Side note, ended up using a taxi in Orlando for the first time in years and it was surprisingly a much easier, cheaper, and faster ride (plus the driver knew the area and didn't need nav).
Edit: I know they're doing this to screw drivers ultimately and that's not cool.
One day, as I was doing this the driver started aggressively demanding I tell him how much Lyft charged me. And of course I was having signal issues with my phone so the rate/tip screen was taking forever to come up. And he kept getting more and more impatient and demanding, and he repeatedly took screenshots on his phone during this time.
Eventually, it came up, and he had creeped me out so much that I lied to him, told him I still wasn't getting signal, and I left.
He had dropped me off at a bar, by the way. I went inside, ordered a drink, then went out on the patio to drink it (the patio is near the front entrance). As I was drinking it, I saw that he still hadn't moved his car and was staring right at me. I went right back in and was afraid to go back outside.
That incident broke me of this habit, by the way. Now, as soon as I get to the destination, I quickly thank the driver, open the car door, and bolt. I don't even pull my phone out to rate/tip till I'm inside.
You really don't want that. Having the passengers be able to see the nav is a way to ensure transparency and make sure you aren't getting shafted by the driver. You want your driver to use the nav, even if they know the area like the back of their hand.
When i was driving even if it was a route I had done hundreds of times before, I made sure the nav was on and in full view of the passengers.
Hailing took less time than waiting for the uber and the ride was nearly 30% cheaper than what uber was quoting me - so I gave the cabbie a fat tip in cash. Wins all around.
Did you hail a taxi through an easy to use smartphone app?
Don't get me wrong, these apps have made arranging a ride a lot easier. But they're not a requirement in 100% of cases.
A smartphone app that essentially guarantees that the car will show up, and having shown up, won't listen to where you want to go and then refuse to take you there.
> these apps have made arranging a ride a lot easier. But they're not a requirement in 100% of cases.
When they are a requirement in cases as common as "it's raining", they might as well be a requirement in all cases.
You won't find a taxi that way in a city like Orlando with the exception of a few hotels.
That is fine if that works for you, but the app is way easier for most people... which is why they have totally taken over most ride hailing business.
If people agreed with you that calling a taxi is just as easy as calling an Uber or Lyft, those two would have never taken off.
I think it is usually "people who can afford to go into a taxi do not like mingling with people who are only worth a taxi driver's salary".
I don't think most would say many positive things about a person that is only worth $x/hr on the economic market (where $x/hr is a taxi driver's average wages). Whether it is due to lack of education / opportunity, I do not know.
To be honest, I don't trust taxi drivers much either, but they're regulated, they have cameras and they're accountable to somebody. The same can't really be said for uber/lift.
What country are you in? I'm curious what percentage you are compared to working adults in your country because "never used Uber" in my social circle/area is very close to "living under a rock"
I always find these sorts of threads interesting, because it is often someone arguing against some popular service by describing how they do things... but the way they do things is vastly different than 99% of people.
Maybe taxis work better for you, but that is because you are pretty unique in how you operate.
The popular service has offered convenience that seems to have withered most people's brains.
The theme parks have a horrible ride-share setup and recently Universal moved ride share pickups to their parking garage roof which has made the problem even worse. I literally waited an hour for a ride the night before which is why I decided the next day to just get a taxi.
Don't get me wrong, I hate tipping too. But it's disingenuous to describe it as charity when our legal system has made it legal to deprive workers of a wage because of an assumption that people will tip. So we should. And should support all efforts to remove the absurd loophole from the law.
And in addition, most employers need to pay minimum wage if the tips don’t bring it up to that.
Exactly. Such laws means that for low-paying workers, tipping is a gift to the employer, not to the worker.
Have you ever talked to a real person about that theory? Do you really think that a nationwide unemployment level applies equally to people in all parts of the country, with all levels of education? Do you really, really think that people dissatisfied with their jobs just need to be less lazy and apply for more jobs? How many people do you actually know in this situation?
Do you think people for some strange reason absolutely love these minimal wage jobs, and just stick to them, despite the pay? Or maybe, could you consider that minimal wage workers don't have as much economic power as you think they do...
(Do you have any friends making minimal wage?)
The IRS disagrees with you - https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc761
I stopped tipping around the time the tipped minimum wage became the standard minimum wage.
I thought Uber and Lyft drivers weren't employees? Even if they were, that "legal loophole" isn't a federal thing, it only exists in certain states. Where I live, the minimum wage for tipped and untipped employees is the same. I still tip, but if I tip less than 20% I know that the workers are still making a floor of $15/hour.
Additionally, it's still illegal for an employer to let you end up below federal minimum wage, tipped or not. But shady places are happy to steal from their employees.
I have no dog in this fight, and know too little to have a valid response. I just find that tips being necessary for the waiter/driver to survive a strange concept. Not being able to count on a fixed income has to be tough.
Speaking of dogs, it’s time to rewatch Reservoir Dogs.
Real truth: most likely than not, they are making a killing with tips, much more than they would make with a fair salary.
Especially considering that the employer is obliged to pay them minimum wage anyways if they don’t receive enough tips.
The myth of the waiter not meeting ends is hard to believe when a decent waiter can pull in $200-500 (minimum) per night in a decent restaurant.
No one I knew would have traded their tip money for $15 an hour.
Also why tip someone for a job I'm capable of doing myself? I can deliver food. I can drive a taxi. I can, and do, cut my own hair. I did however, tip my urologist, because I am unable to pulverize my own kidney stones..
People who refuse to tip out of "principle" but also refuse to do anything to change the existing situation are just as guilty of exploiting workers as the employees who rely on tips are.
stop demonizing the individual here - it's the companies that are skirting around the well established law. individuals are not capable of raking these businesses over the coals; that's what the government is, honestly, explicitly supposed to do.