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Comment by untog | Hacker News Reader

What the post doesn't mention: how many taxis they have signed up. This is important. Their launch of UberTAXI in New York was a failure for many reasons, but one was that no-one could ever get a ride, because it turned out they had barely any cab drivers signed up to use the system.

If they aren't mentioning numbers out of the gate then I'm skeptical. Also amused that this story is currently 3rd from top on the home page, but numerous stories about their utter failure in New York were nowhere to be seen on HN.

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Hey there, we have about 65 taxis in SF already and should be up in the hundreds shortly. It's a completely different regulatory environment than NYC, and (thus far) much friendlier toward innovation. You can still use Square to pay for a cab in SF, but not in NYC.

65? How do you expect this to be any different from NYC if NYC had double? I want to see this grow, don't get me wrong, but 65?

If we can prove to them that they can make more money and have a better experience with Uber, getting several hundred on won't be an issue at all. We've launched taxi in Boston, Chicago, and Toronto with no issues gettings hundreds of drivers.

You can still use Square to pay for a cab in SF, but not in NYC.

Why would I want to? NYC cabs have credit card readers.

Square would have replaced the readers with their own tablet-based terminal: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2411065,00.asp

Yeah I read about that. I don't understand why I (as a passenger) would care, though- it's replacing one credit card terminal with another. Except the new one will have a more responsive touch screen. Yay?

I've had Chicago cabbies sometimes use Square instead of the card reader. They tell me the card reader costs them 5-7% (too many middlemen) while square is 3%ish

I happily pay with Square to give the guy more money for the service. I pay the same, he gets more and Square gets more business. Seems good to me.

> Also amused that this story is currently 3rd from top on the home page, but numerous stories about their utter failure in New York were nowhere to be seen on HN.

At least one hit the #1 spot, if I'm remembering correctly.

Hm, if so, I take back my criticism. But HNSearch isn't returning much:

http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=ube...

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