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The Anti-Uber Way of Disrupting Transportation, Politely

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Re: The Anti-Uber Way of Disrupting Transportation, Politely

#11

Post by Marazan »

michaelochurch wrote: post #2

First of all, it doesn't cost $267 to get from Manchester to London. That's an order of magnitude high. Even Amtrak isn't that bad ($0.65 per person per hour) and Europe has cheaper, faster, and better rail service than the US by far . That said, I think it's really amusing and interesting that the only thing it's going to take in order to beat Uber, in the long term, is: not be Uber . Just having a more likable CEO…

UK rail pricing is as complicated and as dynamic as airline pricing - $267 is well within the bounds of possibility for that route.

Re: The Anti-Uber Way of Disrupting Transportation, Politely

#12

Post by wuliwong »

_delirium wrote: post #10
eglover wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"BlaBlaCar is restricted by unnecessary and economically damaging laws, but puts up with them. Uber and Lyft fight them" That's the take away. You can't compare the two and say one is simply being "polite". They take different approaches. Uber and Lyft are doing a whole lot of good and making big and beneficial waves. BlaBlaCar simply offers a competitive service where it's allowed to do so. The article smells of a "…

I guess that's the part I disagree with. I think Uber and Lyft are mostly doing harm, and not even an interesting new kind of harm: shady taxi companies skirting laws to up their profits is as old as the taxi business. (And doing it "with an app" doesn't make it tech, either, any more than Domino's Pizza is a tech company.) And in some cases (like Sweden) I suspect the conflict is even manufactured for PR purposes: U…

So your stance is that Uber is doing "harm" as a "shady" NON TECH company manufacturing "conflict PR"?

1. How do you define harm? My experience is that every one of my friends who use Uber really like it and the drivers I've spoken to along my rides have all said they like working with Uber too. Is the "harm" done to the other taxi companies? Would you say that Apple did "harm" when they released the iPhone because people who would have bought other company's products bought an iPhone instead? Because that's essentially what is happening here. Uber's product is perceived by my friends as vastly superior to the taxis in Atlanta. In fact, before Uber, they mostly didn't even use taxis. But now that Uber exists, they will often take Uber to and from their destinations so they don't have to worry about a designated driver.

2. I guess you define "shady" as a company that doesn't want agree to current regulations from the government. So whoever the govt. deems "not shady" is basically your definition of not shady.

3. The core differentiator of Uber and a regular taxi is the app. Obviously they are a blend of tech and transportation but just because they have some "non tech" elements, I don't believe that precludes them being considered a tech company. But, this is all subjective, there's no actual meaning to the word "tech" in tech company.

4. Do you have anything to back up these claims of Uber manufacturing fake PR? They have been outlawed a bunch of times in a bunch of cities of which none of those cases were made up by Uber. It is very very hard for me to believe that they would go to the trouble of making up fake stories in the cities where things were going well.

Re: The Anti-Uber Way of Disrupting Transportation, Politely

#13

Post by nemothekid »

michaelochurch wrote: post #2

First of all, it doesn't cost $267 to get from Manchester to London. That's an order of magnitude high. Even Amtrak isn't that bad ($0.65 per person per hour) and Europe has cheaper, faster, and better rail service than the US by far . That said, I think it's really amusing and interesting that the only thing it's going to take in order to beat Uber, in the long term, is: not be Uber . Just having a more likable CEO…

What isn't transparent about surge pricing? The app straight up tells you "you will be paying more for this ride." If you don't like it, get a regular cab.

I don't know why people act as if Uber is twisting their arm when it comes to surge pricing.

Re: The Anti-Uber Way of Disrupting Transportation, Politely

#14

Post by eruditely »

There is no need to be polite to the target of disruption if they are overtly and obviously representative of systemic dysfunction and corruption.

There might be a legitimate argument if it was just mom and grandma. However uber does provide income for regular people and it has no doubt reduced the amount of drunk driving causalities and deaths. If you're young and can get around ask any one of your friends if they have considered uber an option when they never would have a taxi. It's becoming more and more commonplace.

Give this angle a rest already.

Re: The Anti-Uber Way of Disrupting Transportation, Politely

#15

Post by fminor »

snitko wrote: post #9
oleganza wrote: post #7

"Disrupting politely" apparently means "drivers don't make a profit therefore aren't classed as professionals". In other words, "if you would like to compete with our monopolized transportation mafia you can't make any money out of it". Which simply means that you are not allowed to compete. You can only run charity and we'll call it "disruption" and continue taking profits. I can't wait for a purely p2p service that…

Did you just compare honest hard working taxi drivers to mafia? If government didn't require licences for taxi drivers, you'd have some crazy place like Russia where anyone can be a private driver without any licence and customers actually get cheaper prices and can get cars any time of day in seconds by just raising a hand and negotiate the price beforehand. Oh wait...

Russia introduced legislation around taxis in 2011 because customers were routinely being ripped off. snitko's post is based on bad info.

Re: The Anti-Uber Way of Disrupting Transportation, Politely

#16

Post by _delirium »

wuliwong wrote: post #12
_delirium wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that's the part I disagree with. I think Uber and Lyft are mostly doing harm, and not even an interesting new kind of harm: shady taxi companies skirting laws to up their profits is as old as the taxi business. (And doing it "with an app" doesn't make it tech, either, any more than Domino's Pizza is a tech company.) And in some cases (like Sweden) I suspect the conflict is even manufactured for PR purposes: U…

So your stance is that Uber is doing "harm" as a "shady" NON TECH company manufacturing "conflict PR"? 1. How do you define harm? My experience is that every one of my friends who use Uber really like it and the drivers I've spoken to along my rides have all said they like working with Uber too. Is the "harm" done to the other taxi companies? Would you say that Apple did "harm" when they released the iPhone because p…

On #4, I don't see any evidence they attempted to follow the laws. The Swedish taxi market is deregulated and not a cartel. You can enter it, as long as you follow some fairly simple consumer-protection regulations! Uber is just not interested. I suspect that part of the reason is that it would be damaging to their image to be "just another taxi company". But it could also be that they legitimately find it difficult to adapt their business to the rules.

Now you could argue even the relatively few regulations Sweden has left should be scrapped. But that's what the democratic system is for. I don't support just ignoring them when you think they should be different. I mean, maybe in extreme cases, where people are actually being oppressed, direct action and civil-disobedience are justified. But Uber's dispute with Stockholm over how to give fair notice of prices, and what constitutes a "meter", seem like a pretty small hook to hang a civil-rights crusade on.

Re: The Anti-Uber Way of Disrupting Transportation, Politely

#17

Post by oleganza »

snitko wrote: post #9
oleganza wrote: post #7

"Disrupting politely" apparently means "drivers don't make a profit therefore aren't classed as professionals". In other words, "if you would like to compete with our monopolized transportation mafia you can't make any money out of it". Which simply means that you are not allowed to compete. You can only run charity and we'll call it "disruption" and continue taking profits. I can't wait for a purely p2p service that…

Did you just compare honest hard working taxi drivers to mafia? If government didn't require licences for taxi drivers, you'd have some crazy place like Russia where anyone can be a private driver without any licence and customers actually get cheaper prices and can get cars any time of day in seconds by just raising a hand and negotiate the price beforehand. Oh wait...

Actually, in Russia taxi is very lightly regulated without limited number of "medallions" like in NYC or Paris. While being in St. Petersburg this summer I ordered a taxi by phone dozens of times and it was always super-swift and human response. Unlike rude and slow taxi service in Paris.

Re: The Anti-Uber Way of Disrupting Transportation, Politely

#19

Post by sveme »

potatolicious wrote: post #3

My God. A sharing economy company that actually shares things!

It is weird that these companies are so prominently displayed nowadays, yet a German website that is already up and running since 1998 and was until very recently not requesting any share of the fare is completely missing from the story - mitfahrzentrale.de Apparently they currently have 700,000 offers of long-distance car shares online. I remember that some other site was already up and pretty popular in the mid nineties, and in both cases you actually only had to pay the driver the cost for gas. Maybe it's the name that never really moved the story outside the German-speaking countries.

Re: The Anti-Uber Way of Disrupting Transportation, Politely

#20

Post by foobarqux »

nemothekid wrote: post #13
michaelochurch wrote: post #2

First of all, it doesn't cost $267 to get from Manchester to London. That's an order of magnitude high. Even Amtrak isn't that bad ($0.65 per person per hour) and Europe has cheaper, faster, and better rail service than the US by far . That said, I think it's really amusing and interesting that the only thing it's going to take in order to beat Uber, in the long term, is: not be Uber . Just having a more likable CEO…

What isn't transparent about surge pricing? The app straight up tells you "you will be paying more for this ride." If you don't like it, get a regular cab. I don't know why people act as if Uber is twisting their arm when it comes to surge pricing.

It's transparent but variable pricing interferes with planning and requires repeated decision making, increasing stress. Imagine if grocery food doubled in price spontaneously several times a week.
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