Now, it's easy enough to pay a small fee to avoid a DUI. My wife works Lyft occasionally for rush-hours, and from her experience quite a lot of people using it to get to/from work can't drive due to a recent DUI.
As far as taking a taxi: Previously you wouldn't ever even consider using a Taxi unless you absolutely had no other option including calling in favors from friends and family or splitting it 4 ways with friends. Only way I'd ever take a Taxi to/from the airport is if it's on the company dime. Lyft/Uber turned a $65-70 taxi ride into $20-30.
We take it occasionally for night-life and have noticed nearly all the drivers that we asked that have over a few months wised up and do Lyft & Uber simultaneously.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/technology/personaltech/wi...
On a sort of related note, why do Uber and Lyft create so much drama? Brazenly sabotaging each other, burning shit, super-conspicuous launch parties, etc. Does this drum up more customers or something? I don't know about you, but a company whose job it is to get me safely from point A to point B in a motor vehicle pulling crap like this doesn't exactly sit well with me.
There are questions of legality here and in other cities (they kind of use a loophole to get around licensing requirements), but at the moment they just provide a better service than any alternatives.
I don't have a car right now. Most people though use it in place of a cab for a ride after drinking.
Seems to be the same case with Airbnb, I don't see any normal people using it, it seems to be rich people who want to make some extra cash off their nice condo/vacation home.
I'm sure people ask this all the time, but why do these companies have such high valuations? ($17 billion for Uber - really now?). I mean they already generate revenue and are profitable, so shouldn't the value of them be proportional to their profit?
Lyft and Uber have taken a huge percentage of the _entire taxi cab and black car service industries_. To the point where they may very possibly entirely replace them.
That is why those companies have large valuations.
The reason people use Lyft and Uber is the same reason people use taxi cabs. They went out drinking and can't drive home, or never planned to drive home.
Its true that people with disposable income are also a large user base.
Also in my area of southern California and many other areas, the buses are horrible and only students, homeless or poor people use them. Almost literally. And their routes are limited. Everything is massively spread out around here.
Personally, I had to sell my car, and I have zero disposable income. I just use Lyft now because it is cheaper than a taxi and arrives much more quickly. I also very rarely go anywhere far. Last two times I went to the store I walked.
Uh, do you even live in the bay. I don't but I know that the BART is pricey, stops running late, and the bay is filled with places you'd never walk at night.