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Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

bbc.com

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Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#131

Post by gjulianm »

dangus wrote: post #109
Terretta wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t want to rate my driver. I want to be able to rely on a third party... You sure can’t rely on the Uber, Lyft, Juno ratings. It’s 5 stars or bust. The social pressure on 5 stars is enormous. Netflix moved to thumbs up, thumbs down. YouTube did the same, after showing a graph of the 5s and 1s: https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/22/youtube-comes-to-a-5-star-... I relentlessly give an average delivery or ride 3 star…

Your inability to follow the cultural norm is actually at fault here, not the rating system. What you’re doing is akin to tipping 5% in restaurants in the US and only tipping 15% when you have an outstanding experience. In reality, restaurants workers in the USA would expect 15% to 20% unless they dramatically fucked up. I don’t like the tipping system either, but I’m also not going to be that asshole who tries to ch…

From what I have heard from drivers, anything less than 5 stars is bad. Not only with Uber, but with all those companies pushing customers to review their employees. The system is counterintuitive and most people get it wrong at the beginning. Compare what makes you rate 5 stars when you buy a product to your Uber rating system.

However, the think that irks me the most is that rating everyday experiences is just dumb. Most taxi drives will be average and that's it, because we all just want it to be good enough. It's as if my local supermarket made me rate the cashier with 1 to 5 stars. I don't want to do that, because that person just needs to do their job. Anything above "good enough" is unnecessary. Significantly bad experiences should be a "reported to the manager" (or any similar mechanism), filtering out trivial complaints that you'd get in a 5-star scale and getting actual useful information on how to improve the system.

The US restaurant example is funny because the problem is the same. Instead of paying by default fair wages and paying attention to customers that complain about workers, they delegate the 'rating' part to customers, which means that there's no feedback on which they can improve and that their salary is determined by arbitrary people judgements.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#132

Post by tialaramex »

Brakenshire wrote: post #48
browsermostly wrote: post #35

TFL should actually provide a reliable service if they want to start pointing fingers. They talk about security and safety but it's not safe to have to wait around hoping for the off chance a scammy black cab will spot you after your TFL train gets cancelled for whatever reason.

It sounds like you've never been to London? Who says 'TFL train'?

TFL Rail is the name for TFL's temporary services either side of what will be Crossrail. Once Crossrail opens to the public it will all become Crossrail / The Elizabeth Line even those services that don't actually go under London.

So TFL do operate trains, even ignoring London Overground which is in effect also TFL.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#133

Post by Izkata »

dangus wrote: post #109
Terretta wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t want to rate my driver. I want to be able to rely on a third party... You sure can’t rely on the Uber, Lyft, Juno ratings. It’s 5 stars or bust. The social pressure on 5 stars is enormous. Netflix moved to thumbs up, thumbs down. YouTube did the same, after showing a graph of the 5s and 1s: https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/22/youtube-comes-to-a-5-star-... I relentlessly give an average delivery or ride 3 star…

Your inability to follow the cultural norm is actually at fault here, not the rating system. What you’re doing is akin to tipping 5% in restaurants in the US and only tipping 15% when you have an outstanding experience. In reality, restaurants workers in the USA would expect 15% to 20% unless they dramatically fucked up. I don’t like the tipping system either, but I’m also not going to be that asshole who tries to ch…

> What you’re doing is akin to tipping 5% in restaurants in the US and only tipping 15% when you have an outstanding experience. In reality, restaurants workers in the USA would expect 15% to 20% unless they dramatically fucked up.

This is actually the sole reason I don't go to restaurants/diners. These rules aren't what I grew up with (yes, in the US, I've never left the country), seem to be different every time I hear them, and usually keep creeping higher. I just never know what to tip, so it's either fast food and no tip, or go a bit hungry until I can get home.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#135

Post by Jommi »

pjc50 wrote: post #27
caithrin wrote: post #3

"Only in the last few months it has been established that 14,000 Uber journeys have involved fraudulent drivers uploading their photos to other driver accounts - with passengers' safety potentially put at risk getting into cars with unlicensed and suspended drivers." This seems, from a technical perspective, an easy problem to solve with the resources of a public company. Is it the desperation of people who need the…

> Is it the desperation of people who need the money so badly they will constantly cheat the system? Can you design for that? This is the Internet. If you don't design for people cheating you, they will wreck your system as soon as it becomes popular enough to be visible.

Which is the exact problem. Ubers smaller competitors have no incentive for heavy regulatory features because they can get away with it. That in turn pushes Uber to not implement them either, until the very last moment.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#137

Post by SirensOfTitan »

_vrmm wrote: post #10

I know this opinion is not popular but I'm so happy everytime I see bad news for Uber and all these companies that only exist thanks to basically exploiting THEIR workers. Private transporting is not sustainable and it is not something that has to be affordable for everyone, even less by lowering workers wages or playing with the tariffs by demand. Taxi regulations gives us passengers safety and fair prices. There ar…

How one reports a yellow cab driver in NYC:

1. Remember to get the cab medallion number during your ride.

2. Go online to submit a fairly lengthy report to TLC, alongside your contact info.

3. Nothing for 2 months

4. Someone calls you asking you for details. You may even have to show up to a hearing. By this point you forget almost the entire issue.

5. The cabbie who ignored you, drove dangerously, scammed you has been driving for months without a registered complaint and nothing will happen.

New York Yellow Cab is the best too—cabs in the Bay Area, for instance, were absolutely awful before Uber. I also cannot imagine Taxi companies were stewards of fair labor practices before Uber either.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#138

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

dangus wrote: post #109
Terretta wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t want to rate my driver. I want to be able to rely on a third party... You sure can’t rely on the Uber, Lyft, Juno ratings. It’s 5 stars or bust. The social pressure on 5 stars is enormous. Netflix moved to thumbs up, thumbs down. YouTube did the same, after showing a graph of the 5s and 1s: https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/22/youtube-comes-to-a-5-star-... I relentlessly give an average delivery or ride 3 star…

Your inability to follow the cultural norm is actually at fault here, not the rating system. What you’re doing is akin to tipping 5% in restaurants in the US and only tipping 15% when you have an outstanding experience. In reality, restaurants workers in the USA would expect 15% to 20% unless they dramatically fucked up. I don’t like the tipping system either, but I’m also not going to be that asshole who tries to ch…

> let’s compare three stars to grades in school

That very much depends on which country you're talking about. That's the case in the US, but try telling a teacher in France you deserve 16/20 because you did an average job!

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#139

Post by MrAlex94 »

yaa_minu wrote: post #103
matthewfelgate wrote: post #73

We have a solution for which companies should operate: it's called the free market.

The fact that you're being downvoted shows how much of a socialist hell-hole HN has become. No one is forcing people to drive for uber and no one is forcing the rider to use uber. In my city, Accra, Taxis were so expensive until uber came to the market and forced down the price. The only system that puts the consumer (read: common man) first is the free market (if and only if politicians would allow it to work).

I disagree. The UK could be viewed as more "socialist" than Ghana, but it is consistently ranked as more economically free: https://www.heritage.org/index/visualize?cnts=unitedkingdom|...

Also, with the tactics Uber has historically used - in a "proper" free market, would they not become a monopoly? And then they could charge what they please, ending up in the same position that previous taxi companies have been in.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#140

Post by user5994461 »

lamps12 wrote: post #15
samwillis wrote: post #5

The article doesn't really explain... their current temporary license (they have been on a temp one since last year) expires at 11.59 tonight, TFL won't give them a new permanent one. This will be in the courts today and they will probably be granted another temporary one before the day is out.

What's the maximum time period one can operate with the temp?

They've had no license for two years, they should be able to go for another two years for sure without a hitch.

I bet they could go on like this forever.

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