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

wow, not sure if you just had a lot of bad luck or what... I downloaded both Uber and Lyft, signed up for them just to check them out, but not in this area... but useful if I ever traveled somewhere. Which at some point I'd like to be able to go on a solo trip a year. I heard bad things about Uber though in the news, but not sure how much it differs since i'm sure Taxi drivers do bad things too... but I think since Uber is the new upstart, it's easy to pick on them more.

I have heard of not speaking English too, was watching a cruise vlog someone did from Miami, she commented on that fact. Probably awkward, but I guess if you want to be a world traveler got to figure out the language barrier.

Checked out your blog post. Also interesting about pride, very popular there so not surprised it's mess. "move along, KEEP MOVING", surprised the police didn't want to help with directions, but probably a huge crowd? so trying to control the crowd maybe? hmm. I know there's reports that the police in SF don't even investigate car break ins anymore either, so not sure what their job is anymore. Needles and poop part I hear a lot about sadly though. It seems like the entire west coast is going down hill. In Seattle the local news station KOMO did a special called "Seattle is dying". Also not sure if people running around Naked is normal, but maybe doing it just because of pride? Kinda surprised they tolerate that, I think if I started running around nude here I'd be arrested and probably sent for a mental evaluation.

I used to want to go out west because of tech, but I've woken up a lot more about the realities. The housing costs, high crime, high taxes. I kinda change my mind a bunch of where I want to live though, I think working remotely being a digital nomad would be nice or retire early if got lucky from creating something successful... So much to explore around the US and world. Want to do a bit of cruising and international travel, RV around the US, plus I feel like RVing would be cheaper than exploring the globe so more long term. And it's basically a home on wheels. There's parts out west though I think would be nice to vacation, but not a place to live. Like you see Seattle on TV growing up on TV shows and movies so be nice to sightsee. Same with some of the places in California.

Spend summers exploring more north, spend winters in the sunbelt. But if that dream doesn't happen yet, my other goal is to go somewhere warmer and nicer like FL or TX. But it seems like Austin is growing, and starting to have some of the same problems as SF... Austin is warmer too than here but still some days it gets cold it looks. Tech is growing in Miami too. Orlando would be another spot, plus could get an annual pass to Disney! Some people are happy if they get to go once in their life, imagine being able to go almost every day! Some people with passes living near by will just go only for dinner and maybe ride one ride or two. One of my goals with the RV dream is to spend probably at least a month in Orlando during the winters, but there's other spots in FL to explore. Galveston, TX and Quartzsite, AZ are some other winter destinations that seem popular.

The other child thread helps to explain where my discrepancy came from. Most companies prefer to have a unified pay schedule, so if there are workers in the company that you'd expect to pay bi-weekly/semimonthly (such as hourly wages), the entire company will be put on that schedule.

My own personal experience has been in the post financial crisis tech industry, and I wonder if tech pays monthly more often compared to others (and if funding plays any role in that).

I wish the culture was to give an honest star rating everywhere. A 4 is an excellent rating to get and should be treated as such. Instead we’ve set everything up so that if you aren’t getting 5 stars you’re a failure. What’s the point of stars 1 through 4 then? We should just ditch this system for a 0 or 1 star system instead since that’s how it’s treated.

Same problem has infected everything from rating your apartment maintenance guy to the support person at the call center.

That they service only a minuscule part of London and refuse to take rides that take them outside of it.

Even in the center good luck hailing one at 2am on a Saturday night.

I’ve been refused rides form the Shard, Bank, and Canary Wharf plto Lancaster gate, both of which are in Zone 1.

If I want to hail a cab from my home I have to walk 10 min to Paddington and I live essentially across from Hyde Park which makes me considerably more central than most people in London.

For my friends who live in Hammersmith, Fulham, Acton and Chiswick they might as well be living in Belgium as far as black cabs are concerned they don’t go there and they won’t take you there.

You came to SF and are now enjoying life post-Uber. You have no idea how bad taxis were before Uber. You would never have gotten a cab pre-Uber.

I once waited 1.5 hrs for a cab to pick me up from a hotel. The idea you would just hop in a taxi and travel places was impossible pre-Uber. If you were downtown, you might be able to flag a taxi but once you arrived at your destination you wouldn’t be able to flag a taxi down depending on where you were. So you would have to call a cab and hope they would show up. At 3X the price.

This is part of the equation that you don’t get. Empty cabs would pass people on the streets because they would pick and choose rides to the airport because those were the most lucrative.

Safety was impossible. Now with Uber safety is better than it ever has been, you just don’t realize it because you don’t know what the taxi stays on safety were before.

If you don’t like the service, give them 1 star and complain. That’s how it works.