Hacker News Reader

Comment by bdangubic | Hacker News Reader

though the commenter might have been obtuse to say that banned from the duopoly of ride-share services is a life-altering thing to happen is quite mad. I live in a city and have never used a ride-share service. out the pool of another dozen friends/co-workers 10 of them seldom-to-never use it (we are all in 40's / early 50's). so most definitely not "life-altering thing"

View on HN

Have you ever considered that perhaps others conduct themselves differently?

I live in a small city. When I travel, I generally have to be at the airport or train station between 4 and 530 AM. Uber put the taxis out of business, so the choice is Uber, Lyft, wasting a half hour and alot of money parking, or trying to find a black car service.

I was in Rome for business. The choice is Uber or the local cab hailing app, which the cabs don’t always respond to, and the cabbie frequently tries to ripoff a dopey foreigner.

Heh, Rome!! The meter wrote €40, the taxi driver asked for €60. He tried verbal-aggression and threatened to call the police. I took a photo of the meter and asked him to please call the police, I will show them the photo and tell them that he threatened me. He took the €40 and went his merry way.

Once upon a time (around 2005-2006) I had a colleague whose father was a taxi driver. He (the colleague) was openly telling us that every cabbie cheats. Once in a blue moon you find an honest one, or one whose cheating-meter-subsystem is broken.

Cabbies and barmen. My family owned bars, my grand uncle always said he would fire honest bartenders, because there’s no such thing, and he’s too smart to work for him. :)

geeeeez, you guys are making it sound like going to Rome is like going to ____ ( I don’t want to offend any City here… :) ).

I had a great time there, but maybe that’s because I never used a cab.

I used cabs, not any different than using cabs anywhere else.

Oh no, don't get me wrong, it's a magical place and I had a wonderful time there a few times!

Have you ever considered that perhaps others conduct themselves differently?

I have, the commenter I replied to hasn’t :)

I don’t think I was being obtuse. We had ways of getting around before Uber existed. It’s literally just taxis in another format, which we still have.

Like you said I can’t think of a single place we’re not having access to Uber means that you are functionally stuck. I’m sure those locations exist, but they must be quite rare. There are a lot of places with the others that don’t have Uber, however.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com