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

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

#651

Post by ghaff »

hattmall wrote: post #555
theamk wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think "cheap" was the main factor, at least for me and my friends. Predictable pricing, predictable arrival, automated booking, and an ability to complain to someone was significantly more important. (From what I've read, this happened naturally in other countries, but in US, the taxi monopoly was so bad, we needed something crazy like Uber)

Cheap and easy were the big factors, in roughly equal proportions, with a nod towards cheap. I did a lot of things I didn't need to do and just wouldn't have done at all if I would have had to pay taxi prices for several years while Ubers were cheap. Taxi's were also only easily available in very limited circumstances. Taxi's here worked one of two ways. You either negotiated a price before leaving, or they ran a met…

I don't disagree. As a business traveler, it was probably about ease. When I'd go down to one of our other company locations semi-regularly, I'd usually grab a cab at the airport because it was easy. Going the other way, I'd usually grab a Lyft. The Lyft was a bit cheaper but eh.

I admit I'm usually taking public transit while traveling if it's reasonably convenient but cheaper ride-share (or taxi) options can tilt the balance when public transit is complicated/awkward. Rent a car for long distance and rural. (I did start using Uber/Lyft in some situations in areas like Silicon Valley where I would previously have reflexively rented a car.) Around where I live, driving my car is the only real alternative except in special cases. And I essentially always take a pre-booked private car back and forth to the airport.

So, for me, more about ease but if I tended to rely on taxi-type services in cities more, it would probably be more about cost which is probably the case with many people commenting here.

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

#652

Post by data_maan »

1776smithadam wrote: post #518
data_maan wrote: post #512

This is as much about Uber/Lyft, as it is about the (nonexistent) level of politeness in the vest (US+Europe). Have you ever taken a Uber in Japan? The driver will make him/herself invisible. The space in the car is, factually, your space. No phone conversations on their part, no music, no odours. Waymo won't thrive in Japan, because it offers nothing extra advantages to regular Uber. We suck in the west in terms of…

> Have you ever taken a Uber in Japan? You're being snarky but it's obvious you're speaking from the prospective of a foreign tourist who has only been to Tokyo and major cities while not being able to speak Japanese. You're making a strong but false generalisations as a tourist. The tourist aspect is important because of the anthropic principle. If you were a local who was in the inaka where Uber doesn't operate and…

So you are saying that as a Japanese ordering a Japanese by phone, that your driver would: - happily speak on the phone while driving - listen to music - open the window to cool himself without asking if you're OK with that?

(i.e. all the things drivers in the best do; also, when I said that the space in a taxi is factually the clients space I didn't imply that the client can do whatever he wants - rather that the client can enjoy that space undisturbed; you only zoned in on the part of the client creating disturbance, which I can see though is an issue with tourists in Japan.)

I find that hard to believe. But open to be proven otherwise if you can cite such occurrences.

My other point that we in the west suck still seems to hold true: even if your point is true and I may get better treatment in Japan only as a tourist in a big city, you can rest assured that no Japanese in a western big city will get any kind of better treatment. Drivers in the west are usually impolite equally to everyone.

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

#653

Post by nottorp »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #646
bgwalter wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before Uber and Lyft destroyed the functioning taxi market, you got Mercedes by default for a traditional, regulated taxi in many EU countries. You didn't have to argue, interact with a surveillance company, interact with customer service etc. All you needed to do is pick up the phone and get a luxury ride without tracking or surveillance.

>the functioning taxi market Was it? In many EU countries a lot of taxi drivers act like scammers: take you the long way around, they don't issue you receipt by default because they do tax fraud or steal from their employer, you can't pay by card because suddenly the card machine "doesn't work" so they drive you to an ATM, then you pay cash and they try to keep the change, they don't speak English or even the local l…

In the Mercedes running countries taxi rides are also something you do very rarely because they cost a lot.

The rest are like the poster above me described. In Romania, the taxi drivers tried to strike in the capital when Uber showed up and everybody basically laughed at them.

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

#654

Post by yb6677 »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #646
bgwalter wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before Uber and Lyft destroyed the functioning taxi market, you got Mercedes by default for a traditional, regulated taxi in many EU countries. You didn't have to argue, interact with a surveillance company, interact with customer service etc. All you needed to do is pick up the phone and get a luxury ride without tracking or surveillance.

>the functioning taxi market Was it? In many EU countries a lot of taxi drivers act like scammers: take you the long way around, they don't issue you receipt by default because they do tax fraud or steal from their employer, you can't pay by card because suddenly the card machine "doesn't work" so they drive you to an ATM, then you pay cash and they try to keep the change, they don't speak English or even the local l…

[dead]

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

#655

Post by michaelt »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #430
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is anyone surprised that a smaller segment of the market will pay more for a safer ride in a luxury vehicle compared to a base model Lyft (which can be a barely drivable car with rank cloth interior where you can't even fit two people in the back seat)? Next up, some one will post, "First class tickets cost more than coach." Waymo will eventually have Waymo Comfort and Waymo Black.

I'm in LA, so I'm still skeptical about "safer". Granted, that's not a high bar, but I know who's accountable if an Uber/Lyft crashes.

I don't know if this is still true in the age of cellphones and uber, but when I was young, women were often advised not to take taxis alone, especially when drunk. There were a few high-profile rapes and murders.

As an bald, middle-aged man such risks are negligible for me, but I can see how some people might prefer a driverless vehicle.

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

#656

Post by vachina »

harvey9 wrote: post #629
jonny_eh wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber lets you enable a PIN for each ride. The driver can't say they picked you up until they punch in the random 4 digit PIN the app gave you for the ride.

This is good, but why can't these firms determine when your phone and the drivers phone are far apart?

GPS does not work everywhere, and not every device support BLE beacons.

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

#657

Post by nottorp »

johnfn wrote: post #453
calmbonsai wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. To alter-quote The Simpsons, "My eyes! The classes do nothing!" Shortly after pandemic, I noticed "corridor fees" on vastly different routes which, mysteriously, bumped-up the price by the same percentage across each route--but only after the ride had completed. The price I was quoted was not remotely close to the price I was charged. I did the customer service messaging thing. The first time, they removed…

As much as I love to hate on Uber and Lyft, tacked on fees like this are often due to state / federal government, and the rideshare service hands are tied. Uber tags on a very long list of random fees when I Uber out of SFO, but when I investigated them, they were all random taxes from the city / state. If they want to jack up the prices they can just increase them - they don't need to add random fees.

Not knowing what you'll pay for something until the moment you actually pay is considered normal only in the US.

Where I am, Uber shows a price, I pay that price. Whatever fees are included is not my problem.

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

#658

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

School-Cotton wrote: post #557
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another recent anecdote. A friend was recently in Milwaukee (first time ever. He was there for a conference). He, his wife, and another friend, wanted to go out to eat. They were given a wrong address. Could have been the source, or it could have been they screwed up writing it down. It was definitely a wrong address, though, that they gave to Uber. The driver picked them up, and took them to the address, which was d…

Huh? Your friend paid uber to take them to an address, and they did.

Actually, it sounds like my friend was robbed. Classic gypsy cab robbery.

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

#659

Post by fleebee »

tdeck wrote: post #603
whoisyc wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1950: cars give you the freedom to go anywhere you want. Artificial fertilizer puts an end to hunger in industrialized world. Yeehaw! 2000: you are a second class citizen who can’t even get a job in many places if you do not have a car. Also the median person is overweight. But here is this new internet thing that lets you get everything you need in life sorted out with no need for human interactions. Yeehaw! 2025: t…

> So when Vashti found her cabin invaded by a rosy finger of light, she was annoyed, and tried to adjust the blind. But the blind flew up altogether, and she saw through the skylight small pink clouds, swaying against a background of blue, and as the sun crept higher, its radiance entered direct, brimming down the wall, like a golden sea. It rose and fell with the air-ship’s motion, just as waves rise and fall, but i…

Wow. It's hard to believe this novella was written in 1909. The imagination and insight of the author is remarkable. It reads as an account of a dystopic future that we are now more and more living in the present.

Thank you for sharing this.

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

#660

Post by dheerajvs »

ctxc wrote: post #542
rfurmani wrote: post #477

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.

That's must be annoying to say the least. In India drivers require an OTP to start a ride. The OTP is the same for a user across rides, so I have mine memorised which is nifty. No fiddling with the phone during boarding. On security: exploiting this would require the driver to stay in my vicinity the next time I book a ride, and also get the ride assigned to them. In a high population density area, it's rare - I've n…

Uber in India gives me a different OTP for each ride. A different ride-hailing app I use occasionally uses a PIN tied to a user.

OTPs are a simple solution to fraudulent rides that it's surprising it's not implemented universally, given all the complaints in this thread.

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