Why yellow cabs are (again) your best bet in New York City | Hacker News Reader

Why yellow cabs are (again) your best bet in New York City

thepointsguy.com

10 pointsPMtraveler25 comments

That's one thing that separates older and younger New Yorkers. I've hailed a taxi maybe twice in my life, but I've used a ton of Uber, Lyft, Gett, Via, etc. They have such a mindshare advantage over NYC.

I always heard stories growing up about suddenly getting charged a ton of money for a cab ride, taken on a detour, not being able to get a ride to Brooklyn, black people having trouble getting rides, etc. Switching back to taxis is kind of like getting people under 30 to switch back to cable TV from streaming services if Cable TV suddenly became 1/3 of the price.

Still, a ton of New Yorkers still ride taxis everyday. It's just not as publicized especially if you're new to the city. The main thing I always liked about Uber and Lyft is predictable prices. That is, unless you call a taxi company and ask how much it would cost to take you to the airport which is usually a lot cheaper.

The mind-blowing part of this is that the "mindshare" includes the perception that the apps have more predictable prices than yellow cabs... That was never why people switched in the first place, it was because of cheaper prices and convenience, not "predictable" prices. The whole thing from the start was that the price on Uber fluctuates a lot. That's central to the entire idea. Surge pricing, etc.

Cheaper because they are still selling rides at a loss. Uber had an adjusted EBIDTA of -359M

On Reddit "Am I the Asshole?" posts there's an option for "ESH" - Everybody Sucks Here, which perfectly suits the ride options.

Lyft/Uber seem very predatory with respect to their drivers, but how they were able to align the incentives of having a comfortable ride and better experience were great.

The Taxi medallion system seems incredibly antiquated, unfair and unnecessary and the general experience of cabs is so much worse. Contactless is nice but you still have to contend with drivers asking for cash only and other weirdness / sketchiness.

I view transportation as a public good and wish that there were more municipal APIs that exposed: "I'm here (lat/long) and want to go to (lat/long)?" and then let all the different services bid on those.

I mean it's awkward that they're basically interviewing their own employees (horrible journalism practice). If you're going to write fluff pieces about life in NYC at least try and take a semi-disciplined approach to it instead of just asking for a quotes in Slack from your co-workers

>“I was taking a cab from Central Park and there was an open cab right in front of me,” said Maddie Tarr, a product manager at TPG.

>“I will hail a cab when I’m out and about over an Uber/Lyft but they’re harder to find, so be prepared to wait,” said TPG writer Stella Shon.

>“I still waited an hour for a cab that cost 2x the price of an Uber or Lyft, but I couldn’t have gotten an Uber or Lyft for hours,” Melanie Lieberman, TPG’s senior travel editor,

> I was taking a cab from Central Park and there was an open cab right in front of me,” said Maddie Tarr, a product manager at TPG. “Since you can often pay contactless, it feels just as easy. Plus, I didn’t need to wait for the Uber to show up.

Yeah, well that's Manhattan. Try finding a yellow cab the further out in Bronx, Queens, or Brooklyn. Good luck.

And have fun paying the non-airport/non-flat rate yellow cab fares. I can count on two hands the number of times I paid for a yellow cab. They're not worth the cost and lack of convenience for most New Yorkers.

> Try finding a yellow cab the further out in Bronx, Queens, or Brooklyn.

That's what green taxis are for.

And honestly I don't see a point in not accepting both taxis and Uber as an option. Taxis have an app too now, the same way I check Lyft if Uber prices look stupid for a given trip, I also check Curb

Tbh I rarely see green taxis around Queens. When I do see them en masse it's in Manhattan, usually around LES queueing up for the bridge

> Despite sometimes lower prices, the convenience of contactless pay and being able to hail a cab from wherever you are on the street (if you’re lucky,) people in New York City appear to be favoring ride-hailing options, at least for now.

Outside of Manhattan or hip/busy neighborhoods you're SOL when it comes to finding a yellow or even green cab. So those of us not worthy of cab traffic have had to phone a car service and now lyft or uber.

Personally I mainly use Lyft buy my senior mother prefers car services as they are not beholden to metrics. Those drivers will help you carry items and even wait for you to safely get in your home before driving off if there are some characters about. My mother feels safer with a more personable service.

> Let’s face it: There is something just so New York about taking a cab.

Ugh.

This article seems like a blatant advertisement for yellow cabs and their new contactless payment options. It repeatedly stresses how convenient their contactless payment is and says absolutely nothing else really.

That's because it is, it even has a disclaimer at the beginning. Idk who would post this here

Or you could take the AirTrain from JFK and NJ Transit from EWR? There are other options for getting to/from these airports than just taking a cab.

I love public transit and opt for it if I can, even if it's a bit less convenient. Only remember a few cases where Uber was the best choice, definitely Las Vegas was one of them but if I can I'll never return there anyway.

That was my first guess but the air train is not a single seat ride which everyone complained about when it was first built. You either take it to Jamaica Station and catch the LIRR or J/Z train or to the Howard Beach/JFK A train station.

Eventually all of these options will merge into more or less the same thing, how couldn't they.

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Come on now.

I'm over in SF, but you know what app I can use to summon a taxi? The Uber app. What can I use to get bus routes/schedules? The Uber app. Nearby scooters? The Uber app.

This article is clinging to the one trick pony narrative that ridesharing prices are higher for airport trips right now (it ought to be extremely telling that they keep talking about Lyft, which has lower market share and thus higher prices). If you think ridesharing is solely about airport trips, you're kinda missing the point of what "taking over the world" means to Uber.

Did any of Uber, Lyft, etc. meanwhile earn one cent of money, instead of burning angel investors venture capital?

Isn't that the plan, to destroy any competition, afterwards being able to cherry pick anything, anywhere, anytime, at any price, while having the drivers their dependent bitches?

You're parroting Kalanick's era stuff. Both of these companies have been chasing profitability since IPO and posted profits (on adjusted ebitda basis) this week, and are promising better results in Q4. My understanding is that various important markets are actually cash flow positive now.

Any idea of "destroying competition" also clearly is oblivious of what actually is happening in the industry. Uber made some acquisitions sure (e.g. Careem, Autocab), but also ceded marketshare in exchange for equity in various markets (Didi, Grab, Zomato) and did partnerships in others (e.g. SKTelecom). It definitely has its hands in a lot of pots, but monopolistic it is not. Its latest courier marketing slogan was literally "we're not the jealous type"...

As for Lyft, I don't believe it's ever been in a position to be able to aim for a monopoly of any sort.

Uhm... http://coveringcompanies.journalism.cuny.edu/2021/10/10/uber...

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That article supports exactly what I just said.

> For the quarter ended Sept. 30, the company said it expects to report between a $25 million loss and a $25 million profit on an adjusted basis

Today was its earnings call, where it reported profits of "$8 million worth of adjusted EBITDA"[0].

If you read your article, it says it's projecting 100M in ebitda for Q4.

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/04/uber-squeaks-tiny-adjusted...

That depends on how you read it. I read it as maybe we just barely manage to. Also don't EBITDA me, that can be 'adjusted' in many interesting ways.

Sure, but the original point wasn't about whether bottom line is red, it was about whether it's an investing ponzi scheme or an actual attempt at operating like a proper business. It may not be profitable on an absolute basis (many unicorns aren't), but that's very different from having your entire business plan centered around never ending VC rounds.

Generally speaking, once a company goes public, it must start showing results.

Hrm.

Because the ride-hailing companies don't know how to treat their employees.

is there any good reason that cabs can't be used with apps? i.e. in Israel, basically everyone who has a smartphone hails apps with the gett app. Basically every cabbie uses it.

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