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Comment by dchuk | Hacker News Reader

"We started by reimagining ridesharing."

I've always viewed Lyft as Uber X with a pink furry mustache. What exactly have they "reinvented" before this announcement that wasn't already "reinvented" by Uber before them?

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Uber started at the top and then did Uber X to go down in pricing.

Lyft started at the bottom and now goes up.

My biggest problem with all of these services is that there aren't enough drivers (at least in Boston), and I can rarely actually find one on any service when I need it. And it seems a large % of the drivers are actually chilling at home, waiting for a ride (which is fine), but sometimes don't "move" on the map for 10-15 minutes from the time they accept the ride. It will appear they are a 5 minute drive away, but that becomes a much longer wait.

I've noticed that too, it's infuriating. And with Uber and cabs, they all mark themselves as having 'arrived' some 2-5 minutes before they pull up - it's like, dude, I can see you on the map as six blocks away, how the hell do you get away with this?

Is there no way to report this sort of behavior? Possibly by refusing to ride with the driver?

I have left feedback on it, refusing to ride would just slow me down even further at that point and isn't worth it to me.

With Uber, marking themselves as "arrived" does nothing but notify the passenger. I asked one driver about it and he says he does that a few blocks away because he doesn't want the text to be delayed.

The actual paid portion of the ride doesn't start until you enter the vehicle and the driver taps the Start Trip button.

You can also verify the entire trip later on your receipt. It shows the entire trip on a map, plus the start and end times, so you can verify that it matches your expectations.

Huh. I find it annoying because I'm usually watching for the car once I get the text and so extra time after being told "I'm here!" feels longer (it's like having a recorded announcement break into the hold music on a phone call), but also I think because I had assumed that they were getting somehow tracked on how long it took them to get to the pickup and they were gaming it by making the signal less useful to me. I know it's not increasing my trip length, thanks!

It's most probably because they have KPIs to fulfil set by Uber and they are gaming the system that way. If I were Uber I would definitely monitor quality of service by measuring the arrival times for each driver.

As a point of comparison, in San Francisco (ground zero for these things), a city where flagging down a cab is very hit-or-miss, they're everywhere -- it works great.

Don't know what you're doing wrong. I live in the south end and use Uber and Lyft (mostly Lyft these days) all the time to get around Boston. Rarely do I wait more than 5 or 6 minutes. Often times it's 2-3 minutes. Both services have been pretty great on average. In Boston, I find Lyft drivers to be nicer (and Lyft marketing less douchey) so I try to use them when the wait times are similar. I'll wait an extra 3 minutes to ride Lyft if I have to but usually I don't have to.

I may be wrong, but Lyft did ridesharing before Uber. Uber X was initially professional drivers with mid-range hybrid cars, while Lyft used the ridesharing model. Then, Uber moved to the ridesharing model for Uber X with relaxed driver and car requirements.

(Someone correct me if I'm wrong.)

Uber went into Lyft's space with Uber X. Lyft is going into Uber's space with Lyft premium. For Lyft users who prefer not using Uber is who its for.

As someone who has used both services (and others like Sidecar) they are all about the same to me. Generally, Lyft seems a little friendlier than Uber. However honestly all are light years ahead of a yellow cab- in which the drivers rarely accept cards (machine broken), refuse to use GPS, and talk on the phone nonstop (despite the laws on that).

What I wonder about Lyft is the extent to which friendliness scales. That it has scaled so far is obviously due to the fact that they can simply project that sense of friendliness and then rely on individual drivers to actually do the work of giving that impression to customers, but what if they want to expand their business into domains where friendliness is unimportant or even a downside (an example might be something like the bike messaging that Uber is getting into in NYC, where prompt service basically requires the service provider to be brusque)? In such a market, the company wouldn't be able to trade on their reputation as the friendly alternative and in fact might be even harmed by the expectation that they would be that. Is friendliness a straightjacket in the making?

1. Friendliness is always important in customer interaction. 2. Chick-fil-A is an example of "friendliness" scaling up to x0,000 employees. 3. No, being nice is not a straightjacket in the making.

Yeah, super friendly - unless you're gay!

The one near me sponsors a pride parade every year, so I guess some things don't scale that well :p

Of course, but I'm not talking about mere interpersonal politeness so much as having friendliness be a central component of your branding. Chick-Fil-A, for all its vaunted good cheer, still has all the trappings of a commercial transaction, whereas Lyft tries to downplay that in favor of appearing as merely a facilitator of intra-community interactions. That part, specifically, is the part that I wonder about.

In my experience the friendliness permeates the entire company. Lyft (as opposed to Uber) has heavily invested in Customer Service that is absolutely top notch. To my knowledge, this is a quality they actively look for in every hire they make regardless of whether that's a driver or a developer.

Aren't there laws against the whole "machine broken" thing?

Yes.

There are plenty of them but it seems all of them are broken -one way or the other.

The machine seems to start working when you tell the guy to mail you an invoice.

I was a longtime Uber user who started using Flywheel a few months ago and haven't switched back. You get the convenience of an app as you would with Lyft/Uber along with the professionalism and expertise of a cab driver. I don't want to have to sit idle in the front seat of a Lyft for two minutes while the driver punches in the address on Google Maps, I want to say "Bush and Sansome" and have the driver take me there the quickest way possible. Also I don't have to feign interest in the driver's backstory and keep up a weak conversation during the entire ride--I just want to sit back, check my FB/Twitter feed, and zone out for a few minutes until I have to be "on" again when I arrive at my destination. If the cab driver sucks, you can just give them a low rating and you'll never get that driver again. I should note that I do not work for Flywheel, just a huge fan who switched from Uber due to some scummy tactics I read about (employees overwhelming competitive apps, etc).

Lyft allows you to input the address yourself right after you book a ride. The driver simply has to click on "Navigate" and he/she gets directed by their default maps application.

And I've never understood why people get so turned off by the driver talking to you. It's not that hard to tell the driver that you have to take care of some work on your phone- I've done this a few times before and the drivers have all been very respectful...

You get the ... professionalism and expertise of a cab driver

Hmmmm, that's usually stated in inverted commas and the precise argument why Uber/Lyft is better.

The difference between Lyft and Uber was once described to me as "Use Lyft if you want to talk to the driver, use Uber if you don't". So yeah, if you value conversation with the driver, you'll probably find Lyft to be the friendlier service. Me? I'd rather not maintain a conversation with the driver.

I've used Uber, Lyft & Summon (in SF). I was a big fan of Uber (UberX), but Summon is much cheaper than UberX or Lyft (I think 15% is the official number).

And yes, I do feel sometimes there are less drivers, but I just open those apps in order : Summon, then UberX, then Lyft.

I also talked a lot to the drivers (of all companies), and it seems like Uber drivers are really treated like shit, which is mainly why I switched to competitors.

Seems like the only difference is they give you chocolate and let you use the driver's cell phone charger.

By controlling for the vehicle, they can guarantee the comfort (leather seats & space for 6) and the amenities (charger, which usually Lyft drivers are always happy to let you use).

It's the other way around. Lyft was first with discount peer-to-peer "ridesharing" (Uber X copied that) and Uber was first with premium black car & SUV service (Lyft's copying that now). They are each copying each other.

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