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Comment by master-lincoln | Hacker News Reader

Uber and Lyft seem like a step back: less safety for drivers and passengers as cars are not company owned and inspected and there are no checks on drivers that a taxi company would do. Also the gig economy is overall probably a negative for society as working people do not have the safety of employment along with benefits. What risk or investment does e.g. Uber have that justifies taking a 20% cut? From a consumers perspective there might be more choices and cheaper options, but that doesn't outweigh the issues it brings with it I think.

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> as cars are not company owned and inspected

The worst taxi I've been in had a completely broken suspension that bottomed out on every bump and threw the car all over the road. My wife got car sick, and we were both afraid we'd crash due to how out of control it was.

The cigarette smell and broken AC were obligatory, of course. Don't forget the check engine light and squeaky brakes.

The taxi owners did not care about car quality whatsoever.

I've never been in an Uber or Lyft that was as bad.

> Also the gig economy is overall probably a negative for society as working people do not have the safety of employment along with benefits.

A lot of drivers paid to rent both cars and taxi medallions and started the day off in the red. Many were contractors and didn't get benefits.

Not sure if it's still there, but in Queens, NY you'd see lots of these taxi medallion and rental places in Long Island City.

Gone. It’s all Uber now. A few green cabs. Odds of finding a yellow cab outside of Manhattan are slim.

The whole point of the green cabs was that Yellow cabs mostly stayed in Manhattan.

In Mexico it's even a matter a safety, there's rampant pirate taxis in Mexico City that if you get on one they might try to rob or kidnap you. Most women avoid taxis at all costs throughout Mexico, Uber and Didi are just so much safer

In my city, Uber has very much

> shown that the old model for running a taxi service was horrendously outdated and customer-unfriendly

Prior to Uber, you had to pick a taxi company, call them, wait between twenty minutes and the heat death of the universe for the taxi to show up, and then maybe have the driver claim that his POS machine is broken and please pay cash.

After Uber showed up, suddenly the largest taxi service came out with an app where you could order a cab, watch it approach in real time, and pay through the app.

Indeed - and these may be some of the areas that U/L can't or won't improve further, but new competition (like that in the article) can and might.

But U&L showed how awfully customer-unfriendly and antiquated the existing industry was. Introducing an app which can call a taxi in seconds to your GPS location, offering easy destination selection, seamless electronic payment, and a feedback system, were the innovations that the incumbent taxi and mini-cab industry was unable or unwilling to introduce, until competition forced them to. These innovations aren't linked to the employment model - that is something that U&L chose.

(Just like Tesla with the Model S, anyone could have done this first, but no-one did, until someone else did.)

> Also the gig economy is overall probably a negative for society as working people do not have the safety of employment along with benefits.

This is not exactly new with Uber/Lyft. I remember a ride with the local taxi company (before they came on the market) where the driver was actually boasting how some previous customer was complaining about him to the dispatch, but he's a contractor so he's safe from any repercussions.

In that situation, at least the 1-star review at Uber/Lyft has a measurable effect.

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