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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> a lean SaaS company that sells Uber's software as a service to ordinary taxi companies, takes a cut and makes a profit

This destroys a lot of value. Most taxi companies suck for reasons independent of their tech stack. (The fact that they’re better post-Uber shouldn’t obscure the effect of that competitive pressure.) Moreover, having a transport app that works in most countries is a value add for such a service’s most-profitable customers. Finally, the claim that taxi companies treat their drivers better than Uber applies in some markets, but it doesn’t in most, e.g. New York and New Delhi.

Uber isn’t profitable as a company, but they’re profitable in some (and a growing number of) markets. There is a recurring set of Uber hot takes that get recycled every few months that ignores this.

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They really, really don't suck in Germany. Taxis there are mostly clean, comfortable Mercedes (E-Class usually, Mercedes has a long history and special contracts for that), and Taxi drivers are massively trained. Up until recently, part of the extensive examination was being quizzed about how to get to obscure streets (and remember that Germany does not have a grid system like in the US). That has been abolished, because with ubiquitous GPS it's not necessary anymore, but the other strict requirements stayed.

Uber has nothing on that.

> Uber has nothing on that

Travel extensively in Germany. I can hail Uber from an app that works in Frankfurt, Paris and New York. Uber is often cheaper. And it is far more ubiquitous, particularly outside the major metropolitan areas.

I still take taxis e.g. from the airport, but pretending there is convenience parity in all situations is false. (Agree that Frankfurt and London cabbies are good.)

> I can hail Uber from an app that works in Frankfurt, Paris and New York.

That matters to travelers (and skewed towards business travelers, too), i.e. people who visit only for a short time, but not much to anyone else.

> And it is far more ubiquitous, particularly outside the major metropolitan areas.

Not my experience. I can be far outside the city and call (through the App nowadays) a taxi and I know it's going to be there and reliable. Uber was hit and miss, tends to cancel suddenly etc... I don't think I've ever had a german taxi cancel on me, in decades. If something happened to impede my assigned Taxi, the driver would contact the central and they'd dispatch another one.

Uber does not have a proper "central". They only have an app and dispatch servers, no humans to sort things out to guarantee service.

> Uber is often cheaper.

And you get what you pay for... A german taxi gives you trained people and dedicated, specially maintained cars.

Travelers hail a disproportionate amount of taxis. Living in a walkable European city with good public transport, approximately the only times I use taxis or Uber are when I'm going to/from the airport/train station and have luggage, or when it's a business trip and I can expense it (and even then I opt for trains when I can).

And the parent commenter mentioned that they usually get a taxi from the airport at least (because it's right there I guess, there are strict special regulations about how german taxis wait at the airport to make things go smoothly), so... Another other reason to take one is when you're so far outside and at a time of day that public transport is spotty.

In markets like Frankfurt and London, Uber has a tougher time competing. Totally agreed. It still has niches. And most taxi markets aren’t filled with lovely, knowledgeable, ambitious drivers.

Fair, I was only offering the perspective from Germany.

> This destroys most of the value. Most taxi companies suck for reasons independent of their tech stack.

None of which Uber fixes? Uber is a tech company. Arguing that it's better than taxis for non-technical reasons is a bit absurd.

> None of which Uber fixes?

Did you hail or call taxis before Uber? The simple ability to see where your car is while en route was game changing. Add to that ratings, embedded payment (“credit card reader broken”) and dynamic pricing and you have a dramatically better experience.

...those are all technical problems, no?

Balance that against the fact that most taxi drivers know the city by heart, including where there is construction, habitual traffic jam, and transit congestion..

I'll take a better drive-to-destination experience over being able to stare at my phone watching a car inch closer to me, or saving a few dollars when I need to get somewhere.

A lot of part-time Uber drivers, especially in big cities, come in from the suburbs to get fares in the city - where they are not familiar with their surroundings - and just blindly follow the directions on their GPS.

In my anecdotal experience over the last 10 years, I've had plenty of experiences with Uber drivers either not knowing the proper way to get somewhere, or naively driving into avoidable traffic jams, or just getting stuck behind a bus or streetcar and not understanding when/how to get past it.

This very rarely happens with taxi drivers - to the point where sometimes they can be a bit scary in traffic, so there is a counterpoint here too.

Interesting angle. My experience (in NYC) has been that while taxis most certainly have better knowledge of the city, Uber is by far more reliable in just getting me there. This is because of the key difference of Uber knowing exactly where I'm going in advance, and relaying turn-by-turn directions to the driver. Most of the time, the taxi driver knows the address or cross streets I'm going to. But when they don't, it's painful. I've never even been asked in a Lyft/Uber, though.

Yeah where I live (Toronto) the turn-by-turn is the problem often. There's no adjustment for traffic or temporary closures, and combined with part-time drivers not knowing what roads should be avoided at certain times of day, and you can end up taking way too long getting somewhere.

In fact I used to see a lot of Uber drivers switch out to Waze for directions once you're in the car, since that was probably better.

What incentives taxi drivers to do an excellent job. There are not ratings for drivers and they can take you on a more expensive route if they sense that you aren’t from that area.

Uber tells drivers the route to take and has access to Waze esque data to help ensure drivers take an optimal route.

You just described a bunch of advantages that would still exist if they simply licensed their tech to taxi companies.

Taxi have been able to go onto Uber for a very long time now. But they don't do so willingly most of the time.

Uber shifts the relationship from rider <-> taxi company, to rider <-> Uber. This places a significant responsibility on Uber to create a high quality rider experience. If you book a car and the driver doesn't show up repeatedly, Uber will remove that driver.

Uber also fields customer service, meaning you're not trying to call into a one man shop to argue for a refund with whoever happened to pick up your ride that day. You're talking with Uber.

Some cities, such as NYC, have created their own structure around taxis, but in many cities it's a complete guess as to the quality of service you'll get when you call a local cab company.

This is the exact same playbook as Doordash, Seamless, Taskrabbit, Airbnb, or any of the other gig economy platforms. They're vastly more than just software. They're certainly different from software provided to independent operators, though individual people can come to their own determination of whether or not that is "better."

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