You can now hail an Uber without the Uber app | Hacker News Reader

You can now hail an Uber without the Uber app

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So… like a cab service?

You have to wait to talk to a human? I was expecting a good AI voice system.

"Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line for the next available agent..."

We are experiencing higher than normal call volume, where normal is 0 calls, so you calling us now is a massive influx.

Except you have to have an account to use Uber, even over the phone.

The article says that you call and then speak to an "agent". I wonder if they mean a human agent, or if it's an AI.

Who will be the first to wrap this in an API using twilio?

Full circle twice.

You need to give your credit card information on the phone? That’s really inconvenient. Might as well call a real taxi…

Why would anyone want to call a "real" taxi without any driver rating system?

Reply to the comment below because I can't post no more:

That "simple stuff" never worked in any EU city I ever visited. It just helped the gangsters keep their business.

The real simple stuff that works is an app with rating system and pre-calculated prices.

Reply to the second comment below:

Well I mostly travel around central and eastern Europe - Germany, Austria, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Estonia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria... - never had a good experience with a "real" taxi before Uber anywhere in these countries. Not even "okay" experience, it was always very bad, barely tolerable.

It’s called a carriage license or similar. Simple stuff, really.

> That "simple stuff" never worked in any EU city I ever visited. It just helped the gangsters keep their business.

Odd, as I've never once had a bad experience with a London black cab.

>>Why would anyone want to call a "real" taxi without any driver rating system?

I don't understand how the rating system helps in any way shape or form though. The worst rides in my life in any taxi, period, were all from 5-star rated Uber drivers. Most recent one in a small English town where the guy was literally doing 60mph on 30mph streets, braking hard and going into corners so the tyres would squeal - I literally had to tell him to slow down and he said "no it's fine don't worry about it". I checked and the guy had 3000 completed rides and something like 4.8/5 rating. I reported him through support but I will never know if anything was done.

>>never had a good experience with a "real" taxi before Uber anywhere in these countries

I'm from Poland and I never had issues with "real" taxis here, in Krakow, Warsaw and other places - you have to watch out for fake taxis which can operate outside of regulations, but the proper licenced taxis are absolutely fine.

Was that before or after Uber completely changed the market?

What was? The anecdote I said? That was a month ago. Or the Polish experience? That was all before Uber even existed here. I used to take taxis a lot in Warsaw in 2010-2013 and don't recall having any issues.

4.8 is not a good Uber rating these days. Giving anything less than 5 stars requires you to justify your rating now. 4.8 means roughly 1 in 5 passengers were annoyed enough to go through this.

And yet he is(or was) still on the road, so I'm not sure how the rating helped. Or maybe more specifically - if you saw a 4.8 rated driver was coming to get you, would you cancel the booking?

I probably wouldn't cancel the booking, but I've come to expect that with a 4.8 driver, there's a pretty good chance that something won't be satisfactory. Uber doesn't kick the driver off until their rating gets below 4.6, but Uber also won't let drivers drive for their premium tiers without at least a 4.85.

As an example, last week I had a 4.8 driver drive to the wrong pickup location, then I called them to explain, they said they were coming, and then they started the ride without me in the car and started driving towards my destination. Naturally I had to fight with Uber to refund the $10 cancellation fee.

The drivers that are reliable and you can count on to not pull stuff like this are all 4.95+.

Well, if that's true then that's insane. Why even have a scoring system out of 5 if all meaningful scoring happens in the last 0.2 of the value.

It's somewhat ironic to place a comment like this on a throwaway account.

The circle is finally complete. Uber went from disrupting the cabbies to becoming Big Boss Cabbie.

Can I fax my order to DoorDash?

Your credit card information could be stolen if the call is mitmed by someone.

How exactly? Does that ever happen to anyone? In UK it's very common to give your card details over the phone(which is stupid, but unfortunately that's how the system works) and I don't think your call being intercepted is much of a concern.

Not sure tho, I don't want to tell someone my credit card info over phone in any case. Someone around you can be listening to you, or even worse, recording you.

Sure - in the UK a lot of companies don't offer any other way to pay them, or the way is a lot less convenient(you can pay with your card over the phone and have the order shipped today, or you can send us a cheque and we'll get to it in the next 3-4 weeks).

Same for any web server unless the app hard-codes a specific certificate. Otherwise any CA can issue a certificate for any domain by default, CT can only catch such a thing after it happens. Don't know if uber.com has CAA records.

Is there a human on the other end of the phone line?

You always have been able to from uber.com

Can't do that from a landline or pay phone.

I have never taken an Uber. What am I missing? It's just that they are cheaper than conventional taxis?

I never had a bad experience with conventional taxis either: I just get in, say address, pay, and get out.

From my experience it's the same like conventional taxi except you don't have to talk to anyone.

Your phone can handle your payment details and the payment itself as well.

The GPS can help you find out where you actually are and feed that to the app if you have a hard time keeping track of that.

Uber isn't replacing street hails. When you call a taxi company there's no certainty if or when they'll actually turn up.

> When you call a taxi company there's no certainty if or when they'll actually turn up.

Ah, that's a good one actually. So, with Uber is there any certainty? Do they give you money back or something if the Uber doesn't appear on the specified time?

It has happened to me that I have waited a bit over the usual time for my taxi, but not very often.

No, but Uber adds a market signal - if there is a shortage of drivers, rates will go up to entice more to get on the road.

It happens with Uber sometimes that your designated driver just dallies some other place until you have to cancel the ride and hail a normal cab - then the canceling charge will be on you. Pretty neat trick, I'd say.

You can trust the price and not get shaken down, I had to take a local small town taxi the other day and they charged me $20 for a very short ride with no meter.

I needed a ride from queens to NJ and many cab companies simply hung up on me.

I dislike uber the company but cabs were worse, for me.

What does "certainty" mean to you?

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=uber+did+not+show+up&ia=web would suggest there are people who ordered an Uber ride that never showed up.

Uber says it's possible for a ride to not show up: https://help.uber.com/riders/article/i-would-like-to-get-a-r...

Uber even says it's possible for someone else to take the trip you requested, without your knowledge. https://help.uber.com/riders/article/i-was-charged-for-a-rid...

For one reason or another a lot of people have become allergic to the "say address" part, i.e. talking with a total stranger and having a financial transaction with said stranger via physical contact (like handing in cash).

To me, Uber is like Starbucks and McDonald’s. Everyone you go there is a better local option, but on the other hand, in a city or country you aren’t familiar with, you can get service at an acceptable standard level.

In some big cities, I find taxis vastly superior. Notably so across Europe. However, I was at an airport in the US the other day, and the Uber pickup area was packed. There was a 30 minute wait. So I went to get a taxi. They called for one, and it came after about 10 minutes since the taxis don’t wait in the taxi area anymore. I had to instruct the driver everything down to which highway to use (something obvious for anyone that drives semi-regularly in my town). When I arrived, I paid the fare, which was more than double what Uber quoted me.

It all felt so easy for the taxi to be competitive. But it’s far too expensive, and the driver was less knowledgeable than an average Uber driver using maps. The ride quality itself was a lot smoother however. For me, they have to get the cost lower than the cost of an Uber with an added surge to be competitive for my choice.

I really like the FreeNow app in Europe. I’d be happy to see something like that in the US.

I am truly in awe of the innovators and thought leaders in Silicon Valley, who saw making as phone call to book a taxi, brought the greatest minds of a generation together and they reimagined it and released to the market book a taxi by phone call.

The innovation is that Uber supports the horseless carriage!

You're obviously being sarcastic. But Uber really is an improvement on pre-Uber traditional taxi services, where you can call and not really be sure if or when a taxi will show up.

Uber was really two innovations: (1) using an app to reserve a taxi and (2) making the process and the product reliable, customer-friendly and consistent.

There were Taxi-apps in use in Germany before Uber became a thing here. What Uber had was infinite pockets and the willingness to simply ignore the general existence of regulations their competitors complied to.

Do those apps pre-date 2009? Otherwise what the parent said still stands: Uber really is an improvement on pre-Uber traditional taxi services.

I first started booking my taxis via website (apps were not really a thing yet) in 2002.

So, just like taxis who for some strange reason never seemed to accept credit cards, or would hold your luggage hostage if you didn't add a tip?

Not taking credit cards was just a thing for most German businesses before the pandemic. Not really specific to taxis.

Not all of HN is German :)

On the other hand, Uber Russia was acquired by Yandex Taxi

I am not being sarcastic - I am genuinely, truly in awe that people actually stand up and say these things with a straight face.

Only word missing from this is “scale”. I was expecting that. But everything else would do.

There’s nobody I and friends have been more consistently scammed by than taxi drivers in foreign countries.

Uber and ilk have dramatically improved trust and safety of vacation travel. That’s big

> Uber really is an improvement on pre-Uber traditional taxi

Not in Denmark. It was only ever cheaper for a while, while the investors sank money into choking out competition, which they failed at.

> using an app to reserve a taxi

Unlike in Germany, Uber actually brought apps to taxi companies in Denmark, before Uber got banned.

> making the process and the product reliable, customer-friendly and consistent

Uber was never more reliable or consistent than traditional taxis in Denmark. More friendly, sure, full-time career taxi drivers are more socially distant.

I once waited for an Uber that was “just around the corner”, except the blip on the screen with a name and a picture was just a visualisation, there was no car. The street it was supposedly stuck in traffic on was empty.

The app was simply lying to me, hoping a car would become available before I tried another taxi service.

Hardly an improvement. Just cheaper for reasons that were not possible long-term or fair to the drivers (not sufficiently factoring in the cost and risk of the car).

> I once waited for an Uber that was “just around the corner”, except the blip on the screen with a name and a picture was just a visualisation, there was no car. The street it was supposedly stuck in traffic on was empty.

Or maybe they identified you as a threat.[0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/technology/uber-greyball-...

Yeah, a threat to their business model.

Alternative link: https://archive.vn/Q3EXM

> At the time, Uber had just started its ride-hailing service in Portland without seeking permission from the city, which later declared the service illegal. To build a case against the company, officers like Mr. England posed as riders, opening the Uber app to hail a car and watching as miniature vehicles on the screen made their way toward the potential fares.

> But unknown to Mr. England and other authorities, some of the digital cars they saw in the app did not represent actual vehicles. And the Uber drivers they were able to hail also quickly canceled. That was because Uber had tagged Mr. England and his colleagues — essentially Greyballing them as city officials — based on data collected from the app and in other ways. The company then served up a fake version of the app, populated with ghost cars, to evade capture.

It does sound like I was "greyballed".

Imagine a real taxi company doing that.

Doesn't seem like a strategy that will keep you popular in town.

In Denmark Uber was cheaper, more reliable and vastly better than taxies until it was banned by the government to protect the taxi cartel. And it was actually profitable for Uber. I don't have to make up an anecdote about poor taxi service.

Cheaper: Yes, because VC. [1] Uber quit Denmark before their prices rose elsewhere.

Profitable: Hard to say! According to their tax statement, they made a whopping $5600 in Denmark in 2021. [2] When Uber drivers, unlike taxi drivers, have to factor in the expense of casually ride-sharing their car, that does count towards Uber's profitability.

Banned by the government to protect the taxi cartels: Not exactly. They changed the taxi law in one way to remove the cartel effect (the rule about how many taxis there could be), and introduced rules that effectively targeted ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft. New taxi companies do exist today because of that: E.g. Drivr, Viggo.

The new taxi law requires taxis to have equipment like meters and seat sensors, and requires drivers to take an additional driving course, pass a health check, have had a driver's license for 3+ years, and speak Danish. So effectively, this targeted Uber and Lyft and other companies with a clear message that there's a lower bound for what's considered a taxi service in Denmark.

Claiming that's a cartel effect is turning a blind eye to a widely held opinion that one disagrees with.

[1]: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-uber-ip...

[2]: https://kobenhavnliv.dk/kobenhavn/tallene-gaar-op-uber-denma...

> But Uber really is an improvement on pre-Uber traditional taxi services, where you can call and not really be sure if or when a taxi will show up.

Not where I live. With a taxi, it was the usual confirmation "The taxi will be at your address in 15 minutes" or so, and it always was there. Once or twice I couldn't find it so I called them back and it turned out the driver was waiting at the other side of the building etc.

With Uber, Bolt, FreeNow and so on... First I wait for anybody to agree to accept the ride, and sometimes nobody does it. Then, a car arrives, with a person from Pakistan or Bangladesh, who sometimes doesn't even speak English. They use Google maps to navigate and if something is broken they are completely lost. I once asked the driver: "I'm waiting for my wife and kids, they will be here in half a minute, OK?" He said, "OK" and drove away.

Also, there were multiple reports of drivers running away after the accident and leaving the car and the victims as they are. The drivers are hired by middlemen owning the cars and exchanging multiple drivers in a car so you can never be sure who is driving. Most often they are not insured, and so on and so forth. Plus a few cases of rape in the last years. So I've been using taxis exclusively recently and only pick up Uber etc. when there is no alternative.

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