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Comment by simonbarker87 | Hacker News Reader

I won’t use Uber. It’s terrible and far worse than my experience with taxis. I’ve also said here before that many UK cities had better taxis systems before Uber but was shouted down. The only way Uber could compete was unprofitably undercutting the local market with a worse service.

Just because SF needed a new taxis system doesn’t mean they had to inflict it on the rest of the world.

You want to get to the airport for 5AM tomorrow morning? Good luck getting an Uber, they won’t let you book ahead and if you want to hail at the time they will cancel on you 4 times.

I’ve never had this issue with a taxi company and have got a pre booked taxi to time critical things a lot of times in my life.

But yeh, they have an app (weren’t even the first though) so HN loves them.

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I mean “inflict it on the rest of the world” come on. They wouldn’t be selling if you weren’t buying. Uber categorically provides a better service than taxis in almost all places and provides a far safer experience in others. But once again it’s likely some self righteous first world person’s opinion who has no context for how other countries function. Par for the course on HN.

People are buying because they used VC money to undercut the competition. Until They owned the market and raised their prices.

Where do they own the market? I use Lyft everywhere I go in the US just fine.

Lyft still hasn’t even broke out of the US and Canada.

In Canada they've barely even broken out of Toronto.

People weren't necessarily buying in a fair market, hence the secret lobbying operation.

Taxi companies operate with the advantage of state monopolies. They have lobbyists too, and they were so well-connected that they allowed exactly zero innovation for decades before they got blown out of the water by Uber.

Maybe in some countries, but where I live the taxi monopoly was removed long before Uber existed and Uber managed to outcompete with VC backed price dumping plus breaking the law.

> The only way Uber could compete was unprofitably undercutting the local market with a worse service

If it was worse, why were people using it? Maybe people didn’t like, or more likely couldn’t afford, the taxi service you refer to.

> they won’t let you book ahead and if you want to hail at the time they will cancel on you 4 times.

This is exactly what getting a cab was like before Uber in nearly every city in the US. That’s why Uber had no problem disrupting taxis.

> If it was worse, why were people using it?

Because it was impossibly cheap.

In the UK and Australia, the taxi experience was generally better than that. Uber came along and undercut them, and at first they had a great experience.

Now uber is usually more expensive, and usually less reliable. It's very fortunate that they didn't quite manage to completely kill off the competition with their subsidies.

I think Uber coming along was absolutely a net win for consumers. They managed to

1. Upend the existing monopolies with cab drivers and create competitions in many different markets

2. Funnel VC money directly into the hands of consumers in the form of subsidized rides, especially in the years from ~2012 to 2018.

And they did this in a commodity market, so it's super easy for entrants to just copy the idea. Bad for Uber, great for everyone else. The fact that a good hunk of the money that got lit on fire during this process was Saudi oil blood money is just icing on the cake, IMO.

I think that your point 2 is a positive when taken in isolation, but with negative consequences for wider society - it did drive other firms out of business.

I also don't know how many markets uber entered were actually monopolies. London certainly wasn't, though the minicab firms there were dodgy as hell. It will have increased standards of service in that market longer term, even as it unfairly competed.

Are cab monopolies a US thing?

"I won’t use Uber. It’s terrible and far worse than my experience with taxis."

Is Lyft any better?

Don’t know, don’t think they’re in the UK. I’d imagine they are just as terrible as Uber though

At least in the US you can pre-book. I’m no Uber fan but I haven’t experienced this cancelation you mention.

You can “prebook” an Uber but they explicitly state that they will only try and find you a car automatically at that time, not guarantee one/arrange a driver in advance. So it’s basically just automating the “find me an Uber” button press. At least this is how it works in the UK.

Yup, I’ve had exactly this issue, so I always end up going with a local minicab service for early morning airport flights.

Sadly, especially for a prebooked car for a 4am pickup in the suburbs (to the airport), their prebooking doesn’t mean much.

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