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Comment by deepGem | Hacker News Reader

I think the market is ripe for a real Uber Black. A super premium service that guarantees a cab no matter where you are within a minute. No cancellations. Your own personal on demand limousine. People are so tired of cancellations and not finding rides, I bet some will pay a premium just for the predictability that you can go anywhere whenever you desire.

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Not enough people to make anywhere near “in a minute” achievable. Maybe in half an hour in dense cities.

We know from air travel that most people prefer to pay the lowest fare for the worst cattle class airfare.

There are those who pay for business and first class though. It’s a matter of figuring out the price per km and commission dynamics. With the appropriate incentives and commissions supply should ease out. Obviously am trivialising this approach. It will be great to understand why Uber Black couldn’t scale.

Isn't that just Uber Black?

I've found the drivers to be almost universally accommodating (almost like they're being paid more fairly!)

And you can even get an hourly Uber Black that will wait on you indefinitely.

Why would Uber not offer this if the business is there? They have the infrastructure and if the Uber branding is sullied, just add a new name with a diamond next to it.

I think the market of people willing to pay $40 for a $10 ride with first-class experience must be too small.

I donno. I keep thinking about this all the time. I might also be blinded by the intricacies of where I live, Bangalore. Cancellations by Uber drivers are rampant here and it's very hard to find the black equivalent. The UberXL service which counts as the black equivalent has absolutely zero predictability. My guess is that there are at least 10,000 - 20,000 people in Bangalore, a city of 10M willing to pay a 2 - 3x premium for predictability and good QoS. There simply is no such option for non airport rides.

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