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Comment by alistproducer2 | Hacker News Reader

When I use lyft now, I'm coming across drivers that only drive for lyft. The tide has definitely shifted against Uber. I'm not really sure there's a way back at this point. The one advantage Uber had was network effect, but in my experience that has diminished. Lyfts come just as fast as Ubers now because they have enough drivers on the road to support the response time. I'll never go back to Uber.

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I'd say this assessment is clouded by your own judgements of Uber. Uber is vastly larger than Lyft. I've taken Uber's all over the world (Europe, South America), Lyft barely has market penetration in rural areas of the United States.

I recently bet my friend who is supremely confident that United Airlines business will be significantly impacted due to the passenger incident. Thus far, it appears United is doing just fine[1], in fact they may be on pace for a blowout Q2 quarter. Money in the bank.

Moral of the story... These types of negative incidents (In my opinion I call it the constant outrage complex) rarely affects finance fundamentals of solid businesses. If you want to take a moral stand against Uber you are absolutely entitled to that and that is fine with me.

[1] https://www.thestreet.com/story/14125827/1/united-reports-7-...

But the finance fundamentals of Uber are truly horrible.

Their only explanation for literally lighting billions of dollars in funds on fire to subsidize rides is supposedly to consolidate market share. If they don't have a defensible position and they lose money on every transaction what exactly do they have to show for it?

Sure Uber is losing gobs of money, but that's not the most important metric at this stage for them. Look at Tesla, they lost 330 million in 2017 Q1. You absolutely will find bears against Tesla, but that's mainly because of its current $324 share price, not its fundamental business which is losing money.

but then what is the most important metric for Uber?

AFAIR they are not growing as fast as they were, and have been all but outlawed in many places already.

Actually there are only a handful of places in the US where Uber is banned. Contrary to popular belief (and intentionally propagated by smear campaigns), Uber wasn't banned in Austin TX... they pulled out of that market voluntarily.

That's like believing a politician is ACTUALLY resigning to spend more time with their family.

You are so wrong I don't know where to start.

You're talking about a situation where a politician resigns to avoid being impeached or otherwise deposed.

That has basically zero to do with Uber and Lyft leaving Austin. We know exactly what laws Austin has (laws are not secret). And it's not like it's remotely unclear what happened: Uber and Lyft left in protest of the law requiring background checks for them. You could speculate that they were trying to strong-arm Austin into repealing that law, but it didn't work.

But there's zero reason to believe that they were secretly forced out, unlike the case with the politician, where the incentives are obvious.

If I enter a market, then the market penalizes me for breaching its rules, and I pull out, I am not calling it "voluntary".

Why talk about the US? It's only one market of many. In many other countries Uber has been banned.

Yeah, this is a really pervasive attitude on HN and tech in general. By not taking that path WhatsApp has pretty much locked down the international messaging market, so it's a stupid attitude too.

>>Sure Uber is losing gobs of money, but that's not the most important metric at this stage for them. Look at Tesla, they lost 330 million in 2017 Q1.

Apples and oranges. Tesla is losing money because they are investing massive amounts of capital to improve their supply chain and production capabilities. Uber is losing money because they subsidize rides to try to push competitors out of business. Tesla is actually profitable. Uber? We don't know.

"Uber is losing money because they subsidize rides to try to push competitors out of business."

?? I think thats the wrong way to phrase this. Uber is loosing money as Uber and its competitors are giving a lot of incentives to drivers to win business. All of them are loosing money.

I think the original statement was accurate. And it's not working. Uber will have a rough awakening.

It is interesting that you and him describe essentially the same mechanism with different words. I would personally call it dumping.

In effect, Uber is selling something at a lower cost than it buys, in order to acquire the market.

Note that all companies in the ride-sharing market are doing the same thing, not just Uber. Uber in fact looses less money than Lyft per ride.

Uber doesn't even have competitors in many markets they expanded to. Well, save for traditional taxis.

Yes, taxis and public transportation are Uber's main competitors.

> literally lighting billions of dollars in funds on fire

Figuratively. But even that's not true, since customers have saved real money and spent it elsewhere.

So, uber is really a secret socialist scheme to redistribute wealth from the investors to uber's customers?

I should start using Uber more often if that is true.

Heh, it's kind of funny when you look at it like that. It's the opposite of the typical fleecing scheme, wherein a publicly owned company enriches the big guys at the little guys' expense (a la Enron). Uber is doing the opposite, since it isn't publicly traded and only has large rich investors: They're saving lots of little guys' money on car fares at the expense of the few big guy investors.

For now.

Their plan, as far as I can see, is to totally dominate the market. Once, and if that happens, they will raise their prices, and once again the little guy's money will be going in the pockets of the big guys.

On a short enough timescale sure. On a longer one it is exactly the opposite: a play to redefine and own the future of automotive transportation.

Literally.

Usage #2: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally

Well that's.... Sad. I think I will take what little authority I (don't) have and veto that definition, seeing as it literally defeats the purpose of definition #1.

And I was invoking definition #1 there, in case that wasn't clear.

It's not quite as bad as you think, literally is usually used figuratively in "A is literally B" to indicate that while A is obviously not literally B, the outcome that A will have will be practically the same as that from B.

That's actually a pretty reasonable defense of what I've generally considered a cringe worthy usage of the word "literally".

Language changes, and as speakers of modern English, we should adapt to changes instead of tilting at that particular windmill. However, I commiserate with you over the transformation of a useful word into yet another synonym for "really".

It's essentially a contronym now.

Not unlike "egregious" [1].

[1] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/egregious

I'll just leave this right here.

http://www.polysyllabic.com/?q=navigating/intro/prescriptive

"Sad" used to mean "sated". Why are you spreading the incorrect usage perpetuated by fools in the 1690s? These days nobody understands me when I use the true definition.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&searc...

It's one thing when a word evolves. It's another thing entirely when the evolution is the opposite of the original meaning. So let's not get condescending when it's more than a simple shift in meaning, okay?

I guess it's a little different but it happens all the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym#Examples

Also, "sad" and "sated" aren't quite opposites but they're very different. Are you telling me you wouldn't be annoyed if people started talking about how sad they were at the end of a great meal?

Eternal shame on merriam-webster.

A dictionary that fails to document usage is a lot worse than one that documents usage you don't like.

A good dictionary will also document widespread distaste for particular usages, though. It's a losing battle with any intensifier -- we've already lost "really" and "very" to this problem, and "literally" will pass too. That doesn't mean it's not worth trying to extend its life a little longer, though.

("Objectively" is also being used as an intensifier in casual conversation, though I think always with a touch of irony... Good fun.)

Did they add this bit today?

Should literally be used for emphasis?

Sense 2 is common and not at all new but has been frequently criticized as an illogical misuse. It is pure hyperbole intended to gain emphasis, but it often appears in contexts where no additional emphasis is necessary.

I wish this had never happened and I will probably use a different dictionary from now on.

That makes no sense. It's like saying that "yes" means "yes", but it could also mean "no".

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=yeah+right

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/cleave

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/sanction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym#Examples

Merrian-Webster is garbage. https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=literally

Oxford supports MW [1]. And so does common usage.

[1]: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/literally

yeah we may have won the battle but not the war. I have currently taken it upon me to use "figuratively" improperly and I won't stop until all language has lost meaning.

I guess Uber loses money on each sale but makes it up on volume? :)

Although Uber has a better market penetration right now, it seems each day we're getting closer to the tipping point for Uber. Once Uber loses traction and grip, what prevents the now uber driver to switch to become lyft drivers ? People looking for rides do not care if it's uber or lyft or something else as long they have a ride and it's not too expensive.

United Airlines having a good Q2 quarters will not help Uber in any way escape the trial vs google or suddenly give them a profitable business model other than let's burn through investor money and conspire to get google technology to get rid of the drivers in the not so distant future.

> what prevents the now uber driver to switch to become lyft drivers ?

The (non)availability of Lyft all over the world except one country. According to some quick googling, Uber exists in 80 countries without Lyft.

I think the point OP is making is that Uber doesn't really own anything outside mindshare. The drivers are after all free agents. Once the VC money used to subsidize rides dries out basically any company can challenge Uber.

Which is why Uber wants to cut their dependence on drivers by using self driving cars. Then they will actually own something (the technology) in addition to the mindshare.

I just think that this will take possibly a very long time. Lyft wants to stay in the US and just partner with services in other countries. So new ones need to pop up and not suck (I tried a local South African one, besides no available drivers where I was, the app was absolutely horrible) AND manage to survive long enough to actually be a relevant service compared to uber.

They own the process knowledge to operate a Taxi company in 80 countries. Atleast what I have see in India they are beating OLA another competitor like Lyft.

I'm not really seeing how knowing how to sell two dollar bills for one dollar in 80 different countries is really all that valuable.

Because few people make four dollars in the same amount of time it takes for the exchange to happen. So they are choosing it for a different reason. It's possible you may not be seeing the value in the service they provide. But for me personally they are as revolutionary (execution) as Amazon and Facebook.

To kill the any future competition they jut need to start a global loyalty program.

Uber in Europe stopped expanding and is very different in some places. For instance in Berlin you hail normal cabs with it.

Such incidents set the climate for the debate that is perhaps relatively unimportant for United but critical for Uber: regulation.

I'm in no position to guess which way winds are blowing but...

I don't think uber (or lyft) will ever be totally dominant purely because of network effects. Passengers and (especially) drivers are mobile, and can switch services back and forward between apps. All you need to compete is a regional network. The global network is helpful on the margins, but an uber for Lisbon should work fine.

Anecdata to support your point: in Stockholm the taxi companies have caught up in terms of convenience vis-à-vis apps, registering payment methods etc., to the point where I just use them rather than Uber. To me, Uber never competed on price, it was the convenience, and the competition has caught up to the point where Uber now seems clunky almost.

Uber definitely competes on price. Their fares are almost always the lowest of any competitor, especially compared to traditional cabs. That's essentially their only strategy other than allowing mobile hailing & payment (which is not particularly hard to replicate). The reason Uber is blowing through so much venture capital is because they are bleeding cash in all directions on fare subsidies.

Are you willing to let Uber spy permanently on you in order to save a few bucks?

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/uber-track-location-data-upda...

Not suggesting that this is the difference between it being worth it or not for an individual person, but I didn't feel like taking an Uber this time out of LAX and did a traditional cab to Pasadena -- it was $90. The Uber app quoted me at $38 and $33 if I had wanted to do pool (side note, I've ridden pool 3 times between LAX and Pasadena and not once have they ever picked up another passenger).

A savings of $50 for a one way trip is definitely at the point where the "spying" is worth it for me.

And it's not permanently. It's for a few minutes after drop off.

Assuming you trust them.

  Assuming you trust them.

Well, in my book that's exactly the rub. I, for one, don't trust them at all.

Pulling that extra effort to track Apple devices even after the app has been deleted and other shenagigans they pulled in violating their customer's privacy doesn't really help in the trust building department:

https://m.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/24/uber_cloaked_its_spyi...

Sure, in general, but this is why I wrote "to me" as in I don't care about he price difference. (Which, btw, in Stockholm is not very significant.) My account was simply meant as an anecdote to support the parent comment, that a local alternative can compete quite successfully. In my case, the convenience was key, not cost. That said, if they were consistently half the price of regular taxis I might reconsider. But only might because it's unclear to me who's responsible if things go missing during my trip, if there's an accident or the likes. With the traditional cab companies in Stockholm it's very clear who to turn to.

But I agree with you in the general case, certainly.

Yes, another example is Wells Fargo, stock not that much affected - yet. It takes time, but consumer sentiment is eventually unstoppable like water wearing down rock

This thread is about Uber, but in my opinion United will not be largely affected because they have a quasi monopoly on many routes, especially out of Newark.

[1]https://futuretravel.today/united-airlines-should-go-out-of-...

It can be argued that the very significant changes United made to their training and rebooking procedures are the business impact. Just because they were able to quickly triage and come up with a workable solution I wouldn't say they weren't impacted.

Odd. I'm in the Bay Area and have taken many Lyft's lately both in the south bay and also the peninsula. Usually the drivers I get drive for both even up to this point.

Could just be regional, not really sure? I feel like even with Uber's issues many drivers who do ride-sharing as a "job" won't want to just drop Uber as it may mean losing out on income (not sure if they can make up the loss with driving more for Lyft).

People doing ride sharing as their main gig in your area are likely desperate for every extra dollar.

I'd say they would be one of the last places to transition.

Also odd. I'm in San Francisco and I've found most drivers that only drive for Lyft too. When I talk to drivers (now I talk with every driver out of curiosity), they genuinely hate Uber. Maybe they were once Uber, but they've moved networks.

How often do you use uber?

Maybe they are confirming to leading questions.

I'm in Philadelphia and for a few months drove ~2,000 business miles for Lyft only, 0 for Uber. Not sure how much that's worth. I considered driving for Uber as well, but only if I planned to drive tens of thousands of business miles, which I decided not to do at all (got a job).

As a passenger, I exclusively use Lyft.

In Chicago and Richmond atleast the drivers I've talked to that are doing it for a full time job tend to drive Uber, Lyft and every other small start up in the area. The drivers that aren't just getting started said they use Uber for volume but will take a Lyft over Uber because of the better pay. The only drivers I've had that are Uber only are just getting started/trying it out.

The drivers I've talked to that just do it for a little extra cash overwhelmingly prefer Lyft. Most said it is because of the better pay but I've also heard more than once that Lyft customer's tend to be more well behaved in the car for whatever reason.

To be fair, this is all anecdotal and I usually prefer not making chit-chat but if the driver insist I always ask them their preference since the driver's always have an opinion that is interesting enough for the duration of the ride.

> I've also heard more than once that Lyft customer's tend to be more well behaved in the car for whatever reason.

I have also heard this as well from lyft drivers and I am very curious as to why

Just speculation, but if you are willing to boycott a business for being shitty, you likely aren't going to go out and be a shitty passenger yourself. I'm sure that isn't all of it, but I could see it having a partial effect.

I know some passengers (myself included) prefer Lyft because they do more driver vetting. For instance, to drive for Lyft you actually have to have someone from Lyft get in the car and ride around with you, which is not a requirement for Uber.

Perhaps the people who value that sort of thing are better behaved? Or more likely, it's probably because the people who are willing to pay slightly more for a better experience are better behaved (like Walmart vs Target).

Anecdata: Before I deleted Uber, I had two bad interactions with drivers (including one who threatened violence in response to I have no idea what, some misunderstanding). Since only using Lyft: zero.

That also stand in contrast to exactly one two experiences with cabbies over ~25 years.

I conclude, based on my limited personal experience, that vetting drivers makes a noticeable difference in driver quality.

Have any of them told you how the pay is higher at Lyft? They both take 25%.

Edit: tips?

Ive taken a ton of lyfts (and Ubers before the scandals) in the NYC and Philly areas and have never seen a lyft driver who didn't also have an Uber sticker on the windshield. This is not the case with most Uber drivers in my experience, who only drive for Uber (again mostly).

I'm in the bay area, and I've chatted about this with many drivers. People USED TO drive for both, but now Lyft has enough network traffic that they're too busy to flip between networks.

I had a couple drivers tell me they'd use Lyft until they had too many hours and we're forced to take a break, then they switch to Uber until the mandatory Lyft break is over. I forget how many hours they said they drive on average, but it was a lot.

Lyft barely exists outside of the US. Uber is still on top if you take a global view.

Lyft have a deal with Grab here in Southeast Asia. As I understand I can use Grab to book Lyfts in areas where Lyft operates and Grab doesn't (and vice versa).

Not (always) vice versa. In Ho Chi Minh, where Grab operates, I was not able to book using Lyft and had to install/setup Grab.

As a guy from India, what is Grab?

Ola from South East Asia

OK, but that is more of a convenience for American tourists who may not have a local phone number to sign up for Grab than an actual service. People that live outside the US are not going to have the Lyft app in the first place.

Not anymore.

http://mashable.com/2017/03/22/didi-chuxing-lyft-roaming-dea...

Like the other reply said, Lyft's strategy is partnerships with local companies.

Yes but other services hurt uber in other markets (didi?).

Didn't Uber get a significant chunk of Didi stock when it agreed to exit china? I have no idea how uber is doing overall abroad but china didn't appear to be a total wash for them at least.

Uber received a 17.5% stake in Didi as part of the deal [1], which is worth ~8.75B given their most recent raise at a ~50B valuation [2].

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-28/china-s-d...

[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/didi-chinas-uber-raises-5-5-bil...

Not that bad of an outcome really. I think Uber blew about $1 billion chasing after China.

As I understand it Uber's profits from the US market (and VC money) is funding the global expansion. If Uber lose their dominant position in the US we should expect their plans in the rest of the world to stop quite quickly; they won't be able to afford them.

Is Uber making profits in the US market?

> and VC money

Yeah, this is pretty key. If Uber's dominant position in the US is slipping but there's still a clear way for them to emerge on top globally and cash is the limiting concern, it seems likely they'll be able to continue subsidizing international expansion with more VC money.

Unless this VC money goes to pay for trial expenses against google.

I think they should settle. Uber should give waymo whatever they asked for (which likely isn't money).

I think Waymo doesn't want to have Uber as a competitor. They want to shut them out of the market. A market that Uber needs to have a future.

Certainly nothing in London yet.

Yes.. as a bay area resident can confirm this. I switched totally to Lyft the past few weeks and have no issues finding a ride promptly. Also all drivers that I met seem to be driving only for Lyft.

PS: What convinced me to totally switch was this https://github.com/lyft/envoy, my way of saying thanks for the Lyft team.

This is bay area bubble mentality (I live downtown SF). Does not represent the vast majority of Uber's business and market.

I've observed a growth in Lyft drivers in Dallas, too.

When I first started using Lyft in 2014, there were many times when attempting to request a ride would return an error saying there are no nearby drivers, especially during rush hour (trying to get a ride at 8am was simply a no-go), and it wasn't uncommon for the nearest driver to be 20+ minutes away at various times of day. I actually heard a lot of drivers complain to me about how Lyft sends them pings from people ridiculously far away and saying that it would be better for all involved if Lyft didn't try to match people that far away and just returned an error instead.

Now? Neither of those situations have happened in recent memory. I can't remember the last time I got the "no drivers available" error, and at the absolute worst, I might get a driver 15 minutes away in the height of rush hour.

Edit: Forgot one more thing. I used to see drivers who had two phones for both Uber and Lyft all the time. Nowadays I don't see anyone doing that anymore.

Uber is present in 581 cities and 81 countries.

Lyft is present in 300 cities in America.

Having IT people in SF using Lyft instead of Uber is only a tiny change.

I think Uber has released tons more open source sw than Lyft. https://github.com/uber

I agree.. Just a small payback for something I personally use.

I have not taken Uber for a long time. Lyft is my first choice even if it takes a little longer and costs more. I really hope Lyft can catch up in terms of market share in the US.

I live in Seattle and I just don't prefer Lyft. 100% of the time Lyft's estimated time of arrival is wrong. They say your "lyft" is reaching in 3 minutes when I can clearly see it can't come even in 10mins. On the other hand Uber gives pretty good estimation.

Same goes with estimated cost of the ride. Uber tell me exactly how much I will have to pay while Lyft says $7-$12.

Uber has started allowing drivers to accept a new ride before they're done with the current one, as an incentive to keep driving (as opposed to ending their shift). I have had rides stuck in "Driver is finishing up a trip nearby" for 10 minutes or more. And I could see on the map that there were other available drivers around. I don't remember what the initial estimate is in those cases, but I think it's less than what it ends up being.

Its a neat feature actually. Taking up the next ride before finishing a previous one allows drivers to have no downtime, and thus increase their earnings; and for riders it allows them to get drivers sooner in cases where other available drivers are further away.

Neat for the driver, but for me, I cringe whenever I get that message, because I know I'll have to wait longer than usual. Those rides are always the slowest ones to arrive.

My friend was driving for Uber, but now exclusively drives for Lyft here in the Mid-Atlantic region. Lyft is giving those great incentives that Uber use to and he is making the same decent to good money he used to with Uber, but driving less.

I use Uber a lot, and most of the drivers don't use Lyft. So I am not sure whether one can use any anecdotal evidence like this to gauge anything.

One more thing -- even though the press is hitting on Uber with lot of negative articles -- lot of this appears to be because those articles sell. Lot of the negativity seems exaggerated or seems to be the result of incomplete facts provided (for example, Mike Isaac on NYT said Uber uses Slice Intelligence to get aggregate anonymous data on market conditions; he did not mention that Lyft also does the same and that most companies have competitive intelligence teams. There are many other examples like this).

I like Uber that they went ahead and got cities to recognize the need for ride-sharing -- they were the first so they had to fight the regulations and entrenched taxi industry. In the end, that benefitted everyone - riders getting convenient, inexpensive rides, and drivers getting livelihood. Uber's competitors also benefited as the market was created by Uber already.

I just had a really bad experience with Uber myself. Here's my data point:

I was just trying to get an Uber the other day in a large city and I waited over an hour in the rain. The first N-1 drivers that accepted my request cancelled on me after 5 minutes.

Eventually, a driver picked me up. He didn't want to pick me up where I was, and had a very hard time communicating to me where he was. After some back and forth walks-100-ft-"Do you see me now?"-repeat for about 10 minutes, he asked me to just cancel the request.

I said no. I wasn't going to risk paying a fee to cancel. I was already waiting in the rain for an hour.

Eventually the driver found me and took me to my location. The whole ride was quiet until the driver decided to break the silence with full-volume anti-slavery rhetoric on the radio.

That day I learned that Uber's algorithms, whatever they are, led to at least a single very bad experience. I didn't downvote the driver. Instead, I just didn't rate him. That said, I'd say 95% of my Uber experiences were very good.

> The whole ride was quiet until the driver decided to break the silence with full-volume anti-slavery rhetoric on the radio.

You prefer pro-slavery rhetoric on the radio?

I find that Lyft has more consistent service availability than Uber in the Bay Area. If I have to take an early morning ride to the airport, I have had near 100% failure rate with Uber (maybe 1 or 2 times Uber has worked for me in that situation), and 100% success rate with Lyft.

I'm surprised this is so up-voted, but I guess it's the general opinion here at hackernews.

Is there any real data out there on this? Talking to 10 drivers in one region of the US seems like a far cry from the kind of information you want to have to form an opinion on how the tides are shifting.

At the end of the day, there are still lots of reasons why Uber might not be slipping away as we think, and I think we would all benefit from at least an effort towards breaking out of our bubbles.

Its largely a commodity product like oil, transport etc. They are mostly the same drivers. If Uber is doing the same thing cheaper a majority of people are going to use whatever service is cheaper. The fact that uber is giving you certainty on price also helps.

I wonder if when Uber finally craters if it will take the SF real estate market with it.

My weak anecdotal data is that both have suffered lately. I had a 20 minute projected wait on both services for a ride in a major city recently. This has to happened to me in years.

If Lyft had a black car option, I'd use them constantly; I wonder what keeps them from rolling that out.

Why do you need black cars specifically? More professional?

Not GP but I use them for clients.

For personal use I'd be fine with a rickshaw.

At this point, some clients would be offended just for ordering an Uber for them, black car or not.

Huh? Why?

If you are in London and you have got to get that famous child prodigy to the film studio with chaperone and teacher then you will be ordering them an Addison Lee private hire vehicle or better. A regular cab or some unlicenced 'Uber' gig-economy 'cab' isn't going to cut it.

I expect that other parts of the world are the same.

That's not really in the spirit of the question. That same famous child prodigy with chaperone might be upset if you brought them a coke without pouring it in a crystal glass. My reading of the "Why?" question was curiosity about more typical clients.

I had an UberLUX in London a few months ago and I had a very nice experience with a professional chauffeur (complete with black suit) in a Mercedes S-Class.

Uber services aren't all Priuses with signs saying "Please rate 5-stars!" hanging off the front-seat head-restraints.

Yeh, in my experience UberLUX cars in London have all been chauffeurs picking up Uber work between booked chauffeur jobs.

> an Addison Lee private hire vehicle

As a Londoner: Huh? AddLee minicab drivers are infamous for being even more aggressive/xenophobic/inappropriate than black cab veterans. "Premium" they ain't.

But sure, if you want good service for the pampered "talent", you get a premium German private hire car, not the average Essex barrowboy...

Have you seen the #DeleteUber backlash? Do you think the people who participated in that would appreciate having an Uber called for them?

Not the poster you're responding to, but in my experience the black car service is head and shoulders above uberx or normal lyft - drivers actually _know_ the cities they're driving in, there's no bs about tipping or wanting you to go to some odd pickup location that's more convenient for them, or canceling sketchily because your destination is out of their way. It's just press a button, get a reliable professional ride, no hassle, which was uber's original value proposition, but which you can't get with their standard service anymore.

Try Lyft Premier: https://blog.lyft.com/posts/introducing-lyft-premier

Or do you explicitly want a black car...?

I explicitly want a commercially-licensed driver, which is what you get with Uber Black.

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