Do nice guys come second?
1843magazine.com
1843magazine.com
Many people in Silicon Valley are biased against Lyft because they think that ride-sharing will be a winner-takes-all market. They are probably wrong. Once a ride-sharing company gets to a certain level of reliability and waiting times are short enough, there is little benefit to using one service over another. Uber and Lyft will both be able to claim a lead in lots of cities, and both will be around for a while.
Furthermore, if you live in a city with both, it's not uncommon to talk with drivers who work for both services.
I will also add that the need for expansion has toned down the quirkiness of Lyft from when they first out a few years back. The giant furry mustache was replaced. No more fist bumps. And the drivers I encounter are generally less talkative and charismatic. That's not meant to criticize the company, but AFAIC, there is just a lot less separating the two companies.
So playing it slow and sane might be second in the long run, but if they keep expanding I don't see them not eating into Uber's market and climbing their way up. Well, unless of course Uber's investment into driverless cars is able to come to fruition within our lifetime.
I'd say most people I know use one or the other exclusively. I think Uber actually tends to be cheaper at busier times than Lyft if you tip when you use Lyft. The average Uber vehicle seems newer than Lyft vehicle as well.
Either way, I don't think Lyft is at much of a competitive disadvantage in Chicago, at least in the 20-something crowd. The older individuals I know are much more likely to use Uber exclusively, and use the features that are not present in Lyft, like calling a standard taxi, or Uber Black.
It's all anecdotal of course, but I personally wouldn't worry too much about Lyft. I think the fact that they appear to allow a broader range of vehicles and drivers is a competitive advantage.
It's not about money; it's just a UX thing. I don't like having to remember to go back into the app after the fact to pay more to not look like a jerk. I'd rather Lyft just raise their rates by 15% and kill the option to tip, or at least give me an opt-in setting to auto-tip (and factor the auto-tip into fare estimates).
But you don't. The driver doesn't see that you tipped or not.
Of course drivers like Lyft. Lyft extorts tips from users and hence drivers get more money.
It's also precisely why Lyft will never win: tipping is customer hostile. I don't want to tip and will never use Lyft if Uber is an option.
If supply & demand intersect at a price which is even 20% higher than it currently is, that would be fine by me. What I hate is the mental gymnastics of tipping, the lengths which Lyft drivers go to to extort tips from you, and the clear potential for discrimination which a tipping culture creates.
The expectation is that you get good service and pay for it in the amount of roughly 15-20% of your actual bill of sale.
If you do not get good service, the bargaining chip available to you is to tip less and stop coming in.
If you do get good service and you choose to tip less then you're the one not holding up your side of the bargain. The bargaining chip available to them is to give you worse service so you stop coming in.
Tipping is not a good solution, but you honestly just sound like a cheapskate. Obviously there are repercussions for not abiding by standard transaction practice.
I never said I don't play by whatever practices each country has around tipping. I just don't like it.
Eg Uber removes the expectations of tipping---without outright banning it. (The removed expectation was what I was actually talking about. I was sloppy when I wrote 'forbid'.)
Most drivers seem to work with multiple apps. Uber probably paints working as a driver in the most glorious light possible---so you can call that deception, but it's not too different from any other job, and easy enough to leave. I don't see how they are deceiving the users though? I get a ride and pay roughly what the fare estimate says.
(The drivers are sure worse off than me. After all I work in tech, and they are driving cars. But my discretionary charitable budget goes towards more efficient approaches towards relieving human suffering, than helping people in first world countries.)
For the record, I think Uber's management are mostly jerks. But as a service provider they undercut regular Sydney cabs by around 50% and provide better value. By comparison, in Singapore regular cabs are mostly alright, so there Uber isn't nearly as appealing for me.
As such, the dude abides.
- Uber enters the market
- ugly battle ensues, with Uber and the taxi union embracing their associated stereotypes.
- consumers initially sympathetic to either Uber or the taxi union or both lose all sympathy due to flagrant misbehaviour and law-breaking from both parties
- city hall hammers out a compromise that both Uber and the taxi union grudgingly but mean spiritedly accept
- Lyft comes in the day the compromise takes effect
- everybody switches to Lyft
The last two points haven't happened yet in Ottawa, the new laws come into effect Sept 30. I believe they are a solid prediction though.
So either availability and cost is more important than mind share and network effects -> Lyft wins because they didn't spend millions opening the market but are big enough to be basically equivalent to Uber on cost and availability.
Or network effects and mind share is more important -> Lyft wins because they're the 'good guys' who didn't participate in the Pyrrhic battles in both local and global media.
I suspect that you're right, availability and cost is more important. However colmvp's comment indicates that availability and cost is basically equivalent in major markets, making the political battle the major differentiating point.
For me taxis have a huge availability advantage due to taxi stands at work and at the airport, so I'll continue to use them there and Lyft elsewhere.
But Lyft is stuck in Uber’s shadow. I asked one venture capitalist what he thought of Lyft. He put his thumb and index finger into an L shape, brought his hand to his forehead and mouthed “loser”.
They are money-churning machines - Investors put money in and a smaller amount of money comes out - Anyone can do that. These companies have been so well-funded since the beginning that they never operated in a 'real economic environment' - There is no way of telling what will happen when the investor money dries up.
Very curious to see what will happens when Uber stop financing the customers rides. Will they ever be able to make money? Plus so far all their side projects using the technology (uber eat, delivery, etc) look like failures.
Taxis here are such a joke. The taxi drivers that I have been with seem to take so little pride in their driving/presentation/customer service, and they are exploitatively expensive.
The bar is very low to provide a better service.
Just when I think I've heard the most tone deaf and arrogant thing possible out of a venture capitalist's mouth, the high water mark rises.
Hopefully this person will repeat said gesture in the mirror -- it's entirely apt.
Is this some kind of satire? Do people who have left their fraternity some years ago actually talk that way?
Citation Microsoft, which through aggressive business tactics became (and continues to be) pseudonymous with personal computing. Apple isn't a loser anymore but that's because they found a new market in handheld devices, I'd argue in terms of the PC battle, despite how good a Mac is (I'm writing this on one) I'd say they've still firmly lost in this market.
But just because you're a loser in the market doesn't mean you lose at everything. Still plenty of money to be made even if you can't make all of the money forever, which seems to be how a lot of VC's define success.
I'd argue in terms of the PC battle, despite how good a Mac is (I'm writing this on one) I'd say they've still firmly lost in this market.
http://betanews.com/2015/08/12/yikes-apple-laptop-revenue-sh...
I'd say market share is less important than revenue share, but Apple considered the loser in this market? I still don't get why market share is getting all the attention.
Anyway just because a company has won hard and won hard for awhile that doesn't particularly shield them from losing later on, however I'd say my point stands, from roughly 1992 to 2014 Microsoft dominated the PC market.
PCs still control the corporate market, but that isn't growing like it used to.
As a nice guy developer for many years, who has build some amazing products, I have learned that no good dead goes unpunished. Irregardless I will continue to be a nice guy because that is how I believe the world 'should' work. One last cheer for Bernie!
I meant it as answer to the question: No, it's not possible to screw over people while being a nice guy. Ipso facto.
I believe this is one of the reasons it's common for people to self-describe themselves as assholes.
#seckit-noscript-tag { display: none; }
Aside: That one element is blocking an entire working page for no reason. Where oh where has web dev come to :'(
In 2013, I created a program to visualize what hosts a web site notifies when it is loaded http://daten.dieweltistgarnichtso.net/src/list-web-bugs.py – you can see the output for the article here: http://daten.dieweltistgarnichtso.net/pics/graphs/web-bugs/w...
Turning off the native component of anything always has consequences for those tinkering under the hood and the vast majority of those visiting that site don't tinker under the hood.
As the owner of a web dev company, I sometimes consider ignoring the "must work even without javascript" mantra. I haven't yet but there are times.
Fail gracefully was over the moment the "disable javascript" checkbox was removed from the options menu in every major browser.
There's a distinction to be made between content sites and application sites. It's really just too much work to try to make an application fall back to plain HTML, but for a content-centered site, like a blog, a news site, etc, it's not that hard to do things right and not require JS.
A browser which doesn't implement JavaScript is not crippled; it is 100% functional. A web page which requires JavaScript is crippled, because JavaScript is not required in order to display text and images.
Custom-designing a utopic city has been tried before (see California City), but I never tire of seeing people try. The end result could be fantastic, especially in this case.
Uber has a lot more brand recognition, but like Chik-fil-A they are also known by a minority for terrible business practices and are on unofficial boycott.
With Uber you have the perception that the company is exploiting drivers, driving down wages, disregarding how it puts women at risk, and all kinds of sexist behavior. http://time.com/3595318/uber-sexism-tech-delete-app/