter. And all of them drove that route a lot of times, nobody gave me an estimate. So I have ordered Uber. Uber driver asked me how much Uber i…

> Well I know you can set any rate to your meter. Do you mean meter manipulation? I think that's pretty hard at least in the places I've taken taxis in. What's much more common for taxis (and much harder to prove) is taking a circuitous/slower route on purpose. >But what I need: easy way to order a car, know exactly how much I am going to pay Same for me, and Uber has been hit and miss on both lately. I've both had d…

Sweden, where the OP said this happened, has a deregulated taxi industry. Taxis are free to set the meter rate however they wish. They do need to inform the client about the rate, but tourists can't really judge whether the quoted price is fair or not.

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#105

Post by bionicthrowaway »

daghamm wrote: post #94
outcoldman wrote: post #83

My experience with Uber/Taxi in Sweden. Got out of ferry, need to go to the airport, 40 minutes drive. There are a lot of taxies at the ferry terminal, sure, I talked to them, asked how much is to Airport, they all replied "by meter". Well I know you can set any rate to your meter. And all of them drove that route a lot of times, nobody gave me an estimate. So I have ordered Uber. Uber driver asked me how much Uber i…

"I declined, just because I want to support Uber." Why? They are not providing anything real service in this case. As with any gig work, the payout drops down to horrible levels once the company is established and has no real competitors. This may explain why some drivers now want to avoid Uber for longer rides.

> They are not providing anything real service in this case.

They connected the driver to the passenger, and negotiated an acceptable rate between both. They build and maintain the infrastructure necessary to make this happen quickly and reliably at global scale.

If that’s not a valuable service, drivers and passengers wouldn’t rely on it. But they do.

It seems you want to use the service, and just don’t want to pay for it.

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#106

Post by plutoh28 »

iammjm wrote: post #86
danielfoster wrote: post #15

I remember using Uber in Kenya. Half the time, I had to reject the ride because the license plate on the car did not match the app.

Out of safety reasons? In Europe I never even considered checking if the plates match, i also wouldn't care if they didn't

Plates not matching is a major red flag, no?

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#107

Post by dageshi »

daghamm wrote: post #94
outcoldman wrote: post #83

My experience with Uber/Taxi in Sweden. Got out of ferry, need to go to the airport, 40 minutes drive. There are a lot of taxies at the ferry terminal, sure, I talked to them, asked how much is to Airport, they all replied "by meter". Well I know you can set any rate to your meter. And all of them drove that route a lot of times, nobody gave me an estimate. So I have ordered Uber. Uber driver asked me how much Uber i…

"I declined, just because I want to support Uber." Why? They are not providing anything real service in this case. As with any gig work, the payout drops down to horrible levels once the company is established and has no real competitors. This may explain why some drivers now want to avoid Uber for longer rides.

Because having dealt with taxi drivers around the world, some of them are complete assholes who specialise in taking advantage of people when they know the least (new arrivals in an unfamiliar country).

Taxi drivers and their schemes are half the reason people use Uber, it's certainly the reason I do.

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#108

Post by sshine »

seattle_spring wrote: post #71
sshine wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What. I've never heard anything this stupid. I've only encountered the following two airport systems: 1) There's a queue of taxis and people coming out go to the first one. 2) There's a queue of people, and an airport person tells you when you can go to the next taxi. Depending on whether there's too many people or too many taxis.

> I've never heard anything this stupid. I may be misunderstanding your comment, but you're saying you've never heard of online rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft?

Yes, I've heard of them.

But they were banned in my country years ago.

Taxis and humans queue up against each other in the countries I've went to.

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#109

Post by sshine »

lxgr wrote: post #78
seattle_spring wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never heard anything this stupid. I may be misunderstanding your comment, but you're saying you've never heard of online rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft?

Maybe GP has just never taken one to/from the airport? It's really not that common to do that in many places outside of the US. In many European cities, public transit is often the fastest way to get to/from the city center from an airport. Elsewhere, Uber is just not great compared to taxis, and supply can be minimal: I've had to take an Uber recently for work [1] , and I effectively had a choice between one driver…

> In many European cities, public transit is often the fastest way to get to/from the city center from an airport.

Yeah, exactly.

When friends or family go to the airport, I drive them.

When I go to the airport, I take the metro. It's a 5 minute walk from home, and the metro stops inside the airport.

Re: Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

#110

Post by PeterCorless »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #57
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reminder a certain political group are trying to make bribery legal in the U.S. by calling it a "tip" Source? (My search keeps turning up Tip O'Neill.)

I suspect they are referring to the recent US Supreme Court decision.

Yes. Two issues, really. First, high wealth individuals could accept "tips" to get paid millions without any tax. And you could "tip" a Congressperson and it would not be called a bribe.

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/sen-ted-cruzs-no-ta...

https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2024/07/us-sup...

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