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Comment by chungleong | Hacker News Reader

A service like BlaBlaCar (in Europe) is what can legitimately be called ride-sharing. Uber is fleet of pirate taxis.

In many cities of Europe (like Prague, where I live) we call Uber "savior". Using taxis used to be flat out dangerous (crazy drivers with no regards for anything, often drunk or on cocaine or meth) and it was guaranteed you're going to pay at least 3 but usually 5 times more than you should - Uber fixed that and is cheaper than the "correct" (by law) price, it solves safety, I don't have to wait 30+ minutes, ...

And the drivers are satisfied. I made a point to ask each one and they really like it, much more than any traditional work and MUCH more than being an "official" taxi.

In many cities of Europe, and Greece, where I live we have apps like Beat that are basically Uber for actual taxis. That way you get good drivers, ratings, they have an incentive to be good or get booted off the platform and lose customers, etc, without the indentured servitude of Uber.

The problem in Prague is that the taxi lobby tries everything it can (including making hard to obey laws and stopping the whole city traffic as a protest) to stop new players from entering the official market. They (the official taxi drivers) have allies on the government side since the late 90's - the market actually used to be way more liberal (and it was better back then).

It's the same here, they just haven't managed to outlaw Beat yet (and it's hard because there's not much basis for that). Hopefully that strategy will work for you as well.

Just used one in Sofia. It was pretty great.

Ride to bus station cost me about 2Euros.

You know who else was called a savior? The guy who annexed Czechoslovakia. Bad things happen when people value expediency uber alles.

I don't know who called that guy savior but certainly not the Czechs that live in Prague. We value improvement, which Uber clearly is for all sides involved. I'm not sure about other cities, but definitely in Prague.

It feels like this says more about the status of the law and behaviour in Prague than it does about the apparent merits of Uber style services.

In London we used to have a good taxi system that was well run with trustworthy drivers in "Black cabs", but with the undercutting of Uber they are more likely to try underhand tactics.

Yes I can see that in London it could make problems. It is not a silver bullet, I'd say. Some cities benefit from this Uber-like form, and other cities benefit from the former London form.

While it is not a silver bullet, it is also not an universally wrong/bad way - that's my point.

>In London we used to have a good taxi system that was well run with trustworthy drivers in "Black cabs"

It is hard to deduce from your comment, which period of time you are describing ─ as black cabbies haven't been very popular or trustworthy for a very long time[1]. Also, there was a very similar campaign of resistance to 'mini-cabs' decades ago, as the one conducted against Uber et al. at present, by the 'Black cab' community.[2]

I am glad that these dinosaurs are slowly diminishing in their market share, who have been exploiting 'The Knowledge'[3] for far too long by regurgitating morally repugnant views/opinions, formed from a diet of gutter press/red-tops and forcing them upon unsuspecting passengers and blind siding visitors into thinking that it is the traditional experience!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Worboys

[2] https://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/02/the-case-against-london-...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom...

It's not a precise timeframe nor a perfect correlation, but since Uber has been undercutting them there's been a trend to worse behaviour by cabs, with poor navigation and dishonesty around payments (keeping the meter running, disabling the regulation card payment devices etc).

I take your general point, although I'm not convinced the Warboys case is a reason to dislike Black cabs anymore than Harold Shipman is reason to dislike doctors!

I cited the case as an illustration, albeit an extreme one, that black cabbies operate under a code of silence and not explicitly as a reason to dislike them. They have always ran a similar campaign of black cabs are safe thus trustworthy, in order to justify the skewed figures reported to TfL[1].

The reasons to dislike them would be the 3x charges compared to their counterparts, knuckle-dragging attitude towards implementing technology and under-handed tactics e.g. insisting on only accepting cash, then never having change from high-denomination notes at the end of your journey, so you are forced to leave it as a hefty tip, ignoring disabled riders, surge pricing after late night public transport has stopped; only accepting rides if they end up in the general direction of their residence at the end of the shift - despite this practice being against their rules, always taking a longer route to rinse the rider and many more..

[1] https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-are-black-...

It is also very nice when you are visiting a country with unreliable taxi services for work. Just skipping the hassle of learning to avoiding the scams, getting the correct price, getting a receipt is annoying and all that is removed with uber.

Yes, I would never use foreign taxi if it wasn't for Uber and friends

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