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Comment by john_minsk | Hacker News Reader

These are 2 different business models. Centralized one with scale effects and decentralized one where participants take care of different aspects of car maintenance on their own and platform creates network effect. You can't apply the same rules to these systems as regulation mechanisms are different.

Funny bit: we trust Uber's driver rating MORE than the fact that official taxi drivers are "pro" and comply with regulations i.e. the value of this regulation is negligible. So enterprise car rentals need to ask following question: where in the process of making money we forgot about delivering value to customers.

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I had to avail myself of cabs on a number of occasions over the years in a backwater town. There were a number of outfits that were all perfectly compliant with the law and regulation and although they were independent cabs they were all dispatched by the same idiots.

In no particular order I was...

- Only picked up an hour late because a different cabbie stopped by the shop I was in front of to shop and took me home after he got his groceries.

- Picked up by a cab that had been in an accident earlier and the steering was in some way totally screwed in a fashion that made the car veer to the side unpredictably when it hit a bump. I thought at first he was blind drunk until he showed me that it took a quarter turn of the wheel to make the wheels turn at all.

- Picked up by a cabbie that was showing his little brother how to maximize revenue by picking up and dropping off as many people as possible along an optimal route while talking about his time in prison along with a colorful story about his friend smuggling cigarettes in his rectum. Kudos for entrepreneurial know how but the trip took waaaay longer than it should have because 5 different people going different places were in the car.

There was one outfit that was technically non compliant after the county I worked in in decided that county specific taxi regulation including requiring outfits to paint their cars was actually going to be a thing. These were the only people that showed up in a reasonable time, provided good service, and actually took a damn card in the cab. They also used to violate the law by dropping me off in the half assed county where I worked.

So long Mr P's taxi and thanks for all the rides.

The regulations that don't keep taxis from ripping people off or threatening their safety but DO ensure that the "investors" in taxi medallions earn some money can collectively burn in the pits of hell.

I haven't used Uber, but I have used Lyft. I wouldn't trust these drivers' ratings. My experience is that the conditions of the cars are generally better but about 20% of the time a driver will be at the wrong spot for pick-up. I've had to cancel and demand a refund way too many times. Also the driving isn't any better than the taxi drivers' I've had.

On the other hand I can get a new, clean, well-maintained and current-year car to myself for an entire day from a rental company for a 25% premium (inclusive of all the taxes and fees) on the cost of a round-trip Lyft between my home and my commute train station. When my family travels the weekly rate on such a vehicle is only about the equivalent of 7-8 such round-trips. That's an incredible value, in my view.

If you're in an area with free parking, the value of Uber/Lyft is substantially reduced. Alternatively, the total cost of rental cars needs to include $ spent on parking during the rental.

Rentals still come out ahead sometimes, which is why it's great we have both options.

That's a great point, and clarifies why I have never used these services. Where I live, I park for free anywhere, or at most $1/hr at a street meter.

Driving is work for me - I don't want to pay extra to do work. Also, a lot of the time you need to ride a bus to get between the airport and the rental car place, which is often a slower and generally worse experience that Uber or Lyft.

You make a good point that the value of regulations for Uber is negligible. Regulatory capture is an understandable motivation by industry but its weird to see the public embrace it. I see a lot of people in this thread complaining about how Uber, AirBNB, and Turo aren't fair to industry. The point of regulation is to protect the public. If they aren't needed for that purpose they should be repealed for existing players. Taxi Medallions artificially constraining the supply of taxis were always a stupid idea regardless of whether Uber and Lyft were created.

Give someone a ride, let them borrow your car, let them stay over at your house while they're on vacatin, have a one night stand with them. Nobody thinks we need government regulations for this stuff. What is it about commerce that scares us so much?

"Give someone a ride, let them borrow your car, let them stay over at your house while they're on vacatin, have a one night stand with them. Nobody thinks we need government regulations for this stuff. What is it about commerce that scares us so much?"

The things you described are usually just one off things, that a friend will occasionally do for another friend. Once you commercialize it, then it starts getting abused. Take AirBnB: You now have a lot of buildings becoming unofficial hotels. Not only are they driving out regular, long term tenants, but the people who are there did not sign up to live near a hotel.

I think what you're describing is a subset of the character of your neighborhood changing in a way you don't like. For example, your neighborhood becomes expensive, or gentrified, or crime filled or you don't like the noisy guy who moves in upstairs from the apartment you're living in. Or the deli you like downstairs closes and is replaced by a hair salon and you didn't sign up for that. These are problems that are part of life, you can't control everything outside of what you own. I wouldn't personally expect to legislate it any more than if my gf broke up with me because of Tinder or FB or something its just life.

> I wouldn't personally expect to legislate it any more than if my gf broke up with me because of Tinder or FB or something its just life

Some of us will do our best to elect reps who will legislate services you like or something its just life.

"You can't apply the same rules to these systems as regulation mechanisms are different."

Why not? From the perspective of society, they're doing the same thing. Thus the implementation detail of being centralized or not doesn't come in to play.

"we trust Uber's driver rating MORE than the fact that official taxi drivers are "pro" and comply with regulations"

Speak for yourself.

The massive success of uber/lyft/etc show that OP is speaking for far more people than him/herself.

Or maybe its the price difference?

It's an interesting question. I take taxis/ride-hail services almost exclusively when traveling on business (and not really all that often) so I pretty much do whatever is more convenient. I wonder what the overall behavior would be if Uber and Lyft were to ~ double their prices overnight.

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