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Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

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Re: Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

#111

Post by SilasX »

dreaminvm wrote: post #105
codyb wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you ignore the tip? Points one and three are valid, and you should always hop in before you direct, but ignoring the tip on what is essentially a luxury good (metro is $2.75 a ride and you can transfer as many times as you need to get where you need to go) is quite rude when it's expected and part of the culture. If you can't afford to tip your taxi driver, take the train. Sorry.

A tip is additional compensation for great service solely at the discretion of the passenger. If cab drivers expect a tip regardless of service quality, then the tip might as well be added to the cab rate.

It should be like that, but it isn't. Mostly because, on those few cash fares, they would prefer not to report the income.

Re: Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

#112

Post by Laaw »

cmurf wrote: post #102

I can pretty much guarantee the city will find a way to screw this up, one way or another. There is a pile of money behind the monopolies called medallions. Those owners expect their monopoly enforced, or why bother? Clearly going into debt to buy a newish card to get better Uber rates is a better economic decision than going into debt to buy a medallion which doesn't directly do jack squat for you. So the city in tu…

This is one of those things that even the people in positions of power won't ruin because they're users as well. You think members of city council or whomever want to ride in taxis any more than you do?

Re: Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

#114

Post by xenihn »

finnh wrote: post #107
beambot wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like an opportunity for Uber to improve their software to include GPS navigation for fare pickup.

No joke. When my brother uses Uber on the south end of Mercer Island, it regularly shows the "closest" car as being in Seward Park - about 1/2 mile away across a lake . The bridge of course is far north, and pretty much every Uber in Seattle's downtown or centrally-located neighborhoods is significantly closer than the one Uber picks. Seems like they are simply using as-the-crow-flies distance, which is kinda crazy.

They are, you can easily verify by estimating pickup times to a destination a mile out into the Pacific or Atlantic :)

Re: Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

#115

Post by SilasX »

codyb wrote: post #101
asavadatti wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is no justification for the driver to be rude or snarky.

Hmm, I'm not sure if I agree. In certain Asian households it is expected that you take your shoes off, if you know this, and still stomp around the household in your shoes, would you say there was no justification for the owner of the household to be rude or snarky? You might be able to argue that the enlightened person might say "I don't know what has happened to this person today, or why they're doing this, and I w…

Well, if you really want to carry the analogy over, you have to tweak the scenario: imagine that it's really hard to know if you should take off your shoes in any particular Asian's house, and you get multiple conflicting standards depending on who you ask, but they mostly agree that if the host owes you money, the convention is not to take off your shoes.

In that case, the host should at least consider the possibility that they forgot about money they owe you, or that this was an ambiguous case, before concluding that you're committing a faux pas.

The analogy is that tipping is supposed to be "optional" in some sense, and there's tremendous disagreement about what is appropriate in what context, and that "if you felt this person didn't provide you with great service, you can reduce or withhold the tip".

Thus, if you tip too little, the driver should consider it to be possible feedback about underperformance.

Of course, they way it really works is that they expect you to give 20% irrespective of service, but want to maintain a pretense that it's "for service", enforced by rudeness-with-impunity.

Re: Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

#116

Post by jchendy »

dominotw wrote: post #65
bko wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think cabbies are rude because they are not paid well. I think they're rude because they aren't held accountable for their rudeness and before Uber, there was no meaningful competition. If an Uber driver is rude and got a negative review, in the current system, he would probably be let go rather promptly. It could be that Uber will have to lower the minimum acceptable rating in order to keep enough drivers, b…

> I think they're rude because they aren't held accountable for their rudeness In chicago you can call 311 but you have to register a case and show up in the court on the hearing date.

Chicago has a rudeness court?

Re: Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

#117

Post by rokhayakebe »

prostoalex wrote: post #72
odonnellryan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very illegal, and you can report the taxi's that pass you.

With no way to document the pickup request, can't the driver just claim he "didn't see" the raised hand?

I guess you cannot claim to have not seen 15 people of the same color/race over the past 10 days.

Re: Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

#118

Post by ghaff »

shimon wrote: post #37
ghaff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really find that especially surprising but I wouldn't necessarily generalize it beyond Manhattan. Manhattan had an imperfect but certainly widely used taxi system--culture even--before Uber came along. The Uber experience may well be preferable to the taxi experience but the difference is probably not such that a lot of people who were driving private cars to avoid cabs now suddenly stop driving. And a lot of…

I wish there were some data on that. My guess would be that uber & lyft are crushing the traditional black car services.

One would think. On the other hand I wonder how much black car use is through contracts with employers.

Re: Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

#119

Post by wcummings »

mgob wrote: post #33
Spooky23 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more than that. There's a finite number of people seeking a ride, it's a zero sum market where the supply of rides will crash, and Uber will jack up the rates. Uber ultimately will have enormous leverage to submarine any meaningful competition and even to displace public transit. Their national scope will make them a force to be reckoned with.

The idea that uber will replace public transit in NYC is laughable. Sure, there is a group of rich yuppies (and their parents) that will gladly give uber their business, but NYC's transit system serves a much, much broader demographic of customers that cannot and/or will not to pay ten dollars or more every time they want to get around the city.

I can't imagine everyone who gets on the L every morning getting to Manhattan via Uber.

Re: Uber Is Taking Millions of Manhattan Rides Away from Taxis

#120

Post by [deleted] »

ghaff wrote: post #9
gregwtmtno wrote: post #2

What I find interesting is that Uber doesn't seem to be having an effect on private car use. From the article, in the busiest part of New York, "Uber gained 3.10 million pickups, while taxis lost 3.09 million." I read this to say that almost every Uber ride would have been a taxi ride if Uber did not exist. It doesn't seem to be replacing private car use at all. If it were, we'd see Uber rides increasing faster than…

I don't really find that especially surprising but I wouldn't necessarily generalize it beyond Manhattan. Manhattan had an imperfect but certainly widely used taxi system--culture even--before Uber came along. The Uber experience may well be preferable to the taxi experience but the difference is probably not such that a lot of people who were driving private cars to avoid cabs now suddenly stop driving. And a lot of…

[deleted]
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