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Comment by legulere | Hacker News Reader

Slowly the price advantage that Uber has by using loopholes fades away.

Where I live, Uber charges less than half of what cab companies charge. But there are other ancillary benefits. Uber could be at parity with the cab companies but I would still prefer it because of:

1) Their app 2) The reliability of getting car with them vs. waiting for a cab. 3) Their vehicles are much, much, much nicer than cabs in my area. 4) The purchase experience.

Where I live, Uber charges less than half of what cab companies charge.

Have you ever asked yourself how they do that? It's not like taxi drivers are fabulously wealthy.

Yeah, that's always been one of my points: existing cab fares are probably already close to the the price to sustain a business and pay a living wage.

Like you said, cab drivers (and probably cab company owners) aren't exactly fatcats. Meanwhile what's Travis Kalanick's net worth? How much are they paying top engineers at Uber?

Don't get me wrong, there's definitely corruption and protectionism in the existing taxi industry, but I fail to see how the low $5-7 fares are anywhere near sustainable. Is the revenue from surge pricing enough to offset the current discount?

I don't like to assume anything about the wealth of professions when I do not know the economics of their industry. I have seen a lot of businesses over the years that I assumed were barely scraping by that were actually making a killing.

Aren't cab drivers in major cities dealing with the purchase or lease of million dollar cab medallions? I believe that could factor into higher prices for consumers.

Yeah, how dare them offer a service both riders and drivers were happy using and helped hundreds of thousands poor make more money. Wilful adults entering mutually beneficial agreements? Government can't allow that insanity. Quick! Let's regulate it to death to make sure it sucks as much as what we had before. Make sure to justify it on taxes, people will buy the narrative and blame it on the evil corporation and not on the innocent incorruptible government.

> Slowly the price advantage that Uber has by using loopholes fades away.

They don't even always have a price advantage anymore, especially if there's a surge. I needed a cab from Chicago Midway to my hotel last night, Uber's upfront price was $48 (and an eight minute wait), a regular taxi was $40 (including 15% tip) and no wait. I took the latter.

In my experience, whenever Uber is surging enough to make cabs cheaper (2.5x in my city), there are no cabs to be found. That or the cabs try to scam you by asking for extra cash off meter (happened to me on New Year's Eve).

It's interesting that you call Uber 'surging' but cabbies doing the same 'scamming'. I understand what you're saying but they are quite comparable..

because taxi drivers cannot, at least where i live, by law, change their fare. uber/lyft told me (and i agreed by using their service) they would change the fare based on demand.

So, as long as they use the proper terminology, you're fine with being scammed.

The Orange line is $2.25 :)

How'd you know though? I once called a cab company asking for a price quote and they refused.

They still have the price advantage from not having the capital costs of buying a million-dollar medallion, though

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