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> What about that '3 mins away'? They're always 3 mins away for 10 minutes. Unless they fly close to a black hole it's just lies and horrific UX.

This is my personal peeve with Uber that drives me nuts. When Uber first came out, the wait was typically a bit longer, but they were honest and upfront about the wait. I had no problem with that. If the wait was 15 minutes, I might order a beer and enjoy the wait at the bar. Or if I am leaving from home, enjoy my couch as opposed to standing outside my building's lobby.

I feel like they bait you now by always saying a car is 2-3 minutes away. Then that wait turns to 8, which turns into 8 minutes where the car just sits at an intersection, then it starts counting down. It infuriates me, but hearing about the rest of their business practices, I guess its not surprising. I have adjusted my behavior by not cutting whatever I was doing short until they are a block or two away, but it just makes for such a worse experience- my original pitch to my friends when Uber was new was "now you can have a beer inside the bar and let the cab come to you instead of going outside and fighting for a cab." Its definitely better, but I now feel like I am fighting with the app/algorithm...

I don't know if I'd call it disgusting, price discrimination is a well established business practice, and your comment suggests that you continue to use Uber's service despite those practices — validating the discriminatory pricing they're giving you.

It is your prerogative as a consumer to check multiple car hailing apps and pick the one that suits you best.

I'd sooner just catch a cab than have to open up multiple different apps and compare prices all the time. I always know exactly what I'm paying with a cab, and it's no hassle.

Cabs are:

* Much lower quality cars (torn seats, smelly, old, safety issues...no one looks good showing up to a date in a Cab).

* Much lower quality drivers (some smoke openly, talk on the phone loudly, don't listen to you, take longer routes than necessary, etc)

* No accountability for service

* No trip data for safety reasons

* No handy log of all your recent trips

* More expensive + tip required

* Sometimes will pester you to be cash-only (even though the credit card machine works, they'll just lie to you)

* Ignore the law and will refuse to give you a ride if you're going to some specific destinations where they don't want to go.

I can go on and on. This is in most American cities. I will not take cabs even if they are cheaper.

Cabs deserve to be eliminated as a transportation option.

> tip required

Really? I've never tipped a cab, though I rarely use them. What happens when you don't tip?

The one time I remember that I didn't tip a cab, he swore at me, wadded up the receipt and threw it at me. This made my expense report somewhat more difficult.

Thanks for the ancedata, my personal ancedata for many years of living in NYC is:

Cabs:

* Cars regulated by state.

* Usually cheaper than Uber rides (in my experience always).

* Know the city like the back of their hand.

* Can file a complaint directly with the state or cab company.

* Accountable through a taxi license.

* Won't defraud you with bogus cleaning fees.

Uber:

* Been in two minor car accidents due to driver switching between Waze and GMaps to find the route or just constantly fiddling with their phone.

* Had an Uber driver show up in a car that looked nearly totaled. Passenger side door was nonfunctional due to damage.

* Poorly maintained cars operated around the clock by operators than get virtually no sleep due to an unlivable wage.

* Had a driver travel at high speeds in poor conditions while talking about how they only get a couple of hours a sleep a night and manipulating their phone.

* Many drivers clearly living in their car, undergarments and clothes on front passenger seat.

* Uncomfortably hit on my girlfriend 100% of the time if she is alone.

* Driver complaints often ignored / go into the corporate void.

This is why we don't trust ancedata.

Here's the difference.

For all the issues you had with Uber or Lyft. You can contact them and they'll refund you your ride. They've refunded my ride every time something bad has happened.

Cab driver hits on your girlfriend? Good luck doing anything about it.

Same situation happens in a Lyft or Uber? You get your money back and the driver's rating gets lowered or they get kicked off the platform and you get unmatched permanently from that driver in the marketplace.

Cab driver takes a selfish route? Good luck proving it.

Uber driver takes a bad route? It's logged, and easily reportable. You'll get your money back.

Uber/Lyft drivers also commonly have chargers, water bottles, and other amenities and are generally accommodating because they know their rating matters. Cab drivers don't care at all.

I've even had cab dispatchers promise a cab will be at my house at X time, and I've had several drivers just not show up with no notice, no warning, nothing. Uber driver cancels? I know immediately.

As a customer, it's a far superior experience in nearly every way - even in cases when things go wrong. I'll pay more every time to take Uber/Lyft over a Cab, and so will my 20s/30s friend group - we'll do it happily because the world is changing and Uber/Lyft are more in line with what we expect from a car service in 2018.

Not only that - it's a similar experience I can get in LA as in NYC as in SF as in my small hometown. They all have Uber/Lyft and I can call the services from any curb at any time right through my smartphone and it works reliably with similar systems of accountability and trip reporting. It makes business travel and expensing dead easy.

Funny, I live in Chicago, so maybe things are different here, but I view cabs as nearly a luxury now. The rates are similar to uber/lyft, still slightly higher, but not much.

The service is very different though:

1. The driver often knows the best way to get to my place and all I have to do is give my address.

2. The driver knows how to drive in the city.

3. I'm rarely if ever forced into a conversation I don't want to have.

I find the whole thing so much more pleasant.

Then catch a cab! Most other people don;t and thats perfectly fine.

> I always know exactly what I'm paying with a cab, and it's no hassle.

Huh?? The #1 reason I use ride-sharing apps is because I have no idea what I'll be paying for a cab until the ride is over.

"It works"/"it brings profit" has nothing to do with "not disgusting". Let's not encourage that.

Well, the GP is the one that can encourage it or not, by staying with Uber or not.

Honestly what do you expect, them to keep losing money on every ride? The pricing has been a lie to kill off the competition, but they can't keep it up forever.

Same for me. A heavy user of Uber. Lyft has always been more expensive for me in the past, but I guess they categorize me as "captive user". Lyft has been cheaper for me of late, so Uber lost me as a customer. At least for now.

Let's be honest, if anything better came along, I wouldn't look back.

What about Lyft?

Lyft is great. More expensive than Uber but none of the dark pattern bullshit. Every price I've paid had felt "fair."

Not available in most geographies for me.

Doesn't exist outside the US and Toronto, so not an option for many people.

Lyft is barely existing in my city. (updated: added 'MY' city)

You're just seeing why metered taxi rates came to be a thing in the first place. Rather than individual drivers it's the platform getting creative about distance and price.

> And as soon as you have a 'usual' route, or you use the app a lot, you get charged more!! It's so disgusting.

> I tried to book a trip to the airport for my inlaws using both my account and my wife's account. She rarely uses Uber, and hers showed a 10-15% cheaper rate. Do they think we're stupid? They targetted 'smart' people for using ride sharing as opposed to taxis, and now they try to play us.

> Let's not even get started about dark UX patterns. It's hard to see peak rates now, and unless you get a bad gut feeling, you wouldn't know you're currently paying more than a cab rate.

> ...

> The same ride I used to pay $8 for is sometimes $25-32 now. Let's be honest, if anything better came along, I wouldn't look back.

The world now is rediscovering the valid motivations for the old taxicab regulations that so many were claiming were holding "innovation" back.

Uber's prices were so low mainly because they were using VC money to try bankrupt traditional taxi companies. Once the subsidies run out, Uber will probably at least as expensive as traditional cabs, if not more so, but with consumer-hostile pricing tricks that were once illegal.

I don't understand your comment about ethnicity. Are they all one ethnicity now?

I hate to say I called it but... I called this years ago. Earlier in the decade, even on HN, people were raving about how much better Uber was than taxis because “the cars are so clean!”, and I kept saying, “You know this is temporary, right? And that Uber is only better in this regard because the drivers and cars are new?”

Ride-hailing takes an incredible toll on cars, and with Uber pushing more costs into drivers that might otherwise be borne by the taxi company, there was no way the original standards of cleanliness would last forever. It all regresses eventually to “minimum amount of maintenance that people will still accept” and so Uber and taxis will be basically indistinguishable given a few more years. Hired cars are a commodity, after all, and this is what always happens to commodities.

So long as I don't ever have to deal with a cabbie lying to me that his credit card machine doesn't work or they won't drive a short distance I will happily continue using the apps, even if the vehicles have gotten worse (most of my rides lately have been Minivans obviously bought to cab in).

That still gives me a much better experience than dealing with their bullshit.

Cabbie drivers lying about their credit card machine is a moot point if your jurisdiction has a decent regulatory body. In DC if they pull that shit, I just get out with out paying as they're not abiding by the law and the dept of for hire vehicles will have my back.

Right. But, people like me hate dealing with confrontation and govt offices. I would just pay with cash and go to a competing service next time (Uber, Lyft, mass transit.) If only there were startup mass transit providers in cities.

Just out of curiosity, does DC limit the number of cab drivers?

Last time I had this happen (probably happened 50+ times in my life) it was in Miami and the guy didn't tell me till he got me to the mall, maybe a 5-10 min drive. I told him if he expected cash only he should've told me when I got in at the hotel and not after I pulled out my card. I hopped out and the guy left his car parked in the valet and started following and shouting at me that I need to pay him for his service through the mall.

No idea how strict Miami is on this stuff but I didn't really have time to dig into regulations and make phone calls 2 hours before a wedding while I've got some asshole shouting at me and being aggressive. I remember joking to myself "great, my phones dead so I can't Lyft, bet I'll have a great cab experience."

That was the last time I ever took a cab.

edit: Seems pervasive; https://www.yelp.com/biz/crown-taxi-miami

...and some of the current "App X is better" is because App X isn't as far along as Uber. They likely started later, and are still subsidizing drivers more.

At some point, they'll all wean drivers out of subsidies, and cheap fares will see cheap cars on average.

Literally got in my first Tesla taking Uber home two nights ago.

> “Do they think we're stupid?”

Yes, it seems routine and unremarkable at this point to note that Uber continues to have a frightening contempt for its users and that this has not changed in a meaningful way after the CEO swap.