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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

It's funny though: cabs have gotten better and Uber has gotten worse.

I've switched back to taking cabs from the airport. Ubers are slower (cabs are sitting there just waiting) and much, much expensive now (like 2x the cost of a cab).

The product isn't any better anymore. The cars are rundown and often smelly. It is nice to be able to put in an address and not deal with a credit card payment at the destination -- but that's about the only benefit left.

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I didn't realise this until going through JFK recently. Cabs: no wait, fixed price, professional driver. Uber: long wait, twice as expensive, driver and car a complete crap-shoot.

Feels like the economies of scale only work when you own the taxi fleet itself. I.e. you have dedicated mechanics etc etc. As soon as the consumer has to pay the true price of a taxi ride, Uber crumbles. There's another world in which Uber was a whitelabel app for cab firms, making millions but certainly not worth billions (so, making millions rather than losing billions!).

If the cabs are half the price of a rideshare and they have typically have to wait in those long taxi lines before a fare, how are those drivers not the ones being more exploited?

Lyft/Uber take 20-25% of the fare, so the ride share drivers are making more on the trip. They have variable vehicle upkeep costs, but taxi drivers renting medallions and the vehicles are hardly better off.

Many criticize the state and local officials who profited (or generated tax revenue) from exploiting those in the medallion system. My understanding is we are seeing a reformed taxi system on the other side of a truly horrible bottom, especially for those who bought the grossly inflated medallions. That the taxi system is/was exploitative and that ride share is/was exploitative are not exclusive though.

Ref:

- Overview: https://documentedny.com/2021/11/23/taxi-cab-medallion-expla...

- NY govt role: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/nyregion/taxi-medallions....

Those lines move pretty fast at major areas, and if the total calls/dollars per hour are higher, they may come out ahead. Utilization matters, as does how the taxi company "rents" the vehicles/medallions.

Agreed -- the last couple of times flying home I've found very few, or no Ubers or Lyfts available near the airport (particularly later at night) but plenty of clean, new-ish cabs (mostly hybrid vehicles) waiting with modern payment systems and yes, cheaper! I had also noticed a significant decline in the quality of the Lyft/Uber cars and actually I haven't used a Lyft or Uber in probably a year now.

> I've switched back to taking cabs from the airport.

Yup cabs are way better experience at the airport and the same price or cheaper. I haven't tried using our local cab app, but its been on my mind.

Meanwhile Uber drivers still haven't figured out where to park, or stop in the middle and wave you to run out to their car... while everyone honks at them.

> The cars are rundown and often smelly.

I don't take Uber/Lyft often but yes, it seems like at least 25% of the time it's obvious that the driver smokes in the car when not driving customers. I've also been in a lot of vehicles which very clearly had blown shocks (based on the noises I heard when we went over even mildly rough road)

Depending on where you are, you can use Curb or something similar to pair with your ride and let the app handle payment. I use it (or just hailing cabs) almost exclusively over Uber/Lyft these days, typically 1/2 the price and the drivers don’t get lost in the city either.

On a recent trip to Chicago, from the airport, the taxi was about half the price of Uber to downtown, which my wife and I waited about 20 minutes for. Uber would have been a faster pickup at that point, however.

The taxi picked us up, proceeded to drive us Downtown and upwards of 85-90mph on the highway (was about 11pm at night at this point). The car was probably at least 15 years old and the shocks nearly as old.

After that experience, we used Uber the rest of the trip (and back to the airport) and it was an overall better experience by far.

The best is when you try the taxi, have an experience like yours, and then uber back, and get the same taxi and driver but as an uber.

> The taxi picked us up, proceeded to drive us Downtown and upwards of 85-90mph on the highway (was about 11pm at night at this point).

85-90 might seem like a lot to some folks, but it's not at all uncommon for traffic on the highways around Chicago. Personally, I'd much rather a driver get me to where I'm going quickly if it's safe. 80-90 on an open highway isn't a problem, it's the drivers who are constantly switching lines and cutting off other drivers to "get ahead" I have a problem with.

I drive those highways every day, that's absolutely uncommon unless you're in the exurbs. I drove to Aurora yesterday and speed of traffic was barely over 70.

If you're cruising at 90 in cook county you're asking for a court date. 15mph over the limit mandates it, and I think the highest speed limit is 60 on 290 out in Arlington Heights. It's 45 on the Kennedy once you get into the city right now.

I wonder if the laws are different in Kane/DuPage. I-90/I-94/I-294 are where I tend to see it the most. I tend to stay around 80, but I'm routinely passed by folks far more concerned about getting to their destination quickly. Once I get into the city itself it's too crowded for that and I'm happy just to be going something near speed limit

Interesting - I used to drive I-88 daily from Wheaton to Aurora. Although I was going counterflow, I rarely saw the speed of other vehicles average less than 80-85.

I think it's almost impossible to judge the speed of others unless you're consciously trying to maintain speed with the flow of traffic. If you're constantly passing people as you travel you're not doing that.

I rarely passed others and my car at the time couldn’t go above 80 so I was acutely aware when the traffic was faster than I am.

I think it’s most likely changes in I-88 since I lived there are responsible for any difference.

From O'Hare to downtown, there are two routes: either the I-90 or I-294 then I-290.

In my experience, 80-90 mph would be uncommonly high for either route even on an open highway. It's not the norm until you get out to the far flung suburbs like Naperville (I-88).

My local taxi companies will text you a link which allows you to pay online, so you can pay on the way to the destination. I usually just call and say "taxi from A to B please" before putting my shoes on, because in my experience apps are more hassle.

I would be interested in why Uber got so bad compared to traditional cabs.

In Spain they forbid all this stuff because they sold cab licenses, but the prices are abusive.

Because pay for the drivers is awful when you consider the actual cost of maintaining a car that runs for hundreds of miles every day. So the only ones that survive are those that do not do proper maintenance and those that game the system (e.g. by reporting fake customer no-shows).

This is exactly it - Uber tries to have "fancy cars" as compared to cabs, but there's a reason cabs are made out of washable materials; the first time someone vomits in the back of the Uber it's never really coming back out (there's a "vomit" button in the driver app apparently, it's that common).

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