Introducing Driver Destination • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing Driver Destination

#121

Post by onion2k » Wed, Nov 26, 2014, 2:24 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #118

onion2k wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

b) 90% of Americans don't "do" traditional carpooling and they're not about to start 90% of Americans didn't pay non-professional strangers for a ride before Uber came along. 90% of Americans didn't share what they were having for lunch before Instagram. 90% of Americans didn't share the hilarious list of "cats who forgot how to cat" before Buzzfeed. The point being it's pretty much impossible to predict what product…

Your overall point is correct but I don't think it applies here. There are deep cultural reasons for why carpooling hasn't become popular in America. From what I have observed as a foreigner, people in this country love their big personal spaces, and their cars are a part of that. It's related to why public transportation isn't popular: most people don't want to sit within such close proximity to strangers.

If people aren't willing to a share car with a stranger for money then Uber wouldn't work. It really is that simple. The evidence suggests that they are. The 'will people share someone's private car?' question has been answered and it's an emphatic "yes". That isn't the whole story here though.

There is a possibility that people wouldn't want to give up the convenience of commuting - having your car at the office so you can go somewhere on your lunch break, leaving the office without having to wait for your carpool ride, carrying large items to the office, and so on - are benefits that you would lose by switching to Lyft. People will have to weigh those benefits against the cost and stress of driving to work. So the question here is really "Do enough people want to give up driving themselves in favour of a cheaper, easier, but mildy inconvenient alternative in the form of Lyft?". The answer to that question is not an obvious "no". There could well be a big enough market to sustain a profitable business.

The fact that people haven't carpooled much before is not evidence that they don't want to or that they can't be persuaded to now; it is simply evidence that the pain of commuting was lower than the pain of organising a carpool. If you can lower the effort people have to put in enough so that it's sufficiently easy to carpool then it is possible change people's minds. Lyft will succeed if they can do that.

Re: Introducing Driver Destination

#122

Post by cal2 » Wed, Nov 26, 2014, 2:25 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #118

onion2k wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

b) 90% of Americans don't "do" traditional carpooling and they're not about to start 90% of Americans didn't pay non-professional strangers for a ride before Uber came along. 90% of Americans didn't share what they were having for lunch before Instagram. 90% of Americans didn't share the hilarious list of "cats who forgot how to cat" before Buzzfeed. The point being it's pretty much impossible to predict what product…

Your overall point is correct but I don't think it applies here. There are deep cultural reasons for why carpooling hasn't become popular in America. From what I have observed as a foreigner, people in this country love their big personal spaces, and their cars are a part of that. It's related to why public transportation isn't popular: most people don't want to sit within such close proximity to strangers.

It's entirely possible that I'm being biased as an American, but I've never really felt this way. I love public transportation whenever I'm in cities like Chicago or New York City. My issue is that my state (and sometimes my commute) is bigger than most European countries. I've never felt a deep cultural barrier between public transportation and me, it's personally just incredibly inconvenient. I would very much love to see more public transportation options in America, though. But your argument is quite interesting, so thanks!

Re: Introducing Driver Destination

#123

Post by peterwwillis » Wed, Nov 26, 2014, 3:44 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #7

Shared carpooling (called "slugging" here) has a been a viable commuting option for people in the DC area for decades. No money changes hands; the point is that a car with 3+ people can use the much faster HOV lanes. http://www.slug-lines.com/Slugging/About_slugging.asp

In cities with more striking poverty, like Baltimore and southeast DC (admit it, it's basically a separate entity from DC) there are other forms of transportation too, like hacks[1] and hawkers [2], and the VANS of latin america [3].

There are many reasons for these kind of underground economies to exist, but one of the most striking ones to me is race. Try asking a black friend in DC whether they get picked up by cabs as easily as their white counterparts. Then there's both the drivers and riders, who have so little cash they can't afford the extras imposed by a traditional transportation company. That's when there's even a form of transportation at all; VANS exist solely to fill the empty void left by the largely nonexistent public transit of Brazilian favelas.

Other concerns (seriously, you should read the first article) include price and time: "Hale has practical reasons for putting his own safety at risk. "Cabs are too high nowadays," he says. "Most of the time, if you're not going too far, a hack is only $5. With cabs it's a $10 trip to go nowhere." As for public transportation: "If I'm going to take the bus to work, I leave at noon. If I catch a hack, I leave at 1:30."

[1] http://www2.citypaper.com/story.asp?id=6264 [2] http://www2.citypaper.com/film/story.asp?id=15396 [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20100108192651/http://www.gsd.ha...