Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Waze Carpool

waze.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 406 posts

Re: Waze Carpool

#111

Post by Cyberdog »

cornholio wrote: post #79
pavel_lishin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described the pure software world solution. What happens when the commuter I pick up vomits in my car? Or steals something from my car? What happens if I get picked up by a person who changes their mind about where they're going? Or decide to take an unplanned detour to go to the store, or back home to grab the laptop they forgot, or to score some heroin? What happens when the driver gropes me? Or I grope th…

The same thing that happens in the non-Waze case: you kick them out, call the police, get mugged etc. The pure software world exists from Google's perspective, they provide zero support and then it's just a matter of individual choice if you want to use the service or not. Google can go a long way into making this significantly safer than random pick-up: you can select female only drivers or riders, only riders from…

> Google can go a long way into making this significantly safer than random pick-up: you can select female only drivers or riders,

So I can choose to ride with only people of my approved gender? What about my approved age ranges? Or races?

Re: Waze Carpool

#112

Post by C7H8N4O2 »

nerdponx wrote: post #69
pavel_lishin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described the pure software world solution. What happens when the commuter I pick up vomits in my car? Or steals something from my car? What happens if I get picked up by a person who changes their mind about where they're going? Or decide to take an unplanned detour to go to the store, or back home to grab the laptop they forgot, or to score some heroin? What happens when the driver gropes me? Or I grope th…

This is exactly how Uber turned into a taxi service. They tried ridesharing, it turns out that people in cars do sketchy things and piss each other off, or worse. I would rather see local grassroots organizations take on this project.

Lyft started as an offshoot of Zimride[0], a long-distance ridesharing platform.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimride

Re: Waze Carpool

#113

Post by Analemma_ »

cornholio wrote: post #79
pavel_lishin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described the pure software world solution. What happens when the commuter I pick up vomits in my car? Or steals something from my car? What happens if I get picked up by a person who changes their mind about where they're going? Or decide to take an unplanned detour to go to the store, or back home to grab the laptop they forgot, or to score some heroin? What happens when the driver gropes me? Or I grope th…

The same thing that happens in the non-Waze case: you kick them out, call the police, get mugged etc. The pure software world exists from Google's perspective, they provide zero support and then it's just a matter of individual choice if you want to use the service or not. Google can go a long way into making this significantly safer than random pick-up: you can select female only drivers or riders, only riders from…

> The pure software world exists from Google's perspective, they provide zero support and then it's just a matter of individual choice if you want to use the service or not.

This is something only an engineer would say. In the real world, once you provide a service, you absolutely are on the hook— both ethically and in the mind of the average consumer— for providing some level of service when it goes wrong. “Don’t like, don’t use” is not an acceptable answer, especially in a business like this where outcomes like robbery, rape, etc. are all possible.

Re: Waze Carpool

#114

Post by lerie82 »

The load time on that page is horrendous, or is it just me? It completely locked up my Chromebook, I couldn't even load the page completely. This happened twice in a row.

Re: Waze Carpool

#115

Post by freehunter »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #96
freehunter wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Facebook's done enough of that class segregation for us already I'm convinced the Bay Area itself has done enough of that segregation. Isn't that the entire reason people move there? Every time I ask why someone moved to SV, they say it's because that's where all of the tech talent is. Why is your startup headquartered in SV? Because that's where all the tech talent is. The only reason SV exists is because it's self…

> Isn't that the entire reason people move there? By people do you mean corporations? Because "people" move there for the jobs. No one I know said, "Hey, I want to live in the Bay Area for homogenous techie-elitism." I moved to the Bay Area from the midwest and was frankly shocked at the lack of Black people in the area. That said, my trips back to my roots have left me wondering where all the Asians are.... :/

Yep you're right, it's just as much the fault of the corporations that are there. Startups are a big part of it, moving to SV just to form a startup locks a ton of qualified people out and unnecessarily jacks up your burn rate. You'd be far better off moving to Madison and hiring from University of Wisconsin where you still have Whole Foods and Trader Joes and a bike-friendly city and great public transport but your employees can buy their own house for $100k.

But people are part of the problem too. People move to SV to work for Google and Apple and Facebook but these aren't the only tech employers in the country. Sticking with Madison, Epic is huge and very high-tech. Ann Arbor MI has Duo, Arbor Networks, and Trove among many. And these places pay pretty darn well for the area, which means you're going to be taking home a lot more disposable income than you would in SV. The only downside is you won't be working for Google/Apple/Facebook, and you'd have to live in the Midwest which means dealing with other people. You might even have to shop at shudder Walmart.

"People" move there for the jobs... because that's where people just like them work. But I'll bet there's somewhere closer to home where they can work with people just like them but also experience other people frequently, make more money, work on just as interesting of projects, and come out better because of the experience.

Re: Waze Carpool

#116

Post by debaserab2 »

cornholio wrote: post #79
pavel_lishin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described the pure software world solution. What happens when the commuter I pick up vomits in my car? Or steals something from my car? What happens if I get picked up by a person who changes their mind about where they're going? Or decide to take an unplanned detour to go to the store, or back home to grab the laptop they forgot, or to score some heroin? What happens when the driver gropes me? Or I grope th…

The same thing that happens in the non-Waze case: you kick them out, call the police, get mugged etc. The pure software world exists from Google's perspective, they provide zero support and then it's just a matter of individual choice if you want to use the service or not. Google can go a long way into making this significantly safer than random pick-up: you can select female only drivers or riders, only riders from…

> The same thing that happens in the non-Waze case: you kick them out, call the police, get mugged etc.

So how do you keep the bad drivers/passengers from using the app again?

Re: Waze Carpool

#117

Post by scarmig »

kristopolous wrote: post #105
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #99

The number of private tech companies that reinvent the BUS and think they're geniuses is staggering. But god forbid we just fund public transportation. We wouldn't want poor people using our service.

Maybe cities should start running a "luxury service" tier along the bus lines that charges 3x the fare, has cushioned seats, etc. Need a smart phone to request a stop. Make it once an hour or so and a sleek black and silver exclusive color. Don't even call it a bus, rebrand it as the stress-free shuttle and get a few celebrities to be "spotted" on them. You may laugh but this would probably be a hit.

I'd pay at least 2x the Muni fare if they would guarantee I wouldn't be mugged or spat on by a mentally disturbed homeless person.

Re: Waze Carpool

#118

Post by smarx007 »

cornholio wrote: post #79
pavel_lishin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described the pure software world solution. What happens when the commuter I pick up vomits in my car? Or steals something from my car? What happens if I get picked up by a person who changes their mind about where they're going? Or decide to take an unplanned detour to go to the store, or back home to grab the laptop they forgot, or to score some heroin? What happens when the driver gropes me? Or I grope th…

The same thing that happens in the non-Waze case: you kick them out, call the police, get mugged etc. The pure software world exists from Google's perspective, they provide zero support and then it's just a matter of individual choice if you want to use the service or not. Google can go a long way into making this significantly safer than random pick-up: you can select female only drivers or riders, only riders from…

It depends whether you see Waze as a transportation service or not. Many European regulators would see this as a paid transportation service. And then Google has to deal with customers who were not satisfied with any part of the service.

From the site:

"Make a little money" - paid service, maybe even considered a part-time employment

"Get there quicker" - transportation service.

Re: Waze Carpool

#119

Post by cornholio »

bluedino wrote: post #102
cornholio wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Uber, they appear to talk about a real carsharing system, as opposed to a taxi service with a lower entry barrier. The prices will be much lower since we are talking about the marginal cost of adding another passenger to an already happening trip - and with full info on where people are going, Waze effectively has an endless supply of trips that are happening, it's just a matter of displaying a pop-up "Hey, Al…

>> the marginal cost of adding another passenger to an already happening trip As minor as it is, going to pick someone else up and take them with me is pretty big inconvenience, especially in time.

1 hour of commuting could cost something like 30$ in gas (Europe), vechile depreciation and tolls. Sharing that cost 50-50 or 33-33-33 for a 5-10 minutes delay would yield a 120-180$ / hour rate for the delay period. Very few people could afford to turn that down, it's the average income of an whole hour of work compressed into 5 minutes.

Re: Waze Carpool

#120

Post by skybrian »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #99

The number of private tech companies that reinvent the BUS and think they're geniuses is staggering. But god forbid we just fund public transportation. We wouldn't want poor people using our service.

"Just" funding public transport wouldn't actually make commute times to tech company headquarters reasonable.
Post reply on HN