This how you know when something becomes a commodity. Uber/Lyft/Taxi/Sidecar they will just be competing on price in the long run, since they all compete in a commoditized market, and the player with better ubiquity and infrastructure will ultimately win, because they will be able to cut prices in a way that smaller players won't be able to afford.
Show HN: Real-time Fare Estimate Comparisons for Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, and Taxi
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Re: Show HN: Real-time Fare Estimate Comparisons for Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, and Taxi
#12Nice.
Now just give me an iPhone app where I push a button and it sends me the cheapest, closest car from any of those companies.
Re: Show HN: Real-time Fare Estimate Comparisons for Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, and Taxi
#13Taxi rate in NYC seems too low. I tried a couple of trips that I have taken dozens of times, and they have never, ever been as low as whats being calculated. I like the idea though.
Re: Show HN: Real-time Fare Estimate Comparisons for Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, and Taxi
#14Looks like none of 'em hold a candle to Taxis in small-to-medium cities like mine.
Re: Show HN: Real-time Fare Estimate Comparisons for Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, and Taxi
#15How long is this going to last before one of the services shuts it down, claiming some kind of EULA noncompliance (or some other flimsy excuse to avoid competition)?
Re: Show HN: Real-time Fare Estimate Comparisons for Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, and Taxi
#16Looks like none of 'em hold a candle to Taxis in small-to-medium cities like mine.
Huh, in SF starting from my place to all of the places I might go Lyft wins consistently, and sometimes by as much as 1/2 of the taxi price.
Re: Show HN: Real-time Fare Estimate Comparisons for Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, and Taxi
#17I love products like these. Slices right through all the promotional noise like "fun drivers," "fast pick-up times," "clean cars," etc and gets right to chase -- price. At the end of the day, they are all taxi services in my book. Whichever gets me from point A to point B the cheapest wins my dollars. Fast pick-up times, a sexy functional app, and other common sense differentiators are expectations now, not selling p…
> At the end of the day, they are all taxi services in my book.
Unless you live in New York, and are trying to get from Manhattan to one of the outer boroughs, in which case getting a yellow cab is a total crapshoot.
Re: Show HN: Real-time Fare Estimate Comparisons for Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, and Taxi
#18Question to America. Why do you tip the taxi driver but not the uber/lyft driver?
(SFO -> Pier 39 - Lyft is $31, Taxi is $49.96 + 15% standard tip = $57)
Re: Show HN: Real-time Fare Estimate Comparisons for Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, and Taxi
#19Which locations does this website have actual data for? Just tried two places in San Francisco and it said it had no data. Is this an actual site or just a one pager looking for interest?
I just got a successful quote from my employer to the Caltrain in Sunnyvale ($12 lyft, $20 taxi: seems right)
Re: Show HN: Real-time Fare Estimate Comparisons for Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, and Taxi
#20This is really cool. How do you guys get current surge/prime time rates?
Uber has an API, but I looked into Uber's TOU a week a two ago and they explicitly disallowed this sort of thing (comparison shopping). Maybe it's just an estimate?
This is probably just violating the TOU. As a consumer, I think lack of comparison shopping is absolutely the worst thing about lyft/uber, and that they should be required to publish pricing data in a manner accessible to this sort of thing, just like taxis are required to use certified meters and post rates on their doors.