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Comment by Kiro | Hacker News Reader

So this is of course anecdotal but the only time I book taxis is when it's very important I get somewhere in time, like catching a plane early in the morning. Given the nature of Uber/Lyft it would take a lot before I would trust them with this.

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Are taxis more reliable than lift/uber where you live? My experience in Australia is the opposite.

I never had a uber (no lift here) not showing up , while booking a taxi is almost like a lottery. Few years back our office manager booked 4 cabs for 6pm of the following day because we had a work function to go to. The first cab showed up at 6.50 after countless calls to the taxi company, the other never did.

We ended up calling 3 uber and we were on our way within 10 minutes.

That was the day I swore to never get on a taxi again, unless I really really had to.

Similar experience as you with taxis in America. About 6 months ago a good friend was getting married and we booked 3 taxis from one company to take us from his house to downtown. Ultimately the taxi company only sent one guy to drive back and forth 3 times, making it take almost an hour to get everyone there. Coming home 3 of us simply ordered 3 different ubers and we all got back in 10 minutes.

"America" is a very large place. The taxi experience in NYC is going to be very different than somewhere in North Dakota (or even just another city, like Los Angeles).

I've had bad experiences like this with both taxis and Ubers. With Uber, I've had dozens of experiences where either (1) There were no drivers available in my area, (2) The drivers repeatedly canceled on me, or (3) The driver didn't cancel, but also never came to pick me up, and instead just drove in the opposite direction for 10-15 minutes.

I now don't trust taxis, Uber, or Lyft to get me to the airport very early in the morning. I live in DC, not exactly a small town.

This is why I still use an old-school limo company ("limo" as in fancy black car, not a real limousine) for airport pickups/dropoffs in my home city. Years ago I found one that's extremely reliable and trustworthy. Nearly five years later I haven't had a single issue.

Uber in general is much better than taxis, but I still wouldn't really trust it for time-critical early morning pickups.

A tactic some Uber drivers seem to use to avoid having to cancel (which can get them kicked off the platform if they do it too frequently) is to just drive away from you until you get frustrated and cancel on your end.

it's a death spiral. If you call for more than one taxi and drop them, it incentivises taxis to drop their pre-booked clients and pick up people on the road instead, which incentivises people to call for more taxis than they need, etc.

So this is of course anecdotal but the only time I use Lyft (I avoid Uber) when it's very important I get somewhere in time, like catching a plane early in the morning. Given the nature of Taxis, it would take a lot before I would trust Taxis with this.

Edit: The last time I booked a taxi it was 2-3 years ago for a 4am ride to PDX. I booked two to be safe, only one came anyways.

Having done the traveling consultant thing for a while, I completely agree with this sentiment. There is no such thing as a reliable driving service. I've used cabs, black cars, and apps. None of them are anywhere near 100% but one of them is obviously a lot more convenient.

My last experience with a taxi was going to Logan airport. I called one; dispatcher said it'd come in 10 minutes. Never came 15 minutes later. Called another, same thing.

Ended up flagging a taxi down (taxis rarely drove by where I lived but I was in luck (?) after 30 minutes of waiting on the curb).

I am a frequent user of Uber. I don't use Lyft at all. I don't see any reason to use Lyft over uber. It's price estimation is wrong. Uber says $39 for airport, Lyft says $35 - $46 for airport. Estimated time of arrival is also wrong. Uber says it will take 4 mins for driver to come while Lyft will say drive will reach in one minute. I mean I can see on the map there is no way driver can reach in one minute.

Whenever someone say he uses Lyft over uber and I ask the reason. They always says they don't like Uber because they can't tip the driver. I understand there is tipping culture in USA so that could be reason to prefer Lyft.

Can I ask why would you prefer Lyft over Uber?

I can't speak for jngreenlee, but a lot of people are uncomfortable with Uber's business tactics and ethics. Their HR team allegedly sidestepped one employee's very serious sexual harassment complaints, they've allegedly been complicit in using stolen LiDAR IP, along with a whole host of other shady things they've done in competition with Lyft.

Howdy fellow Austinite, you somehow managed to speak for me anyways! These are additional reasons for me to have some resistance switching, even if Lyft had failed me in some way (they haven't).

Add to it that they want to "always know my location", etc

I use Lyft over Uber because Uber is an awful company run by a scumbag and there have been dozens of different high-profile reasons over the years (and many of them in the past couple of months) that any one of them would be a good reason to drop Uber.

The culture of Lyft (which will merge with the culture of Uber over time I believe) has been more friendly, more conversational where I live.

I always sit up front and talk with the person, learn what else they do, how long they've lived in the area.

When I try this with Uber (esp in SF), they often show me a thumb pointing towards the backseat instead!

I find that very odd; I haven't noticed that much of a difference between any of the taxi-like apps I've used. I almost always end up sitting in the front, especially in Austin.

Plus, don't most drivers drive for both companies at the same time?

Not all, surprisingly! I find a lot of Lyft-only drivers when I'm riding. Their lease/rent programs have helped this.

That's a surprising experience, I take an Uber at least 2-3 times a week in the bay area and I sit up front almost every single time, unless I have a package with me. I have never been asked to sit in the backseat, even after >700 Uber rides.

Here in Portland almost every driver uses both apps so I don't find a difference in driving. I prefer Uber simply because there's less expectation of tipping and the price is about the same.

> there's less expectation of tipping

What on earth gave you that idea?

There is no tipping expectation with Uber, no matter what disgruntled drivers on reddit say.

In the US there certainly is. I don't know what it's like in other countries though.

If the driver doesn't want a tip, they will turn it down.

I have never experienced this, always sat up front. Hundreds of rides.

Not Op but a few reasons why I prefer Lyft: The app is (subjectively much) nicer, the company seems to treat their drivers better, tipping let's me thank excellent drivers (rating less than 5 stars hurts their livelihood and I reserve for safety or other exceptional cases), Uber drivers annectodally have been less courteous and have canceled on me or refused to actually come to my spot, and Uber the corporation has garnered a bit of a reputation I am hesitant to support.

I use Lyft because Uber has a reputation for being hostile towards their drivers. anecdotally, drivers I've spoken to either used both companies but preferred the way Lyft treated them, or had given up on Uber entirely.

I use Lyft because whenever I ask a driver which they prefer, they always say Lyft.

I used both Lyft and uber. And according to the drivers they get paid more through Lyft. And all the other reasons not to use uber are listed above.

For a while there was a story every week about Uber on HN. Stories of high up executive hires leaving the company, blogs about their toxic culture, revelations of programs like greyball that used machine learning to help avoid government agents, their "Hell" map which uses fake users on other Taxi/Lyft platforms to track all their competitors, how Uber drivers get paid 1/3 of what they did three years ago in many cities, and the list goes on and on and on.

The place is a figurative shit show. Even if the drivers get paid the same from Uber vs Lyft, and even though all companies do shady things, I think I'd still rather give my money to Lyft than anything to Uber.

I use Lyft over Uber mainly because Lyft's business doesn't seem to be as corrupt and gross as Uber's.

I think this strongly depends on your local taxi industry. I would never trust a "booked" taxi to turn up on time or at all. There is a reason that Uber became so popular.

In Boston, my experience for many years has been that when booking a taxi the evening before a morning flight there's a 50% chance they'll show up (at all). This both dealing with dispatch centers and direct numbers of drivers.

With Uber/Lyft, I can see the approximate ETA and general availability of cars even before I order the pickup, plan my morning accordingly, and be confident I'll get to the airport on time.

In Palo Alto, taxis are incredibly unreliable. You call for a taxi, they give you an ETA, then they pass your request off to someone else (who in my experience is often not an actual taxi driver). That person is coming from somewhere else, so the ETA is way off, and when you call back to see where the driver is it's a big game of telephone. After 20 mins you realize you should have just used Uber/Lyft and you do that instead. Needless to say, we never use taxis anymore.

I tried to use the Uber pre-ordering for a taxi to the airport a couple of weeks ago. Magically a surge started in my area a couple of minutes before the order was executed. After a driver had been routed, they notified me there was a surge, but did not tell me the amount. It wasn't until the ride finished that my estimated $30 trip actually cost me $85.

Do you live in a wealthy neighborhood? If so, Uber charges you more.

Having been severely burned on two occasions by taxis booked for a flight, which didn't show up, and the dispatcher not caring at all and telling me another car would come in "45-60 minutes", by which time I would no longer need to go to the airport as my flight would have left without me... Well, I would trust pretty much any other option before I would ever try to use a traditional cab for an early morning airport trip again.

In fact, Ride-sharing is why I can take a car to the airport.

My local taxi companies were so unreliable that I also drove and parked in long term for vacations.

It's only on the last couple of years that I feel comfortable enough to get a Lyft or Uber to airport and actually expect to make it timely ever time.

Have you ever had a delay with uber or lyft?

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