Hacker News Reader

Comment by Zak | Hacker News Reader

Anecdote, not data, but my experiences using Uber have been universally better than using taxis and the same is true for everyone I know who has moderate recent experience with both in the US.

There may still be arguments to make that it's detrimental, or at least not beneficial for other reasons, or there may be data that contradicts my anecdote (if so, please link it), but I'm glad Uber exists and probably opposed to any regulation that makes it difficult or impossible for it to operate in a given place.

View on HN

I know of no one in any of the dozen or so cities I've lived who doesn't prefer a typical uber driver to a typical cab driver.

A lot of people say the same thing you do -- their diverse anecdotes agree that regular cabs are obviously (better, worse) than uber/lyft/etc.

The trouble is, they don't agree which way it goes.

I think the resolution to this conondrum is, it varies based on city/region. Some areas had traditional taxis that are worse than ridesharing, and some better.

Name a region where taxis provide better service than "rideshare".

It might be hard to believe, but there are urban places, outside the US, where public transportation works (so Uber and taxis are still luxury items, so taxis themselves are nice and clean), where taxis are plentiful (so no problems finding one, even at 3am) and either electronic cash works (ie; not credit cards that drivers accept), or credit card readers are required (and effectively enforced so there are no problem paying with credit card), or cash is still king (if your job is paying you in cash, paying cabs with cash is not a burden). On top of that, Google maps/GPS/whatever is unfortunately terrible in many places, so an Uber driver being directed by an app may never get you where you're going, greatly hurting adoption.

Makes sense. However, I travel frequently, but have yet to encounter this situation. In the US the taxi monopoly results in poor customer service and/or difficulty getting a ride. In the various countries I've visited outside, the wealthy countries have had slightly better Ubers than taxis. In the poor countries, I'm incredibly happy to find Uber has arrived as I no longer fear for my life or worry that I'm being cheated. And no, I'm not exaggerating. These are places where the tourism office says to avoid taking public transport for fear of robbery/murder. Thus my belief that Uber is wonderful.

Come to Stockholm, the situation is 90% close what your parent comment said.

And taxis are allowed to be Ubers too, we have Teslas S, Mercedes-Benz E and S classes and normal VW Passat taxis, all of them probably working also for Uber.

Taiwan. I'd definitely take standard taxis in Taiwan over Ubers. In fact, I've made that choice at least a hundred times.

Especially in Taipei, they hit a price and convenience point where taking an Uber is essentially doing a task on my phone in exchange for having to wait longer to get a ride. To be clear, it usually takes about 15 to 90 seconds of waiting to get a cab.

Outside of Taipei, any convenience store (which are basically all over the place) will call a cab for you and again, it's still a pretty short wait unless you're in a remote area in the mountains or something.

NYC. Ask anyone who's recently tried both yellow cabs and uber a bunch of times. Yellow cabbies tend to be more experienced, and it shows in their driving.

Xapata, you must really be a heck of a globetrotter to be able to so confidently ask a question like that!

Enough of one I suppose. Obviously there's some areas I haven't made it out to in a while. And it's not like I systematically study drivers.

Confidently? More curious than confident. It's best not to assume tone in text.

I can't agree more strongly about the trouble assuming tone in text. I apologize for assuming

How about Singapore?

Clean, cheap usually friendly drivers with lots of local insight and you're guaranteed not to be cheated.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com