Comment by pierat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pierat | Hacker News Reader

Here in tech bro world we have so many innovations for you! Why not try our:

- Imaginary scam money (in 17,382 flavors, including eyeballs)!

- Expensive unregulated taxi!

- Expensive unregulated hotel!

- Picture of monkey (formerly valuable)!

- Imaginary restaurant that serves bad food!

- Expensive unregulated television!

- Another picture of monkey (never valuable)!

- Twitter but it sucks now!

- The news but it also sucks and steals your personal information!

Plus, try our greatest achievement yet:

- Expensive unregulated scam concert tickets!

EDIT: the real trend with Silly-Con Valley is that every major venture is an adventure in removing regulations that We (collectively) bought with 10's of thousands of lives. And these VCs come through, and seek to destroy regulation for a pound of profit, and some scraps to others.

These services always start cheap since they are subsidized by VCs to buy growth and scale. It soon will change, and get worse and cost more, if not outright re-regulated out of existence.... For the same reasons why the regulation was there in the first place.

There's a few companies working on true innovations. But most SV is just remixes on "deregulation and illegality as a service"

People forget how terrible the experience was prior to these companies, and when the industry changes, they point to incumbents forced to innovate as a way to say the tech companies were unnecessary.

Taxis is the low hanging fruit, non-hotellike rentals is another, cable TV/DVD rentals is a third.

However, I have no explanation for NFTs.

> However, I have no explanation for NFTs.

Simple. A multi-level-marketing scheme build on the free money/web3/crypto trend, successfully taking the existing art market speculative practices into the digital realm.

> - Expensive unregulated taxi!

> - Expensive unregulated hotel!

> - Expensive unregulated television!

All of these are better than the alternative, or people wouldn't use them

Given that Uber's only quarter in the black was the most recent, AND most of it was from capitalized assets, well, it's just a failing business, but scaled big!

It's a common trope for VC's to fund, fund, fund for that sweet hockey stick growth. And they know that it takes money to make money.

So yeah, the fact that these businesses have been better is because they were subsidized by VC'e to get you as a customer. Enshittification process is already well full in effect, and will get more expensive and worse

But hey, Uber cashed out for the early Ponzi investors. Probably won't pan out past this point.

Anecdotally, amongst my peer group AirBnBing is waaaay down. Pricing is out of control (even more than hotels), and there's usually a long chore list AND expensive cleaning fee on top.

It was great in the beginning! But yes, it's gone down hill, I avoid now.

True, but I buy AirBnB specifically for things that you can’t get in a hotel.

An entire villa with pool in Tuscany. An apartment with a kitchen. A flat with the view of Acropolis in Athens (maybe you can get that in a hotel, but you can never be sure lest they rebook you to a different room.)

At least in the US, those sort of places don't really exist, or if they do the pricing is outrageous (like $1000+/night).

Suite/extended stay hotels with full kitchens are fairly common here, too.

At least in the US, those sort of places don't really exist, or if they do the pricing is outrageous (like $1000+/night).

Not true in the slightest. This place ( https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/48299044 ) was an incredible bargain the last time I was in Scottsdale for a couple of weeks, even at $220/night + fees.

Scottsdale is not Tuscany.

And Tuscany isn't in the US.

For stays of a couple of days, I'll generally stick with hotels, but for anything longer than a week hotels are pointlessly expensive for what you get.

I saw $220/night for that place plus fees on the listing, but the moment I selected any non weekday it jumped to $402/night + fees. Fees which amount to an additional $507 for a 3 night stay ($295 cleaning, $212 for AirBnB).

All in, my stay is $1,900 for 3 night. $633/night. Might not be $1,000 a night, but definitely not as bargain-ish as you make it out to be.

https://imgur.com/3dJOGNn

Yeah, the fixed fees make it less attractive when staying only a few nights (hence my other comment).

I'd challenge you to find anything like that in a hotel property, at pretty much any price.

They may have been better at one point, but at least in my social circle pretty much everybody has given up on AirBnB due to numerous bad experiences and constantly complains about content now being spread across a dozen streaming services.

I feel like the people who complain about Uber/Lyft from a service perspective never used taxis extensively. Living in Chicago (Lakeview) for years while traveling for work made me absolutely hate taxis. When scheduling, they would no-show at 5 in the morning causing missed flights. Rides from the airport would require standing in line many times over an hour, especially on a Thursday night. They all absolutely reeked of body odor. The drivers would consistently scam “card machine broken, cash only” or “I forgot to turn on the meter” and unless you threatened to report them, they would take advantage of passengers. Drivers were sketchy and rarely matched the credentials on the taxi medallion.

I’ve also lived in areas where taxi service was essentially nonexistent. I wonder how many DUIs and related accidents have been prevented by ride share apps.

Traveling abroad in Europe the apps work simply regardless of my command of the local language to explain my destination and keeps the drivers honest so they aren’t taking “the long way”.

How is anyone supporting taxis as superior to this? There was absolutely no accountability.

From an business model perspective, I would wager that eventually you could get this to a point of sustainability that doesn’t require armies of engineers and various support staff, a la Twitter.

Just don’t try to say taxis were better.

Some taxis use apps which give all the same benefits plus any local regulations in place.

Show me one taxi service anywhere in the world that did that before Uber forced them to to compete.

I won't because that is unrelated to what I said

Living in Chicago (Lakeview) for years while traveling for work made me absolutely hate taxis.

Hello from up here in Edgewater.

I realize there are huge problems with the finances and liabilities of Uber…but taxis before ride shares were a pure nightmare, from a UX perspective.

Uber brought us…

* Deterministic pricing (for the most part)

* Flawless ubiquitous credit card transactions

* The ability to point to a random location on a map and just magically have a car take you there

I know Uber’s finances are shit…but you know what? I would gladly pay more, because you get a car right to your door that delivers you to an arbitrary location with nobody extorting you for extra physical cash.

I used taxis in Chicago maybe three times.

But while rideshares can be better for me than listening to some taxi driver go off on some misogynist rant, that doesn't mean that they're better once you start taking into account wage problems, increase in CO2 production, etc.

But seriously, taxis in Chicago can get fucked. They were so terrible.

I don’t buy wage problems because my estimate on Chicago taxis was most medallions were held by investors who were not drivers and most drivers were undocumented with less protection than Uber provides.

I buy the CO2 aspect. Many cases where Uber is now more convenient than public transport vs. El is better than a taxi

Anecdotally, ive personally lived in areas (california central valley, rural new england) where lyft and uber were virtually nonexistent and local taxi companies were the only option. ive had horrible experiences "reserving" rides with uber and lyft only to have nobody show up at the designated time, leading to missed trains. Taxis have always been far more reliable for me in rural areas, provided I call in advance and within their hours of operation. when i'm in cities, I find public transit to be more sensible terms of cost and reliability than any other option. I don't mind paying cash, I prefer it.

I cant help but feel as though a lot of the people defending these 'rideshare' companies on HN are living in coastal city bubbles. It's simply not an option in many places, and the apps will outright lie to you that they're able to get you a ride.

I live in a rural area, where the taxis, Uber, and lyft compete. The taxi companies don't offer calls in advance, or reserved rides, not one or four companies that could cover my area. You would have to hire a limosouine driver. Lyft is by far cheaper on average, but consistently fewer drivers. Hilariously, Uber is the reliable service for reservations.

Agreed. I take taxis now in many places because they're now better than uber, but pre-uber they were not. What I used to like best about taking uber was sticking it to the taxi industry. They were a textbook "disruptor". I'm glad there's a credible threat to taxis that means they had to improve and look over their shoulder. In the markets I travel frequently, uber sucks now though, and I've gone back to taxis, which also suck, just less, and are way better than the pre-uber days.

Taxis in SF were the absolute worst. I haven’t tried them since Uber rolled out and rightfully stole business

I used taxis in LA plenty of times and in general it was nothing like what you're describing.

I only ever had one no show and that was because a lot of us ordered taxis from the same place around the same time so dispatch though it was some sort of prank.

Getting a taxi from LAX was as easy as grabbing my stuff from baggage claim and strolling out the door directly into the first taxi waiting at the curb. Usually there was a person there on the sidewalk directing the taxis too.

When I was new at this, I just gave the driver the address I wanted. One of the first taxi rides I took, the driver handed me a book of paper maps and asked me to find the place for him, lol. After that I learned to say "take me to (address), it's by (street) and (cross street). It's not far from (big street) and (other big street)" Worked 100% of the time.

On arrival I'd pay in my preferred method (cash) and tip the driver knowing he would get the entire tip.

Nowadays, I've had at least 5 lyf/ber cancel on me. Getting one out of SFO involves dragging my bags all the way out to the top floor of the parking structure where I get to wait around for 45 minutes in the rain while other people's rides arrive in random order. The rating system is useless because if I rate anything other than 5 stars it's the same as asking for the driver to be fired. Any tip I leave in the app is getting a sizable chunk shaved off the top by the company. At least my destination is automatically in the driver's GPS. Unless I'm going to Stanford which is notoriously hostile to cars and GPS often directs the driver to the wrong place...

That's not a great argument. They may be different in some ways, but that doesn't mean better.

I recently looked for airbnb in Cardiff for pycon UK. Many of them are more expensive than a hotel, with fewer facilities and less guarantee of service.

Uber has never been better than cabs where I live.

YT may offer more choice than the TV, but there's an awful lot of race to the bottom junk and VPN shilling on there.

It had nothing to do with artificially low prices?

These were all subsidized to be much cheaper or free than competitors for years.

Sure if you ignore second order effects and externalities.

Uber is fantastic, much better than some street taxi you have to find and hail. AirBnB is the only way I can realistically find multi room houses to stay in on vacations, hotels don’t offer that and there aren’t resorts everywhere. Not sure what you’re referring to with the imaginary restaurant and unregulated television.

Our industry rewards grifters and/or rent seekers much more than it does true innovation.

The worthwhile innovation that does happen skirts all the rules and guns for illegal monopoly, wearing it as a badge of honor. Too twisted for my taste.

- Intellecual Property Theft

There, I extended the list with the most recent addition to the pile.

Concert ticket prices in the US just blew my mind. Never noticed that one.

Ooh tell me more about “picture of monkey”

I was looking for a place to invest my savings

Sounds promising

> - Expensive unregulated television!

> - Expensive unregulated scam concert tickets!

What are these two?

Netflix/Paramount/Max/Hulu/etc

They sell a subscription to shows, and then remove or enshittify their service. It's the equivalent of shrinkflation, where you buy 10$ of something, and it's 80% the size of last week.

Ticketmaster, and their new bot storefront.

Imagine if campbells could pull soup out of the cans in your cupboard while talking about "licensing issues"

Hey, it works for Rockstar doing that with every Grand Theft Auto soundtrack.

What are the restaurant, TV and concert stuff ?

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