Comment by oaktowner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by oaktowner | Hacker News Reader

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They do now in San Francisco. But only because they lost so much business to Uber. This was an industry that was effectively a monopoly -- not one company, but one type of provider. And none of the players was improving the experience for the customer.

Calling for a cab was extremely unreliable here. You could easily wait for an hour (because any driver coming to pick you up could, without ill effect for him/herself, stop to pick somebody up on the street). Some cabs took credit cards, some didn't. Some claimed to take credit cards but then "the machine was broken" so you had to pay cash.

Uber improved on every single aspect of the customer experience. And they did it while offering lower prices for the consumer.

However: to me, they haven't proven it's a viable, long term model. I highly doubt that they are paying their drivers enough to cover the cost of wear and tear on the cars (many/most of the drivers I see with Uber and Lyft are doing it full time, so they are crazy if they aren't factoring in the cost of the car and maintenance as part of their cost). And AFAIK neither company has proven they can make money.

So: this industry was due for a shakeup.

But it needs to be done by a company without rampant management problems, and it still needs to prove that there is a viable, long term business model that works for the company, the drivers and the consumers.

[edit: and, yes -- long term, there won't be drivers in these cars. But Uber has to find a way to survive until then, and I don't believe they can burn cash that long]

> Some cabs took credit cards, some didn't. Some claimed to take credit cards but then "the machine was broken" so you had to pay cash.

This type of thing sounds like the usual American "let the market sort it out" that other western countries don't have. Taxis are already government controlled (via taxi licensing) so why aren't they required to accept credit cards, as they are in Australia?

Because any taxi could have told you before "if you dont like it, go to the competition"

> This type of thing sounds like the usual American "let the market sort it out" that other western countries don't have.

Well, to be fair, it's "let the market sort it out while severely restricting the market through regulation" which while I wouldn't say is the usual, isn't as uncommon as it should be. Either one has it's place, but together they generally don't work well...

America has that regulation; that doesn't and didn't stop cabbies from taking advantage of those who lack the gumption or encyclopedic knowledge of regs to challenge the driver on the spot.

Paris also probably has laws against longhauling, doesn't mean Parisian cabbies don't do it to naive tourists.

Edit: And yes, some people (including me) do take the position that the market should be left to decide which payment mechanisms to accept (just like most people do in every other context -- who wants a law saying bakers have to accept credit cards?), so long as they're declared before the transaction, and there's (legally) free entry/exit into the profession. It's a strawman to characterize someone as being okay with changing the accepted payment methods after the fact.

Bakers and taxis are inherently different - no one gets stuck in a location they don't want to be because of a lack of wholewheat.

I'm not saying peopl are ok with changing it after the fact: I'm saying the government should do what government is supposed to do and serve its citizens, in this case forcing taxi companies to accept credit cards.

Market/self regulation generally trends to work in two ways: the well off get to crow about how government regulation isn't needed, and the less fortunate don't get to use that service because they're never the prime market for business, but they don't have a soap box so the other side keeps barking on about how good it all is.

>Bakers and taxis are inherently different - no one gets stuck in a location they don't want to be because of a lack of wholewheat.

And no one gets stuck in an unfamiliar area while low on blood sugar?

>I'm not saying peopl are ok with changing it after the fact

Yes, you were! You brought it up specifically in the context of cabbies who refused CC after taking on a fare with signs and machine saying they could pay that way. If your point was just that "being able to pay with CC is nice so it should be mandated", then you shouldn't have pointed to the after-the-fact case as a danger.

>I'm saying the government should do what government is supposed to do and serve its citizens, in this case forcing taxi companies to accept credit cards.

And you're failing to ground it in any way that doesn't generalize to forcing arbitrary merchants to accept arbitrary payments, while focusing the majority of your rhetoric on grandstanding about "hey, I just think governments should help the people" instead of a concrete justification for how this helps the people, or any recognition of any downside of such a mandate (which you were able to see in the case of bakers and CCs).

>Market/self regulation generally trends to work in two ways: the well off get to crow about how government regulation isn't needed, and the less fortunate don't get to use that service because they're never the prime market for business, but they don't have a soap box so the other side keeps barking on about how good it all is.

Again, you're assuming your policy helps the poor and anyone who opposes it just doesn't understand it, instead of actually elaborating on the substantive mechanisms. Tomorrow you'll be right back lecturing us that credit card acceptance hurts the poor because merchants have to distribute the fees over all customers, including the poor unbanked who can't get one, and I'm just too privileged to see that.

How about confining your remarks to the pros and cons of various policies without dragging motives and demagoguery into it?

Was in England last week. Many cabs still don't take CC. I used one cab, for the experience and then went back to Uber. Cabs just aren't that great, and the experience is not reliable, predictable, or easy.

Indeed. Often the CC machines in black cabs are "broken", forcing you to pay in cash.

At least in Chicago, they are required to accept credit cards. If they can't accept a card, you don't have to pay.

> I highly doubt that they are paying their drivers enough to cover the cost of wear and tear on the cars

Since Uber/Lyft has no problem attracting drivers at the rates they pay, this argument rests on drivers being financially ignorant enough that they don't notice they're losing money doing it.

Maybe they are not losing money, but perhaps many might be surprised how much less they are really making after factoring in cost and upkeep of a vehicle.

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