Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone who doesn't carry cash is someone who doesn't do anything interesting...
What is that supposed to mean? In my country cash is virtually non-existent.
In the US I hardly ever use cash.
Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
111–120 of 128 posts
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#112A meta ride share app needs development effort (money), infrastructure (money) maintenance (money) and integration with local co-ops (money) and all that money needs an administrative hierarchy (more money). All this overhead needs to be put in place without any direct income from riders. Either it come's in the form of a service that co-ops subscribe to and pay for or it comes in the form of a collective formed of i…
There is absolutely no reason for ride sharing to not be a protocol. Drivers join a federated network of other drivers they "agree" with and you pick the driver pools you want (and they could be local drivers, or they could be drivers that meet some criteria or vetting process). You could have any number of ride share apps that use the protocol and interface with server infrastructure of each network.
If you distribute the authority in the system you decentralize the power structures that produce hostile actors like the brass of Uber and Lyft. Nothing says each city can't have its own app and own driver cooper so long as my app from my city can speak your cities language when I'm there.
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
thank you for the response. i'm wondering how my meta-uber app would obtain my origin and destination. is Doctorow proposing that the user manually enter origin and destination into both the actual uber app and the proposed meta-uber app?
I believe the idea is that the meta-uber app would programmatically control the actual uber app, hence the CFAA and DRM concerns.
Ah. Ok. Got it. Thanks.
So, meta-uber would need to embed within itself a hacked copy of the actual uber app, or just very carefully mimic calls to Uber's backend somehow.
Or meta-uber would need to somehow have the permission to run and inject data into an authentically installed instance of the Uber app (not quite sure if or how, say, the Android platform's security model would allow this.)
Hmmm.
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#114I love this. It indirectly calls out that uber has relatively easy to clone tech. A co-op network is a great idea and a white label or open source uber application is probably a great idea.
I was appalled that the the existing taxi system (essentially a protected monopoly) wouldn't immediately create an Uber/Lyft app when ride-sharing first appeared. Then I realized that building such a thing would only benefit drivers and customers, and those are the two constituents that the existing taxi system doesn't care about.
We've had taxi hailing apps in Brazil since before Uber arrived. Once Uber got here, though, no one could compete with its prices.
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Afraid of negotiating a price? Really? I'm not afraid of it - I'm just at a disadvantage in terms of information. When I fly into some random city where I don't know anything about what a normal taxi fare is I can't negotiate can I? It's also just something I don't want to do - I don't want to have a stand-up argument with someone about money, thanks. I also don't want to unblock a toilet but that doesn't mean I'm…
> Taxis also requires you to carry physical cash, That's a bit stone age. Here in Scandinavia I never take cash when I go to one of the other countries, all the taxis take plastic.
Well that's my point - taxis in some countries are stuck with coins and bank notes and bartering like you're a medieval squire looking for a horse.
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#116[deleted]
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Afraid of negotiating a price? Really? I'm not afraid of it - I'm just at a disadvantage in terms of information. When I fly into some random city where I don't know anything about what a normal taxi fare is I can't negotiate can I? It's also just something I don't want to do - I don't want to have a stand-up argument with someone about money, thanks. I also don't want to unblock a toilet but that doesn't mean I'm…
> Taxis also requires you to carry physical cash, That's a bit stone age. Here in Scandinavia I never take cash when I go to one of the other countries, all the taxis take plastic.
Ostensibly, almost all taxis in America take cards also - the problem isn't a failure to install readers. (It is true that Uber introduces credit card support in countries where taxis commonly lack it, or where a tourist's plastic is incompatible with directly paying on local systems.)
In the US, though, the problem isn't a shortage of readers. It's partly that instead of drivers swiping cards, there are often car-installed readers in the passenger area, which are a pain to fix when drunk or angry riders break them. But it's largely a tax/overhead scheme, where drivers say their reader is broken so that they can get cash and underreport fares.
In many places they're required to inform passengers in advance when they can't take plastic, but that doesn't mean they actually do so - and the problem was even worse before ubiquitous cell phones enabled "I'll stay here and we'll call the cops". Even with most taxi companies launching their own ride-hail apps, a significant selling point of Uber is avoiding common issues like drivers demanding cash or inflating costs with longer routes.
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#118I'm trying to find how Ride Austin was built. I assume that the money for the developers and the servers must've come from somewhere. If it was the drivers themselves, isn't that basically the 25% they pay uber up-front? Mind you, that's still better than Uber, since they own the app, but it's not exactly the surge in income that the article later tried to paint it as.
That doubt aside, I mostly agree with this.
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Afraid of negotiating a price? Really? I'm not afraid of it - I'm just at a disadvantage in terms of information. When I fly into some random city where I don't know anything about what a normal taxi fare is I can't negotiate can I? It's also just something I don't want to do - I don't want to have a stand-up argument with someone about money, thanks. I also don't want to unblock a toilet but that doesn't mean I'm…
> I don't want to have a stand-up argument with someone about money, thanks. Why not? It's not so bad. I prefer to negotiate my own contracts. To rely on some third party to do so is infantilizing. If I got into the habit of avoiding stuff like that, I wouldn't be able to travel and live like a local. You know when I travel it's sans apps. I use paper maps road signs and no GPS, I take local cabs, even collective cab…
> I take local cabs, even collective cabs. It's never been a problem
This may be a significant part of why other people are disagreeing with you.
Pre-Uber, I had bad experiences with cabs perhaps 20% of the time. Mostly it was just unreasonable fare demands made after promising something else, but it did escalate to some light stalking and threats of physical violence. (And for whatever it matters, I'm a largish guy and still had that experience.) The vast majority of those experiences were with licensed taxis (or in the worst case, a fake licensed taxi) in America.
I'm not at all upset by bartering, asking for help, or struggling with language gaps. I actually agree with you that we've lost something due to Yelp reviews, online bookings, and the larger move to impersonal and intermediated travel. I've had friends be genuinely surprised when I suggested that we skip Yelp while traveling and just wander until someplace looks interesting.
But taxis? At best, the mechanical experience is arriving where I'm going. At worst it's a conflict far worse than I can even imagine having in a restaurant or shop. The only personal touch is talking to the driver (or a fellow passenger), and ironically I've actually had more engaging conversations with Uber drivers than with drivers in traditional taxis.
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#120> Today, DRM is used to force people with artificial pancreases to buy proprietary insulin Wow, that seems especially evil.
It's worth exploring exactly what's meant by "proprietary insulin". Insulin can't be proprietary - it's a natural, widely available molecule of publicly known composition. What's actually proprietary in scenarios like these is some encryption key that will persuade the device to work - the fact that the key is embedded in a memory chip glued to the container is a red herring. In the case of a life-essential substance…
I remember someone making a claim about insulin, but it wasn't the insulin itself – it was proprietary consumables for insulin pumps.