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Comment by ergocoder | Hacker News Reader

South-East Asia market is very strange. Uber should have won the market easily.

I live in US and from Thailand. Grab in Thailand is much worse than Uber/Lyft in US in terms of experience. The fundamentals don't work well. I used Grab 5 times in Bangkok and only succeeded once (e.g. the driver accepted but never came, the driver almost arrived but turned away). In the success case, I waited 20+ mins (which is normal for Bangkok's traffic, I guess). In US, the reliability has been 100% for me, and the wait time is like 10 mins max.

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I'm from the US but have lived in Thailand for the past year. I use Grab every day, often 2 times or more. 90% of the time, Grab is fantastic – quick, clean, cheap. The other 10% of the time, the drivers either can't use a GPS, have a car that has issues, are drunk, tired, or just choose to drive recklessly. Overall I find the service indispensable, but quality control is an issue.

During a recent couple of months in Vietnam, however, Grab was a mess. Drivers would regularly refuse to both pick me or cancel, and I was left stranded (if I canceled more than a couple of times, I would be blocked from using the service for a few days). I spent more than a couple of evenings sitting on the side of the road, playing a game of chicken with the driver on the other end of the service, seeing how many hours it would take them to cancel.

Sounds like Grab isn't doing basic Quality Control like cancelling unfulfilled rides after a reasonable time (eg: 30min to 45min).

> The other 10% of the time, the drivers either can't use a GPS, have a car that has issues, are drunk, tired, or just choose to drive recklessly.

So, kinda like yellow cabs in New York.

Grab is a hot mess - my biggest gripe is popup ads. They have the nasty habit to show you one, and block you, at the worse moment, like when you are trying to select your destination.

Some ads have no "escape" button and you have to make a choice between two options in a foreign language. You pick one blindly and there is a 50% chance you will be shopping for fast-food instead of going to your appointment.

All of which to sell you something you don't want and "save" you $0.50.

Oh, you're right, this is the worst! Sometimes they showed me 3 pop-ups one after another before I could order a car. It was very frustrating

From time to time I had similar experience to yours, e.g. a driver in Manila cancelled just before arriving, because it appeared that there was a huge traffic jam close to where I was waiting etc.

From my perspective though both Uber and Grab offered similar level of service in SEA. Uber had better mobile application, but prices were very similar and often drivers used to drive for both companies, so there was really little difference between both services.

This can also be an argument for the market being too different and so justifying their choice.

That's too bad. I can see it being a huge boon in places where getting screwed by taxi drivers is common, especially at airports (e.g. Manila...).

It is still better than local taxis. I've been scammed by a taxi driver in Philippines and had problems with taxis at the airport in Indonesia. I switched to Grab/Uber and even if the quality was similar, at least I was relaxed and didn't worry about being scammed anymore.

Using Grab - only when you can't explain driver your destination (have ready business cards with addresses). It's faster to stop a taxi on street. Insist on meter and you save at leasts 30% of the fare. Thailand also has motorbike drivers which take you anywhere inside "sois" for 20 bath.

That's just the traffic and drivers. Longer distance trips you're more likely to get a ride, for short distances you should plan ahead and book while you're in your room because it can take upwards to 30 minutes.

I lived in Thailand for 3 months and overall Grab, Grab Food, and Grab Groceries was pretty good.

It’s because of drivers not because of app.

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