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Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

money.cnn.com

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Re: Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

#211

Post by hueving »

icebraining wrote: post #77
hristov wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each Uber user benefits when there are more Uber drivers. They can get rides faster and more conveniently. Each Uber driver benefits when there are more Uber users. They can get clients faster and closer to their current position and thus make more money with less downtime. These are the network effects. A consumer can use Uber and a competitor. This, however, is not unlike social networks, it is entirely like social…

Each Uber user benefits when there are more Uber drivers. They can get rides faster and more conveniently. Each Uber driver benefits when there are more Uber users. They can get clients faster and closer to their current position and thus make more money with less downtime. These are the network effects. As nickpinkston said, those are economies of scale, which is a related concept, but not the same. A consumer can u…

>As nickpinkston said, those are economies of scale, which is a related concept, but not the same.

This is still network effects, just with two different parts. The drivers benefit when there are more users, and the users benefit when there are more drivers. It falls clearly into the definition of network externalities when you take the drivers into account.

Re: Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

#212

Post by hueving »

yapcguy wrote: post #209
eridius wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't heard of this before, so I just googled it and read the top half-dozen news stories in addition to Uber's own blog. And honestly, I don't see that Uber did anything wrong. They opened with a statement offering condolences to the family. They then confirmed that the accident did not involve an active driver ("a vehicle or provider doing a trip on the Uber system"). They followed this up by urging the police t…

Desperate attempts to wash themselves of liability. If a Yellow Cab driver killed someone do you think they would deny, admit and then caveat with 'but he doesnt really work for us because he didnt have a passenger in the car and his lunch break was coming up blah blah blah'

>If a Yellow Cab driver killed someone do you think they would deny, admit and then caveat with

Yes, if a yellow cab driver hit someone with his own car while he was not working (which is what happened here), yellow cab would very much deny any liability.

Re: Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

#213

Post by asnyder »

eridius wrote: post #141
yid wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uber handles this by having a button in their app that initiaates the phone call. You can't find out a driver's number without actually calling them. Similarly, they can't find out yours without actually calling you. Actually, I think they use some sort of phone proxy service. I once looked at my driver's phone and he had a totally different number listed for me that I did not recognize (same area code though).

Oh? So it sounds like Uber is doing something similar to what I proposed then. That's good.

If you don't mind sharing, I would love to know what sort of thing is used for this. Normally I would think Twilio but that's more of create your own number and pay per minute.

Re: Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

#214

Post by mmanfrin »

amirmc wrote: post #83
maxbrown wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? This is the best part of the story...that their actions were what made me aware of their competitor.

> "... their actions were what made me aware ..." Point of pedantry: You're aware because someone wrote an article and someone else posted it here. I wonder how many other locations have tried similar tactics but not been widely exposed.

He is also aware because he owns a computer, has access to the internet, is in a profession or hobby that led him to this site, is in a specific place where he thought to check this site.

At a certain point, you go overboard with pedantry.

Re: Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

#215

Post by mgulaid »

sitkack wrote: post #184
techreporter wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They claim they paid cancellation fees. Gett claims the charges are pending. At this point it would be stupid of them to not let those charges through though.

If Uber wasn't a douche, they would have just booked rides in the cars and personally talked to the drivers. Absolutely no harm in that. What they did shows an utter lack of tact.

good point.. lack of class

Re: Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics

#216

Post by dinkumthinkum »

amirmc wrote: post #83
maxbrown wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? This is the best part of the story...that their actions were what made me aware of their competitor.

> "... their actions were what made me aware ..." Point of pedantry: You're aware because someone wrote an article and someone else posted it here. I wonder how many other locations have tried similar tactics but not been widely exposed.

I don't think this is very good pedantry, though. This is really straining pedantry ...
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