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Comment by NathanKP | Hacker News Reader

They work fantastically. Ride Austin is actually way better than Uber in my opinion. In fact even if Uber and Lyft decided to start following the city regulations and return to Austin I would probably never use either in Austin again, simply because I prefer the non profit approach that respects drivers and gives them a much higher percentage.

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Ride Austin is far from "way better" on par when the service works maybe but hardly better.

This past Saturday none of the ride sharing services could handle demand and all went down. No riders could request and an no drivers could accept.

Also when the service does work glitches like seeing the login screen when you are already logged in are routine.

Source: I'm in Austin right now for sxsw and I'm a former Austin resident.

Also this whole debacle was a clear and present tax grab for the city please dont pretend it wasn't.

Now on balance Uber and Lyft ran an AWFUL campaign against the regulations when they already do background checks but still that was always about money.

In all fairness, SXSW is a pretty severe stress test. FWIW, it can be hard to get personal transportation in a heavy rainstorm in NYC too.

I disagree with your "tax grab" angle since there is no evidence of that. Unless you mean that the city of Austin was somehow going to make money off fingerprinting?

"(A) Each TNC operating in the City of Austin shall pay an annual fee calculated by the department based on one of the following methods of that TNCs choosing:
(1) The total of the permit fee paid by taxicab companies times the number of persons driving for the TNC;
(2) One (1) percent of the TNCs annual local gross revenues, or a comparable percentage of a TNCs portion of driver fares; or
(3) Based on total miles driven.

(B) Except for any TNC participating in the Safety Assurance Program, each TNC shall pay an additional fee of one (1) percent of the TNCs annual local gross revenue for the Compliant Driver Education Fund to be used to assist and incent drivers to become compliant."

Also, it was about much more than just fingerprinting. Fingerprinting was emphasized because it would have affected Uber and Lyft's business model the most by reducing the supply of drivers due to higher onboarding friction.

Here's the ordinance: https://www.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm%3Fid=245769

Some more interesting parts:

- "A TNC shall establish a driver-training program designed to ensure that each driver safely operates his or her vehicle prior to the driver being able to offer service"

- "during periods of abnormal market disruptions, dynamic pricing shall be prohibited."

- ...and the whole reporting section where they have to hand over all their internal operating data to the city

It seems like the money was going to be used to administer the industry, which seems fair?

A tax grab for me implies taking some money from some entity for a completely different reason. Like, paying for a civic ice rink with the money.

> because I prefer the non profit approach that respects drivers and gives them a much higher percentage

For now. I generally prefer for-profit approaches because their motivations are far more transparent. They want to make money for the investors.

Non-profits exist to serve the wishes of the donors, which may be opaque. For instance, the Ride Austin investors might suddenly decide that they really want to focus on transportation to/from low income areas or art festivals. That would degrade service, and there would be no accountability to the customer in that regard.

What you want is competition, not for one entity to control the market regardless of its organization.

Well in this case sure, competition is good and apparently Austin has multiple choices so everything is fine but competition is not always the answer. Competition does not seem to be the answer to public transit for example. It's not such a leap to say that ride sharing type apps might end up being replaced by a more personal and dynamic form of bus service.

Yeah I can understand that. Honestly, the non profit / coop thing is just a big part of Austin culture.

Not only are food coops a pretty big deal in Austin, but when I lived in Austin even the electricity company that I got my power from was a coop (https://www.pec.coop/) and if the coop made too much money it redistributed the profits back out as credits to member accounts. I generally ended up with one out of twelve months effectively being free because of profit credits being redistributed back out to my account.

The whole culture of coops and nonprofit service organizations is something I really miss about Austin now that I no longer live there.

> if the coop made too much money it redistributed the profits back out as credits to member accounts.

This is great and all, but wouldn't that money be more effectively utilized maintaining or upgrading the grid or investing in renewable energy? Seems like the co-op model never really invests in progress.

"never"? The (UK) Co-operative Bank was 99% powered by renewables in 2014.

I don't think coops are necessarily anti maintenance or investment. Obviously they have to maintain their core business just like any other business. The difference is a for profit company distributes extra profit that they have on top of their basic needs out as dividends to big investors and as salary for a CEO. On the other hand a coop distributes that same money out to all the customers.

With for-profit enterprises, there's generally an objective measure of how well you're doing, the bottom line.

Non profits, you can get a lot of people arguing about how to best fulfill the intents of the non-profit. In that situation, whoever argues the most persuasively or loudly wins, and it's the customers that suffer.

Your description of a non-profit pretty well lines up with Uber.

I don't know how much Uber cost in Austin, but it seems like the base costs for calling a car are $4.50; I've gotten Uber rides for less than that in NYC, and the cost has been the prime reason to call them (I probably would have taken a bus otherwise).

I am very interested to see if aggressive pricing and cost/route optimisation can unlock enough demand to make pooling actually viable economically, which none of the Uber/Lyft alternatives really seem willing to try.

I believe you when you say you've had a good experience with Ride Austin, but I think you've been lucky. I've never been able to successfully book a ride with either Ride Austin or Fasten :\

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