SF Yellow Cab to file for bankruptcy

Taxi companies don't necessarily hire employees. The whole medallion controversy in NYC was that the market value of the medallion had outpaced the rent the taxi owner could charge the driver for that shift.

  * U&L don't own the cars, so they don't need to enforce a price floor to stay n business. If the drivers in one city saturate the market and driving becomes unprofitable, U&L lose some rev-share, but no capital investments.
  * Taxi companies are required to disclose their costs on the outside of their car (in most jurisdictions), meaning it can't change often like U&L's dynamic pricing and it also acts as a price floor where U&L don't have one.
  * Also, U&L can hire more drivers than the fixed number of taxis in any jurisdiction defined by the government, thus moving the city higher on the supply curve and driving down the cost below what taxi companies need to cover their expenses.

Basically, yes. Yellow Cab is in trouble because they lost some liability lawsuits.[1] In one, they only had $1M in coverage and had to pay out $8M.

[1] http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/SF-jury-finds-Yellow-...

The taxis themselves are basically fine. Probably (potentially?) cleaner than uber imo: leather seats are way easier to clean than cloth, and most ubers I've ridden in have cloth seats. Taxis tend to be unhappy if you pay with a card, but telling them they'll accept a card or nothing generally works.

The problem is taxis just don't come. There are relatively few areas of sf and times where you can reasonably street hail. So you're left with calling one of the multiple taxi services, and they make it readily apparent they don't give a fuck less about you. This worked as a business model only because there was no alternative.

My personal story: I had a badly broken leg (9+ months on crutches) and had to take taxis daily. From near mission/23rd (a population center), an 80% wait time for a taxi was approx 75 minutes and a 95% wait time 180 minutes. For a 16 minute drive to soma. They simply -- and a dispatcher admitted this to you -- lie when you call and ask the wait time. They couldn't follow simple requests like giving me a 5 minute warning call when they were about to arrive so I could crutch down stairs without making the driver wait. None of the services, even when told I'd be riding them 10x/week and had mobility problems, would come reliably.

I took a lot of ubers even when they cost thrice what taxis did, simply because when you requested one, they told you if they were going to come. So if the wait time was too long, you could be an adult and make alternate arrangements. Taxis just leave you wondering if they're going to come. The impact on your life of using taxis, thus having to leave 90 minutes before you want to get to the office (and leaving at 5pm/commute rush hour) is really shitty.

It's similar down the peninsula. I left sf and made the mistake of calling a taxi because a car was in the shop. Dispatch said 15-20 minutes. An hour in I called an Uber. Would you believe the driver has the giant balls to call 75 minutes after I requested a taxi to complain because I ditched and didn't call to cancel? I only waited 4 times their maximum estimate.

I'd love to take taxis instead of Ubers. I think Uber pays their drivers too little and is exploitative. Hopefully they will be forced to pay drivers more; I'll keep using them if so. But the utility of a taxi that either actually comes, or tells you they won't so you can make plans, is what keeps me using them.

Wow, this is weird, I'm being modded way up. I was expecting the reverse: on another, much older "tech news" site, any time the Uber/Lyft vs. cabs debate comes up, there's a very strong contingent of people there who absolutely hate Uber/Lyft and go on and on about how wonderful cabs are.

Lack of driver health insurance, lack of benefits, lack of liability from crashes, reduced compliance costs via skirting local regulations [e.g. Background checks for Uber/Lyft are cheaper than the more thorough checks in some municipalities]

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/10/07/background-checks-cen...

http://www.cnet.com/news/ubers-background-checks-dont-catch-...