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The special hell of Bolt, Europe's Uber clone

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Re: The special hell of Bolt, Europe's Uber clone

#41

Post by ghaff »

devilbunny wrote: post #24
twiss wrote: post #3

> I arrived in Lyon recently and figured, hey, this is Europe, why not try the European app again, and used Bolt. A bit off topic but IMHO your first thought should instead be: "hey, this is Europe, why not try the train?" In Lyon, the train from the airport to the city takes half an hour, same as a car. My guess is that you'll have a vastly better experience than taking the train in North America, and also a better…

> "hey, this is Europe, why not try the train?" I have two people and four items of luggage plus a personal bag each. City trains are poor for this and subways are worse, but I am here for two weeks - I do need clean clothes.

In general, a lot of luggage doesn't work well on public transit on any continent. I've generally moved towards packing lighter but it isn't always possible. For two weeks in cities I can mostly do carryon. If I'm hiking/camping, yes, I may need more.

Re: The special hell of Bolt, Europe's Uber clone

#42

Post by twiss »

legitster wrote: post #27
twiss wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to claim that tourism in Europe won't be "durable" at a moment when tourism in the US is sharply declining.. Anyway, Booking.com is a European company and has many more customers than AirBnB.

Apples and Oranges. Booking.com is an aggregator. Also, Booking.com is unbelievably exploitative and rife with dark patterns.

How so? At least Booking.com shows me the total price for an accommodation up front, without any additional fees or surprises coming up later in the booking process.

The same cannot be said for AirBnB: if I go to the home page right now it lists a bunch of bookings for e.g. "€ 80 for 2 nights", while when I click through the total price is €160. So apparently what they meant is "€80 per night". I'd call that much more of a dark pattern than anything I've seen Booking do.

Re: The special hell of Bolt, Europe's Uber clone

#43

Post by rawgabbit »

dontlaugh wrote: post #30
devilbunny wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "hey, this is Europe, why not try the train?" I have two people and four items of luggage plus a personal bag each. City trains are poor for this and subways are worse, but I am here for two weeks - I do need clean clothes.

That sounds like a huge amount of luggage for just two weeks.

My wife does not pack light either. She loves giant suitcases. It is always an argument that I rather bring four carry on size suitcases so I can manhandle them up the many stairs in Europe. Instead of two jumbo suitcases.

Re: The special hell of Bolt, Europe's Uber clone

#44

Post by exhaze »

Back in 2015ish Uber we liked to emphasize everyone building at the company to never forget about the long tail [distribution].

When your N crosses gets above N per day, even the 0.1% edge cases happen several days times a day. When this has real world implications, even a single instance can matter a lot.

Re: The special hell of Bolt, Europe's Uber clone

#45

Post by socalgal2 »

pclowes wrote: post #12

Sadly I have encountered this on multiple different kinds of European tech platforms. There is some deep cultural disconnect on understanding how/why American tech companies are successful. Most often they seem to ape most of major US tech platforms functionality but critically somehow miss the "make something people want" and instead make something that: - Sort of works? Has all the major screens but the whole exper…

I know this is an anecdote but I was curious if Europeans can tell me if this is a one-off experience or if there is something more to do this.

I was booked to catch a DBS train from Brussels to Berlin at 9:45 am. I get to the station at 9:25 looking for the train, can't find it. I go to the counter and get told the train came early at 9:15 then "Not my fault" (the first words out of the DBS attendant's mouth").

I got this same thing from a Swiss Air attendant when something happened. Nearly the first words were "Not My Fault"

I'm not sure I've ever heard that from a customer service rep in the USA and it was shocking to hear those words as the first like conditioned/scripted words from these reps.

I only brought it up because of it seemed to fit the previous comment of poor customer service.

Re: The special hell of Bolt, Europe's Uber clone

#46

Post by rckt »

It’s not the Bolt issue. It’s the market-cares-too-much-about-profits-fuck-you issue.

I’ve never had troubles using Bolt. But I had similar to TS’ issues with other services, including Uber.

Business doesn’t care neither about drivers nor about riders. Everyone tries their best to survive. And most people just wouldn’t care to struggle through support bots. Proper support service is a unicorn nowadays.

Re: The special hell of Bolt, Europe's Uber clone

#49

Post by socalgal2 »

hyperpape wrote: post #28

So, it seems like there is some kind of national variance here? Bolt works well in Portugal, I've used it in Porto, Lisbon, and even Caldas da Rainha (smallish town an hour north of Lisbon). All told, we've taken more than a dozen trips, I think. - Someone else says it's good in Portugal https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44640459 - Someone says Malta is good, France is bad: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=446…

I'm just going to throw this out there but maybe, just maybe, this is all about local culture?

Certain cultures have apparently have different attitudes on customer service and taking advantage of people. In Japan, many times, cab drivers have shut off the meter early because they made a mistake in their navigation and felt guilty for both the time lost and the extra cost if they'd left the meter on.

Conversely, cab drivers in Rome, Turkey, Thailand have a much worse reputation,

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