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Comment by ausjke | Hacker News Reader

how many people use taxi these days? and how often? $17B, it got to be crazy.

Hi - I'm one of the people that uses Uber and loves it. I live in a big city, Chicago, and guessing from your statement you don't live in a taxi city. Let me tell you why I love uber and hate taxis (or why I only take Uber Taxi). 1) I used to travel for work, and for me that meant getting a 5:45am cab ride from downtown Chicago to the airport. Now, I'm sure you're aware that Chicago is freezing during the winter months, so standing out in the snow at 5:45am on a monday is not something I want to do. What were my options before Uber? 1) Wait outside and try to hail a cab. 2) Call dispatch and be told that a cab may or may not be on its way. This is the real pain that Uber solved for me. I cant tell you how many times I called and was told a cab would be there in 5 minutes, then 15 minutes later, no cab had showed up. So now, its 5:55am on a Monday in the cold Chicago winter, I'm stressing about missing my flight, all because a cab couldn't show up when I ordered it. Uber solved this exacty pain point that I felt. On another note of why I hate taxis and only take uber taxi. A few years ago when Chicago was going after the olympics, they required all taxis to accept credit cards. Now, try to pay for a fare in Chicago with a cab, 50% of the time 'The machine is broken', but when you have no cash, it magically starts working again. I get that these guys do not want to pay the 5% charge to process it (another issue is cab companies upcharging to process cc, but not for this discussion). With uber, I never have to worry about the driver not able to make change for me and just expects hes getting a bigger tip, I never have to worry about only having a CC on me and the driver bitching and complaining about accepting it. Uber solved this problem. Now, they haven't just solved my problem, they've also solved their drivers problem. Talk to a cab driver, ask them how they get paid for their credit card receipts. I'll be willing to bet that they have to go to a special office, receipts in hand, wait a few hours in line, all to get paid. That is ridiculous! Uber direct deposits the money in the drivers bank account, no time wasted by waiting in line, no worry about lost receipts. Now for my last point, imagine you left your phone/wallet/camera/foobar in a taxi in Chicago and you paid in cash. Try calling our 311 number and reporting it, you have about as good of a chance of finding it as comcast does at providing great customer support. With uber, you know your driver, you can simply contact uber and or the taxi company to give specifics on what you lost and where you lost it.

tldr: I <3 uber and Uber > taxis

Fellow Chicagoan here. Haven't hailed a taxi in over a year.

Also use Uber in Chicago (and now many other cities during travel, woo!) and I don't really have much else to add.

I can't stress how important the airport thing is. Radio dispatch by cab is the most unreliable horrible mechanism ever. It almost may as well not exist, because a cab might show up in 5 minutes, it might show up in 15, or it might show up never. Impossible to rely on. Due to Uber being reliable I've taken more car rides than usual to O'hare on days when I'm running late, or otherwise don't want to deal with the Blue Line or waiting outside for a cab.

Basically, cab companies did this to themselves by being horrible at customer service and not giving a shit. They are up there with Comcast in the "giving a fuck" department. Ever call to complain that your cab didn't show up? Ha!

And if you think this is great for a well-served city like Chicago, it's utterly game changing for under-served cities like Minneapolis. I now can actually take a ride to the airport instead of driving and spending $250 parking my car for a week. Why? Because I can depend on the Uber showing up when they say it's going to. Cabs, I'd have to give at least a 2 hour buffer in case the first 2 I call never show up.

Basically if this puts the cab companies out of business, it couldn't have happened to better people and I won't shed a single tear. Good riddance.

I feel your pain, but you completely left out the option of the train. I usually use it to get to the airport. It is slower, but it costs a lot less and runs 24 hours a day. If you're lucky, the train will even take you up the escalator.

Hailo also operates in Chicago.

Well, in NYC alone there are 236 MILLION trips per year [1]

Without reading that entire document, lets just say NYC is a $20bn+ market for the taxi industry...

1. http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/2014_taxicab_fact_...

Your market valuation puts the average fare in the region of $100, the linked document (page 10) says "The average yellow taxi fare in 2013 was $13.40" so I'm not so sure the market is $20bn, I'd guesstimate somewhere around $3-5bn for the vehicles they mention in the article.

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