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Comment by chx | Hacker News Reader

> If Uber is limited to US and Canada

I fervently hope it's the US only. I will talk to my MLA and show him a nice collection of news about Uber in hope they will not allow them to operate their scam in Vancouver.

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How is it a scam? It gave me a ride to the airport for $26 bucks. I took a cab once and it cost over $50 bucks. My need some tweaks here and therem but overall its a great service for customers

The missing $24 were health insurance, car insurance, pension payments for the driver etc. All not being paid.

Uber is no ride share service, it is a test project to figure out if modern society will accept a larger lower income working class without any social security, and that is what all investment firms bet on.

> The missing $24 were health insurance, car insurance, pension payments for the driver etc.

Car insurance, maybe; car companies don't pay health insurance or pensions either for their drivers, who are also characterized as contractors rather than employees.

Nope, they are employees

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37802386

Still waiting on the Inland Revenue to collect all that back NI tho’...

That depends on the country. In Europe transportation is regulated, and fees are higher and also arrive at the drivers, since they actually have pensions etc.

Meaning Uber eliminates basically the most prominent achievement of the working class with its service. Turning everyone into an independent contractor eliminates social security. Swiftly.

Most of them do some driving on the side to supplement their income.

The driver uses that money to pay for his own health insurance and retirement. Contrary to your post, Uber provided me with commercial vehicle insurance when I was driving for them.

That is the problem here. Employed work means sharing the duties of social security between company and employee. Uber moves their payments on your shoulders.

And that point is exactly what makes up Ubers' valuation. Ignoring the questionable ethics of that this should be reconsidered though because comparing to the technical value of their service they are requiring way too many engineers to deliver their services, which is a considerable risk if they grow any further.

There is no duty for a company to provide social security for contractors. Same way as an Uber contractor has no responsibility to drive a certain amount of time or at certain hours.

Additionally taxis are regulated so as to create a reasonably universally publicly accessible transportation system. That is that you can call a cab and it will pick you up and you will have an understanding of the price you will pay.

In an Uber/Lyft ride hailing system cabs can only be hailed via an app, and will only accept the most profitable rides. Surge pricing may also make the ride only affordable to the relatively wealthy. In such a system, low income persons in relatively remote areas lose transportation options.

Part of the extra price of cabs is the price of creating a transportation system that is accessible to everyone, not just the most wealthy.

Uber and Lyft actually succeeded in creating an accessible system that everyone could afford. You have it all backwards. The common person can actually afford Uber, not cabs.

Many elderly people are no longer able to drive and aren't technically comfortable with using mobile phones.

App based ride hailing dominance reduces accessibility.

A button that calls you an Uber is as easy to build as a button that calls the taxi dispatcher for you, but I don’t think the elderly appreciate the taxi experience of demanding cash because they’re pretending the card reader broke.

(You can already get a voice assistant to book a ride for you too.)

Ask your grandma etc if they would use that. Anyone above 50 these days will probably not give you a nice answer to having to use smartphones or voice assistants that usually understand less than a newborn child.

As someone around that age get off your virtue signaling high horse. People in their fifties today helped build most of the tech you use every day, but even if they hadn’t your implicit ageism levied in service of an accessibility rant is a level of irony that just can’t be ignored.

Considering my own age, it might happen that I just mentioned this because I am rather close to that generation myself.

I seriously doubt people will be comfortable with this stuff unless they have a history with engineering/IT.

We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines.

You've never met a newborn child.

Happen to have a grown up child. Duh.

Who understood English at birth?

No, it doesn’t.

See we can both play the no proof game.

> That is that you can call a cab and it will pick you up and you will have an understanding of the price you will pay.

LOL you must never have taken a cab ride pre-Uber. Your two assertions are the two main reasons why Uber and Lyft exist.

> In an Uber/Lyft ride hailing system cabs can only be hailed via an app, and will only accept the most profitable rides.

You don't know how the Uber app works.

Lol, where I live, the idea of finding any cab, even if you knew the cab company and called them, was laughable. Uber at least will come, and will give you an estimate beforehand.

> You don't know how the Uber app works.

So Uber drivers are not able to decline a ride request?

No, not the way that you're describing. They have no way to "accept only the most profitable rides". This is patently false.

Ok yeah I see what you mean.

The fear that I've heard described by politicians in my city is that uber drivers could position themselves in areas where they know from experience they will be most profitable (eg. dense downtown core) while avoiding areas that over time are not as profitable (eg. sparse outer areas). This fact, coupled with the fact that they are not obligated to travel to a certain area to receive a fare, means that certain areas could receive less reliable service as drivers chase high profit areas and are able to ignore others.

Your politicians are lying to you because they are paid off by the taxi monopoly. Service everywhere increases because of Uber and Lyft. The behavior you describe is exactly what taxis do. If you look at how things improved in all cities, service improved by orders of magnitude. In NYC, service to all 5 boroughs improved dramatically because of Uber and Lyft, because taxis would only service manhattan.

Before you follow blindly what your politicians are telling you, do some research and educate yourself first. Don’t rely on headlines and word of mouth.

If there is demand and lack of supply in an area then it will surge.

How can that be true when Uber is cheaper than taxis?

Uber drivers aren't obligated to accept hail requests.

As Uber gains dominance over regulated taxis (which are obligated to serve everyone), the level of accessibility to transportation in certain generally unprofitable areas may decrease.

The difference, the $24, comes out of driver's pockets.

And also, Uber loses money on every ride. That $26 ride to the airport cost Uber $30. :)

The rates Uber charges are unsustainable, funded with VC money and underpaying drivers, hence posters comment that Uber is a scam.

Uber’s play is to wait out taxis going out of business and then charge you $50.

Because they think no one else can write apps..? Kalanick may be an asshole, but I don't think he's stupid.

Is Uber a scam, or is ride share, in your opinion?

Ride share is a great servicce for people and increases safety in many areas.

Uber is (in my opinion) a scam, and (objectively) not ride sharing.

'Ride sharing' does not even begin to describe Uber. There is no sharing going on whatsoever. It's a taxi company that just ignores the law on principle to gain an advantage, while also spending VC money like crazy in a very illegally anticompetitive manner.

I don't see the VC money and avoiding regulation to be essential parts of the business though. I very rarely take a cab, and am not price sensitive. I tried Lyft, albeit not Uber, and like people repeatedly say, the good things about it are (a) you get fast response and a direct way to contact the driver, (b) you see how close they are to you on a moving map, (c) you get an up front estimate, and (d) they don't demand cash. While it might slow them down if they weren't subsidizing drivers, or drivers weren't subsidizing them, it wouldn't change the fact that the things they do are actually worth more than a regular cab, so they could charge more and not less, as far as I'm concerned.

If Uber and Lyft are "just taxi companies" then why don't all the other taxi companies just make a similar app and then promote the idea their upstart competitors are regulation-avoiding scum? It ought to be more effective than ignoring why people use them.

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