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Trends: Uber vs. Lyft

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Re: Trends: Uber vs. Lyft

#51

Post by sinak »

The idea of any one company owning such a large proportion of global transport infrastructure seems scary to me. And the fact that Uber's leadership seems to have a very poor ethical compass makes the path we're headed down seem pretty ominous.

I've been trying to think of better, less centralized solutions, and they're not too hard to imagine. An open transportation marketplace, populated by independent vendors, isn't so far-fetched. In fact it'd probably look quite similar to Craigslist, except with better handling of user identities and reputations, and a much better mobile-focused user experienced. Anyone could list a delivery service in one of a number of different categories, with custom price rules, and categories might include taxi/human transport services, food delivery, package delivery, etc. A review system, payment integration and mapping would come built into both the provider and user's mobile apps, but insurance etc. would be up to the individual vendors. Fees for listing services would be nominal, and almost all the revenue would go directly to the vendors themselves.

The trouble with this kind of service is that it'd end up being quite a bit less safe and quite a bit more messy than interacting with a single company like Uber. But the lower transaction costs should make services significantly cheaper, and power would be much less centralized.

Re: Trends: Uber vs. Lyft

#52

Post by codezero »

fixedd wrote: post #46
ihaveajob wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been shown that the biggest factor in bike safety is the number of cyclists on the road. The more bikes, the more aware drivers are of our presence. In SF, Critical Mass had (I've learned) a huge impact in breaking ground for bike infrastructure. Currently, the Bay Area Bike Share has become a strong factor. If we stop biking now until it's safer, it might never be so.

There's also been shown to be an inverse correlation between wearing a helmet and safety. It seems that motorists correlate "having a helmet on" with being safe, and so are more aggressive around those who are wearing.

Where has this been shown? Since I bike daily, I'm really curious about studies about helmet safety.

Re: Trends: Uber vs. Lyft

#53

Post by prawn »

comrh wrote: post #27
nemothekid wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So taxi regulations are in place to ensure faceless execs don't make mean remarks? Uber might not be startup of the month right now, but given the choice of excellent service for customers at the cost of a couple assholes in a boardroom somewhere versus crappy service while the execs try to please everyone, I'd choose excellent service every time. Ignoring the fact that, of course, taxi regulations don't stop people…

I think regulations have more to do with the drivers not taking you on 20 mile detours, trying to sexually assault or yelling at a cancer patient (all Uber stories).

To be fair, there would be countless equivalent stories from the taxi side of the fence. The ability to rate drivers to encourage better service strikes me as one thing Uber gets right.

There might be bad attitudes filtering down from the top and from handlers/motivators, but that's less about regulations and more about just being nice people. Taxi drivers could often do with the same improvement.

Re: Trends: Uber vs. Lyft

#54

Post by prawn »

moab wrote: post #31
eksith wrote: post #17

And this, folks, is why taxi regulation is a thing. Of course, there is crime and corruption and they have their own variety of scams[1]. But what you won't see is a sweeping sense of impunity because if you go out of bounds to this degree so blatantly (and at regular intervals, it seems), a rather large hammer will come down on you and your union. Taxi drivers in general are well aware of this. But a bunch of broexe…

I think what'll come out of this entire experiment is something very, very similar to the current taxi industry - simply with better apps and dependability, and I will not complain at all. A little part of me suspects that this will not be Uber (at least in America, where the regulatory blockade feels really impenetrable as an engineer), although at this point it's anyones game.

Why haven't taxi companies done this themselves to see off the upstart competitors?

Re: Trends: Uber vs. Lyft

#55

Post by eksith »

moab wrote: post #45
eksith wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My honest hope when I first heard of Uber was that it would give a huge wakeup call to the industry. Let's face it, America is a service industry and many of its services suck. The attitude is marginal at best, horrifying at worst. I hoped this level of customer scrutiny on performance would bring it up to the same level as in Japan. I'm still hoping someone will make it happen. Or rather, perhaps an entire army of s…

Your point reminds me of that recent New Yorker article on learning [1]. In particular, the author points out how particularly niche industries (competitive sports, theatre, orchestras) have seen significant improvements in median performance over the past few decades. However, this has been limited mostly to fields where there are a small number of potential openings and a pool of candidates significantly larger tha…

That was a fantastic article! Thanks for linking that. It certainly gave me a lot of food for thought.

Re: Trends: Uber vs. Lyft

#57

Post by fixedd »

cheeze wrote: post #2

I also deleted the app earlier today. Even mentioning threatening journalists is incredibly ridiculous. I'm happy to see Lyft getting bigger in my city, and have had great experiences with them.

I really haven't kept up with this at all (I saw the articles, but didn't read), but I'm wondering why saying to journalists (and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken) "if you try dig up dirty laundry on us as an attempt to discredit us, we'll do the same to you" is unfair? Isn't this just a "reap what you sou" type scenario?

Re: Trends: Uber vs. Lyft

#58

Post by afro88 »

ethanhunt_ wrote: post #14

Only got through the first two links before I stopped reading. First link: says that Uber CEO Travis comes off as a bit of an ass in interviews, and therefore Uber should hire a PR person. So you're switching to Lyft because they have better PR people? Second link: an article with a headline that is misleading and would have a good run at being ruled libelous. TLDR: Travis said "I love [self driving cars] all day lon…

They seem to be in chronological order, from oldest to newest. Obviously this is a "straw that broke the camel's back" situation, not one where each individual thing is reason enough to stop using Uber.

Re: Trends: Uber vs. Lyft

#59

Post by rpm33 »

I was expecting a more analytical analysis or a personal reason on why the OP decided to quit Uber.I'm not undermining the articles in the press, but those could happen to anyone. On keeping with the quality of HN I think we need to have a more deeper understanding of how companies should function.
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