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Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

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581–590 of 916 posts

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was that driver, you bet I'd be contacting Uber to try and get your friend banned for life. Threatening a driver is never ok, even less so when it's not his fault.

Then maybe don't threaten to leave a family in a dangerous area while they're offering to pay it

I don't think that'd hold up against a legal review. It seems like an unreasonable position that some neighbourhood is so terrible that standing there for 20 minutes is an imminent threat. It might even be true, but that isn't a baseline a judge should really accept. The residents who live there obviously get through the day.

It may well have been very dangerous, but realistically it is hard to make dropping someone off in a residential area a crime. Threatening a driver with physical violence is definitely a crime though.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#582
post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing happened to me, and the support system automatically decided nothing was wrong whatsoever despite my phone certainly sending a very different location from the driver. And the madness was I couldn't even book another ride as I was technically in one. So I ended up getting it resolved via the security panic button which did put me through to a real person who was empathetic to the issue.

Is this some sort of a scam? The driver cannot even mark the ride as completed without being in the area right? So they have to drive it anyway. I can’t imagine they would be on the platform for long if this happened on a regular basis. I would say it’s probably an accident but how could this behavior be accidental? Someone might accidentally say that they picked you up, but they couldn’t accidentally then drive an e…

Maybe they picked up the wrong person and neither of them realized?

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#583
post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing happened to me, and the support system automatically decided nothing was wrong whatsoever despite my phone certainly sending a very different location from the driver. And the madness was I couldn't even book another ride as I was technically in one. So I ended up getting it resolved via the security panic button which did put me through to a real person who was empathetic to the issue.

Is this some sort of a scam? The driver cannot even mark the ride as completed without being in the area right? So they have to drive it anyway. I can’t imagine they would be on the platform for long if this happened on a regular basis. I would say it’s probably an accident but how could this behavior be accidental? Someone might accidentally say that they picked you up, but they couldn’t accidentally then drive an e…

Has anybody tried "driving" for one of these companies using GPS spoofing? You could fake the location of your phone. I suppose it'd only work a few times before the number of reports gets you banned, but I wonder whether on a laragr enough (and automated) scale it would be profitable for scammers

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#584
post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you going to provide me a useful service on a regular basis? You're really missing the point here if not.

The point is a bad one that should be missed. $3 isn't negligible. It isn't usually [0] worth spending $4 to recover, but it is nonetheless money. People can't just arbitrarily charge each other $3 for nothing. [0] Game theory says sometimes it makes sense to be unreasonable.

It's not arbitrary. It's part of an ongoing relationship that is worth significantly more. That $3 came out of the trust they have with the company. But even though they're wary now, they still have some trust and want to use the service in the future.

Some random guy asking for $3 is a wildly different situation.

It's not about the $3, it's about the relationship.

A close analogy would be Netflix going up $2. If you keep paying that, it doesn't mean you think the money is negligible, and it doesn't mean you would give that money to someone else. And this holds whether Netflix got consent before the increase or scammed you out of it or anything in between; those things affect the decision but they don't change the fundamental nature of it.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was an old school approach to appear friendly, which in theory makes customers more comfortable and encourages retention. Small steps to build a community. At the very least, you don't want to appear like that unresponsive cashier who's clearly having a bad day and grimaces at you when you say 'hello'. It's definitely a generational issue. Gen X and older seem to appreciate small talk more than most millenials and…

Yeah, Walgreens (US drugstore chain for those who aren’t familiar) often has their cashiers say “hi, welcome to Walgreens!” when customers come in. It just doesn’t work. Customers are wearing headphones, or on the phone, or sick with a respiratory infection and wearing a mask and trying not to talk unnecessarily, or don’t speak English very well, or maybe they’re just trying to remember everything they need, and it q…

Perhaps I'm overly cynical but I always assumed the walgreens greeting was an anti-theft thing. It's particularly apparent with the big box stores in bad neighborhoods where they are extremely overt about it in my experience - at least two greeters, making strong eye contact, a very loud and energetic greeting - whereas the ones in the nicer neighborhoods often don't have anyone hanging out at the front like that.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#586
why is it surprising that Waymo costs more, and people pay anyway? Waymo is prioritizing safety over all things and is in gradual roll out mode.

The easiest way to contain demand is to raise prices.

and...what's not to love about riding in the future for a few bucks more?

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this some sort of a scam? The driver cannot even mark the ride as completed without being in the area right? So they have to drive it anyway. I can’t imagine they would be on the platform for long if this happened on a regular basis. I would say it’s probably an accident but how could this behavior be accidental? Someone might accidentally say that they picked you up, but they couldn’t accidentally then drive an e…

Has anybody tried "driving" for one of these companies using GPS spoofing? You could fake the location of your phone. I suppose it'd only work a few times before the number of reports gets you banned, but I wonder whether on a laragr enough (and automated) scale it would be profitable for scammers

I had to go in person to verify my documents to drive for Uber

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#588
I've only used Uber a handfull of times, and all of them at least 7 years ago - nothing recent.

Last time I used it was late at night, I had used an Uber to get Pizza but it was kind of far from my hotel. After eating I used it again to get a ride back. Unfortunately whatever driver it chose for me, decided to just SIT for an hour at their house (or somewhere). And then finally left. It was like 11pm, middle of nowhere and I was freezing cold.

I'd rather choose a Waymo than freeze my ass off. This was an area that had so few drivers (I wasn't from here so I had no idea).

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a couple bad experiences with Lyft recently, including one time the driver must have clicked that they picked me up while a block away, because I could see the lyft driving to the destination without me. I tried to get a refund since I was obviously waiting my start location the whole time, but the system claimed the drive went from start to finish (even though I wasn't in the car), so no refund.

I waited 40 minutes for a Lyft at an airport because the driver made up a story about an accident and traffic, in the airport . No one else seemed to be affected by this traffic- so eventually I tried booking an Uber. It arrived 3 minutes later. 20 minutes after that the Lyft driver keeps texting me “where are you?!”. Their turn to wait! Saw later they just started the ride without me and drove to my hotel. Lyft said…

I've had several cases of drivers just not picking me up. Reading their time to move anywhere at all, driving away and keep getting further and further away, it driving towards me only to turn some other direction. I always just cancel on them and have never had to pay a cancellation fee. I think once or twice they "picked me up" a block away. I'm pretty sure I was able to cancel or end the ride on that too, definitely was never charged though I don't recall if I had to use the support. But I never let it actually complete the trip when I wasn't riding. But I was always very miffed when anything like that happened as I did not appreciate them wasting my time.

Re: Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway

#590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 So you may get say a 7 seater where the seats are folded in the trunk, so you can carry 7 people XOR 5 people + light suitcases There is no option to say “send me a mini van”

...XOR? So it can carry the 2 extra people, it can carry some luggage, it can't carry both, and it can't carry neither ?

^ Pedant detected
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