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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

#21

Post by wyager »

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...

>Did you just compare honest hard working taxi drivers to mafia?

Hey! There were lots of honest and hard working Mafiosi.

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

#22

Post by tormeh »

sveme wrote: post #19
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 nin…

Probably just language barrier. But much of English-language culture is just American culture and it is very navel-gazing. Never underestimate Americans' ability to not consider anything happening beyond their borders, except as matters of foreign policy.

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

#23

Post by snitko »

fminor wrote: post #15
snitko wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's first hand info. I live in Russia. You go out any time of day, raise a hand and chances are, a private car would stop. Taxis are limited to by-phone-orders, but are also very cheap due to a very light regulation. Not once was I ripped off or heard of anyone being ripped off.

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

#24

Post by martinald »

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…

Nope, it does. It's £321 for a peak return, or £160.50 single.

Or, alternatively, £459 rtn in first class ($767).

However, an off peak return (dept after 9am, basically), and it drops to under £80 rtn.

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

#25

Post by anigbrowl »

eglover wrote: post #8
_delirium wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is fighting governments in plenty of places where there aren't legal monopolies, so I'm not sure that's the explanation, or at least not all of it. They've had run-ins with Stockholm, for example, even though Sweden has deregulated taxi pricing and no medallions. Anyone who's properly licensed and insured can start up a taxi service, charging anything they want, even $1000/km if they want [1]. However, while you…

"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 "…

Restating your conclusion doesn't address Delerium's point about Uber picking fights where none exists.

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

#26

Post by krebby »

sveme wrote: post #19
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 nin…

mitfahrgelegenheit.de is another great one. Ride shares tend to be much more popular in European countries because the distances between major cities are usually shorter and people are generally more trusting of riding in strangers' cars.

GoLoco (from Robin Chase, ZipCar's founder) was an American take that never really caught on in the States.

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

#27

Post by wutbrodo »

foobarqux wrote: post #20
nemothekid wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, imagine if normal grocery stores (or restaurants) were consistently out of stock at normal high-demand times (i.e. sacrificed predictable availability for predictable price), and a new grocery store opened up whose selling point was predictable availability instead of predictable pricing.

It's absolute nonsense to categorically state that variable pricing interferes with planning more than variable availability does. In particular when the variable availability, fixed-price option is still an alternative.

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

#29

Post by slyall »

tormeh wrote: post #22
sveme wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 nin…

Probably just language barrier. But much of English-language culture is just American culture and it is very navel-gazing. Never underestimate Americans' ability to not consider anything happening beyond their borders, except as matters of foreign policy.

It is very frustrating to see as a foreigner. A magazine article will be talking about something like legalizing prostitution and will be more likely to quote Benjamin Franklin than to say what happening in other countries where is is legal.

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

#30

Post by mahyarm »

slyall wrote: post #29
tormeh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably just language barrier. But much of English-language culture is just American culture and it is very navel-gazing. Never underestimate Americans' ability to not consider anything happening beyond their borders, except as matters of foreign policy.

It is very frustrating to see as a foreigner. A magazine article will be talking about something like legalizing prostitution and will be more likely to quote Benjamin Franklin than to say what happening in other countries where is is legal.

America is surrounded by a near identical twin in the north, huge oceans on it's sides, and a relatively undeveloped south. The country itself is as large as europe with as many climates to experience. It's nearly inevitable.

Europeans on the other hand, can drive to a different developed nation in 5 hours. Seeing your relative across the country isn't that big of a deal. Being aware of cultural differences is inevitable.

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