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Comment by stemlord | Hacker News Reader

Nyc yellow cabs are far cheaper than uber/lyft. They also tend to know the city better. Rideshares wiped out yellow cabs then drove up the price.

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This just isn't true. There's still tons of yellow cabs in NYC. And you know what had the most terrible taxi experience, yellow cabs. I've never been unable to pay via card in an uber/lyft. I've never had my driver pull the emergency brake and tell me his car is broken because I said I lived in Brooklyn and they didn't want to drive there in a uber/lyft. I never had the AC be not working or refused to be used in an uber/lyft.

And yet all of those things happened in yellow cabs and much more. Yellow cabs are truly terrible experience. And they were never far cheaper.

They are far cheaper right now. I promise you. It's also been this way for a while. And yes, yellow cabs still exist, but you will not see a sea of yellow down Broadway like has historically been the case. Even before covid.

My recent survey of Uber/Lyft cars is they're absolutely every bit as shitty as some of the Yellows out there.

No cabby objects to going to Brooklyn and hasn't for almost 10 years.

Uber/Lyfts at JFK constantly call and try to ask where I'm going before they pick me up.

The Curb app is fine.

The problem is not the medallions but the centralization of medallions. Owner/operators are usually much better than the dude renting the cab and medallion from some shady ass company.

The TLC should do more to fix the cabs - and we should support them fixing cabs and owner/operators at the expense of Uber/Lyft. The competition is good, but Uber/Lyft are no better than the medallion squatters.

> And they were never far cheaper.

When Uber started, this was true. Uber has gotten, pardon the pun, uber expensive in most places I go.

I now take a cab from the airport because a) it's easier, and b) it's cheaper. I'm not sure I'd say 'far cheaper', but that probably depends on locales.

If this is true, it simply means that Uber/Lyft outcompeted the yellow cabs in some other set of attributes, rather than price.

I'm guessing availability and ease of use.

Or that they used VC money to outcompete companies using artificially low prices, and then raised the prices to make some profit once they got a hold on the market

It's time to disrupt the disrupters.

That, plus willingness to take you to a destination outside of Manhattan. Yellow cabs would often refuse to go to an outer borough. Refusing a destination within NYC was actually against the law, but the law basically wasn't enforced.

That's a good point. Getting to EWR in Jersey used to be hard.

Being able to get into a car and get whisked off to your destination without having to talk to someone about directions is pretty nice

I don’t think the situation has stabilized, either for NYC or for Uber. Too many variables. It’s also possible a stable equilibrium doesn’t emerge and it’s just a pendulum that swings between upstarts and incumbents, regulated and deregulated, apps, cabs and dollar vans…

> wiped out

Really? Yellow taxis are alive and well in NYC.

The drivers who were 'wiped out' are the ones that bought a medallion at the peak of a bubble. They were victims of predatory lenders as much or more than Uber or Lyft.

Most drivers rent cabs and medallions for a fixed price and then keep whatever fares they earn. Even drivers who own medallions would typically let them out to other drivers so the cab could be on the streets for as close to 24 hours as possible.

Rideshare services have made the medallions less valuable because drivers for them don't need to rent a cab and medallion, and so the owners can demand less for renting them out. In other words, it has given labor _more_ power, and the typical cab driver is doing better.

If you've been noticing less cabs lately, it's probably Covid related, as the pandemic has diminished the demand for all types of travel, particularly in Manhattan.

Taxi lobbies wouldnt exist w/o the transferability and leasing of medallions. The idea that a "permit" can be transferrable is ridiculous. This is the structure that caused one of the the problems. Taking a non-cab on Manhattan proper is usually a waste of time. To take a cab in NYC, you walk out to street that has a place to pull over. Form the "I need a ride pose", or raise your hand and look the cabbie in the eye and boom, you are off to your destination in seconds. I don't think I have ever waited over a minute for a cab in NYC. If you need to get to the airport, call for a black car.

It broke my heart listening to my cab driver talk about how much he paid for his medallion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_medallion

Knowing the city is no longer relevant in the age of Navigation apps with live traffic data.

Microscopic knowledge of every corner of the city won't help you predict a traffic accident blocking your most efficient route, or a crazy homeless guy pushing a dumpster onto the road.

Not to mention but even if the p50 or p99 driver has amazing knowledge, as a customer, it frustrates me to no end to have to explain to a taxi driver where I'm trying to go because they happen to not know MY location, and are too proud to just punch it into Google Maps.

This doesn't happen with Uber/Lyft.

And we haven't even gotten to the "My credit card machine isn't broken" scenario. Being able to walk out of the car at your destination and just take off is worth it for that alone.

Knowing the price in advance vs hoping for the best is worth a lot, even if on average the latter was cheaper.

Biggest hurdle to tradition cabs is simply

> Credit card reader broke

Even having a credit card reader isn't as convenient as knowing the price in advance before you get in and then having that price automatically charged, without having to do anything when you arrive except get out of the car.

London largely solved this by making it a violation of rules to have the car on the road with a broken card reader. Suddenly card readers got a whole lot more reliable. I haven't had an issue with a driver refusing to take a card since that started (but I have run into several with non-regulation card readers; clearly still trying to avoid paying taxes...)

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