Trends: Uber vs. Lyft | Hacker News Reader

Trends: Uber vs. Lyft

diklein.com

156 pointswillthelaw130 comments

Or, really, he quit using uber.

(TL;DR - they are possibly evil)

If you live in San Francisco, you might consider getting a bike and/or using public transportation instead of ride-sharing services. Either of them are better for the city by reducing congestion and pollution, and biking in particular is surprisingly fast and convenient.

If you are interested in getting introduced to biking, there are a bunch of free classes by the SF Bicycle Coalition that I highly recommend you look into:

https://www.sfbike.org/resources/urban-bicycling-workshops/

For public transportation, here are a couple of "far too specific" guides for different types of public transit:

Light Rail: http://fartoospecific.tumblr.com/post/63733141599/fartoospec...

BART: http://fartoospecific.tumblr.com/post/100628937344/fartoospe...

So I cycle around SF, but am considering stopping. The data varies depending on which source you use, but it seems like cycling is about 3 times less dangerous than motorbiking, and considerably (at least ~5-10x) more dangerous than driving. Most people who've lived in SF have plenty of anecdotal evidence of friends who've been hurt, often seriously, by bike accidents.

I'd love to be proven wrong about this: I love cycling and particularly like getting built-in exercise in my routine. And I'll continue to donate to the SF bicycle coalition, and vote for improving infrastructure to support cyclists. It just seems most rational to stop actually cycling.

I've ridden my bike to and from work in SF nearly every day for the past 4 years and have only once come close to being in an accident with a car.

But every day I see plenty of other cyclists making overly-aggressive moves that put themselves and other people in danger. You may claim that I'm blaming the victim, but from what I've observed many cyclists kind of enjoy a little (in their opinion) justified indignation at the behavior of car drivers. And they'll intentionally put themselves in positions to feel that justified rage.

How many times have you seen a cyclist in the right-hand bike lane try to overtake a car signaling for a right turn while both are approaching an intersection, rather than yielding to the car who will clearly reach the intersection first? And then the cyclist acts surprised and offended when the driver begins to turn into them.

Of course this is a recipe for disaster, and I see it multiple times per week from my position a safe distance back from the turning car, which I can observe and then safely pass on the left.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to be safe on a bike. Just use your head and ride a bit defensively.

The fact that bikes want to be treated as "cars" on the road (as in they want space and respect), but when their light is red all of a sudden they become tiny little passengers that can illegally cross the red light. I'm not talking about the ones that stop and look. I mean the ones that just fly straight through the light because they believe they have a few seconds before the cross traffic comes, which is true about 99% of the time. Then you get the 1% of the time a car decides to jump the light and goes early.

Bikes are also extremely rude to pedestrians. I have never heard drivers yelling at pedestrians when they are crossing a cross-walk. I have however, been exiting a bus after there was an accident ahead and have had a bike barely stop in front of all the exiting passengers and scream, "HEY IM TRYING TO GET TO WORK HERE" as though everybody needs to get out of the way because he is very important. Also seen bikes try to go through when the pedestrians are trying to cross the street. Luckily it is nothing like that idiot that rammed his bike through the pedestrian crosswalk and killed a man just so he wouldn't have to slow down.

Maybe the cyclists (in general) should stop being so aggressive, arrogant, and consider the actual people that have no protection from cyclists. Maybe then there won't be so many bike accidents.

PS. It's a _BAD_ idea to cross your bike in front of a MUNI bus just so you can make it over to the intersection you somehow overbiked. Let the MUNI bus win.

PPS. FFS wear a goddamn helmet.

Maybe you should stop making so many generalizations?

There is the odd total idiot on a bike who blows through stop signs and stop lights without stopping and doesn't have a headlight and is dressed in all black without a helmet. There are a ton of other bicyclists who have flashing headlights, dress in bright yellow jackets, wear helmets and stop at intersections. What do you want the latter to do about the former? Its not like there's a meeting of bicyclists where we all get together and draw lots for who gets to be the idiot this week, and just because I ride my bike to work doesn't imbue me with any magical abilities to police the idiots out there.

I suspect that you're not really looking for any kind of workable solution, though, and you're just butthurt about the one guy who did that one dumb thing to you, though, so please continue to vent uselessly about what "cyclists (in general)" should all do to appease your indignation.

> I have never heard drivers yelling at pedestrians when they are crossing a cross-walk.

That's because they're inside soundproof boxes. They do it too, you just can't hear them. I know because I've done it. Same with motorcyclists and pedestrians yelling at bikers and cars. People get frustrated when they're trying to get someplace and can't, so they vent. This can't come as a surprise.

As a cyclist, driver, and pedestrian in SF this really is a tough city to be in. Drivers frequently stop in bike lanes, run red lights and roll through stop signs. I've also had many near misses in bike to bike collisions from other cyclists who don't think they need to stop ever. When I used to Caltrain, I've seen cars turn right without warning forcing me to a stop as often as I've seen cyclists try to overtake a signaling vehicle. When I jog on the embarcadero, road bikes whiz past in either direction despite the bike lanes right off the sidewalk.

SF seems to be perpetually in a rush...you need to get around defensively and safely no matter how you are getting around,

Ugh, this is so true. As a (grad) student who bikes to campus, I hate dealing with drivers who have been conditioned by the inconsiderate other cyclists. I personally always yield to cars in right turn lanes and that sort of thing, but sometimes they also slow down because they're used to asshole cyclists cutting in front of them, so it just causes confusion and tension from both sides. Well, tension mostly on my side, because a mistake is much more costly to me than to the driver :(. I don't get why other people don't bike more defensively, it's terrifying to me.

I've been going downhill at a reasonable clip and taking the center of the lane (because of speed and the hazards of card doors opening up suddenly) and had cars behind me be so impatient to pass me that they'll forget to check for oncoming traffic and nearly get into head on collisions with other cars. I also started pulling fully into the lane because even though I'm travelling at speed downhill I've had cars pass me, with about an inch to spare when there was oncoming traffic and they were nearly pulling into the other lane -- I've had to take the tactic to force them to choose between flat out murdering me or else getting into a head on collision if there's oncoming traffic. Another time there was construction with cones out and I went inside most of the cones and let cars by, but had to merge into traffic around a cone where the actual construction was happening -- and a car decided they couldn't be slowed down for a second by a bike in front of them and they passed me and ate a traffic cone and dragged it under their car for 2 blocks.

Some people just completely lose it when they have a bike in front of them that is going to slow them down for even a second or two. I don't know if its rage or stupidity, but they get really, really dumb.

I can't wait until manual driving on freeways and in major cities is just banned and everyone has to have their cars on computer control. All the road rage goes away, all the inattention, all the derp would just go away, and traffic would move faster, and all the headgames would be gone -- replace it all with google algorithms that know how to pass a bike safely.

It has been shown that the biggest factor in bike safety is the number of cyclists on the road. The more bikes, the more aware drivers are of our presence. In SF, Critical Mass had (I've learned) a huge impact in breaking ground for bike infrastructure. Currently, the Bay Area Bike Share has become a strong factor. If we stop biking now until it's safer, it might never be so.

I agree: more cyclists is good. But risking my own health and safety to make SF drivers more aware of cyclists just doesn't work for me.

I think this is called a "social trap" by sociologists. I'm not sure there's an easy solution. But for my part if I stop cycling, I'll make sure to up my donations to the bicycle coalition.

I grew up riding my bike in Amsterdam, it was there my main method of transportation, as it is here in SF. I never ever wore a helmet in Amsterdam, but here I do.

Main reason: not my driving capabilities, but car drivers that don't think about cyclists, whereas in Amsterdam they do. Opening their door next to the bike lane? Looking to their right hand side when turning left? Using their turning signal, especially when taking a right turn at a red light?

Second, roads are obviously way more laid out for cars and not for bicycles. Four way stops are a pain. Roads with no designated bike lane means you are passed by cars that actively have to avoid you, while driving 3-4x as fast. Traffic lights leave too little time between one side turning red and the other turning green.

In the Netherlands, if you hit a bicycle with your car you are automatically responsible. That will make you more aware of bikes.

I always compare the advent of bicycles to snowboarders entering the slopes over the last 30 years that were ruled by skiers. Different ways of moving, where the new people are seen as the odd ones. Yes to dare to enter you have to love a bit of adventure and sometimes bend the rules, but it is mostly perception. We just have to get used to each other and work it out

There's also been shown to be an inverse correlation between wearing a helmet and safety. It seems that motorists correlate "having a helmet on" with being safe, and so are more aggressive around those who are wearing.

Where has this been shown? Since I bike daily, I'm really curious about studies about helmet safety.

Probably referring to the study in the uk to examine how overtaking distances of passing vehicles is affected by the attire of the cyclist [1].

There's suggestions that making helmets compulsory reduces cyclists, which in turn makes cycling unsafer.

I cycle in London every day (for the past 10 years) and personally don't wear a helmet (though plenty of my friends do). I tried, but found for me it was a mild occasional obstruction to my peripheral vision - something I value highly on the road.

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/5334208.stm

I want to make a joke about how you all ride on the wrong side of the road, but your points are all too good to snipe at :)

Interesting, but not really definitive. Seems like there's a big factor related to the size of the bike lane as well. There could also be a bias towards male and female cyclists, since this experiment was conducted using a wig to make the rider look female with no helmet on. Would still like to see more.

My current ride gives me a pretty huge bike lane, and so far I've felt better with a helmet on than without.

I live in Seattle, and gave up biking on the streets years ago. Just too dangerous.

I remember a public service commercial on TV in the 60's which would exhort people to drive defensively, even when they were in the right. The tag line was "don't be dead right".

I see more and more cyclists on the road, and too many ride like they're invulnerable if they're in the right. They'll do things like stop in the middle of the road around a blind corner. They'll ride on the stripe that separates the bike lane from the road. They'll force overtaking drivers to move into oncoming traffic to get around them.

I've talked to local bike activists, and their attitude is if they're in the right, it's the car driver's problem. I just don't get it. What good is being in the right if you're dead?

There is no doubt that biking is more dangerous than driving. However, biking is still extremely safe.

And for the safety conscious person, especially for a beginner, I'd suggest only biking routes that you are familiar with and that include safe bike lines. For many people, especially people working in SOMA, this could probably include your daily commute. If you don't believe there are safe options, or you are unfamiliar with the route, then don't bike it and use another transportation option.

I don't want to pretend that biking is safer than it is, but there is a big difference in difficulty between biking on market st at 4:30pm on a weekday vs biking through GGP on a sunday. So I'd say instead of giving up biking entirely, just perhaps phase out a the trips that you are uncomfortable with, or try to find a different route for those.

Also Google's biking directions deserve a shout-out for generally giving directions that are 90% covered in bike lanes. It's rare that I'm able to find a better route than it suggests in SF.

In population wide studies the health benefits of regular cycling vastly outweigh (no pun intended) the increase in accidents/fatalities.

I just started biking to/from caltrain and in the first week, I've already had someone try to steal my bike off the train and have nearly been hit by several cars in completely un-extraordinary circumstances.

I'm sticking with it, but it doesn't paint a great picture for biking over other forms of convenient, readily available transport. Also the initial cost of biking, even when going for a super cheap bike and gear was ~$400, which will only pay for itself after ~6 months assuming I don't need to buy more gear (I already know I will, to deal with rain, and repairs).

My alternative was paying $50 for monthly parking at the caltrain station. My cost estimate includes the price of gas to get to and from the caltrain station.

I was going to say that $400 is going to pay for itself in dramatically less than six months if you're paying City prices for parking. $50/mo for CalTrain is a steal -- if you're parking _in_ SF anywhere near downtown or SOMA / South Park, that's a couple of day's charges, possibly a week's worth if you're walking a few blocks.

I'd factor in a few other points on cycling in that you're getting exercise, replacing at least some of a gym or other cost. And your bike will almost certainly last more than six months. A decent bike will last a lifetime, or at least a good ten years. You'll want to factor in service and parts but if you're spending more than $100-$200/year, you're likely using it for more than just casual commuting. That's a few tanks of gasoline for a car.

You're right. I definitely would have done this even if the cost didn't make too much sense. The exercise is one reason, another is that the caltrain lot fills up before about 7:45 am, so even if I'm catching an 8:15 train, I need to be there early. With a bike, I can ride for 10-15 minutes and get there on time. My bike won't last a year, or a lifetime, it's not decent, I've had to do a bunch of bolt tightening even after a few weeks, but that's OK, I didn't pay a lot.

Bolt-tightening (especially on a recently-purchased bike) is hardly unexpected. On a new bike, there's a lot of general stretching and breaking-in of components over the first few days/weeks of use.

A used $400 bike _should_ last you a long time, if you've selected properly. Though replacing components is fairly typical -- chain and freewheel, cables, tires, wheels. I've gone through a number of other components as well over various bikes under heavy use, though I've still got two frames that I've had for decades.

I bought a new $350 bike so my expectations are low. I'm ok with that. I wasn't sure the bike commute would stick so I didn't want to go all in right away.

Sunk cost, so, well, roll with it. But a used purchase in this case is almost always going to be more appropriate.

There's a serious inflection point at the lower end of the bike market where you get very low-quality kit. I've not bought new for such a long time I'm not sure where it is any more, but ~$400 - $800 is likely around the range for a basic city bike (e.g., "mountain bike" type stance but geared for city streets).

Figure paying half that for a lightly used model, of which there are generally many to choose from for numerous reasons.

City biking does have a bit of a learning curve, and I do highly recommend you look into those classes that I linked to above (or find similar ones in your area).

You will get better with experience though, and the better you get the more you'll be able to understand how to bike defensively and reduce any sort of close calls.

I wish more people would take your advice and learn how to ride defensively. I really feel like most people who get in accidents on their bicycles probably aren't paying attention to what's going on around them.

You're right! I come from a very bike-dense country (The Netherlands, we have more bicycles than inhabitants.) My son is 4 and he rides his bike to school. I'll cycle next to him, but he does know all the rules and basics about defensive riding.

I bicycled in and around NYC last year and it was crazy. Car drivers didn't really pay attention to bikers, but that was actually much less dangerous than I anticipated. The cyclists however were flipping mad! No rules, no courtesy, aggresive riding, running red lights, cutting off cars... Madness! Not all,of them, of course, but considerably more than you would see in, say, Amsterdam.

The bike lanes is NYC were fantastic, though. NYC seems perfect for bike transportation, I never got why you don't see more cyclists. SFO with all those hills (like I said, I'm dutch, no hills here...) and cable cars seems more challenging!

This sounds like victim shaming. Possibly the drivers of the cars are not paying attention, maybe both, but to assume that people are somehow doing something wrong (many may be) just because they are in an accident seems overly presumptuous.

You can advocate for learning more about defensive riding without making it seem like those who are in accidents are just ignorant or unaware.

My first two car accidents were completely unavoidable and unrelated to my awareness. I would have hated to have someone tell me these accidents could have been avoided with further training, knowing nothing else about the accident except that I had one.

edit: I see your other comment in this thread, it has more information, thanks for that, all the same, it definitely seems to ignore a lot of complex factors and use anecdotal evidence (4 years of that, though, is pretty reasonable).

My main gripe with any car/bike interactions are that they are orders of magnitude different. A car slams on its brakes to respond to something in the road, or swerves, and they can do that an order of magnitude faster and more powerful than a person on a bike can. As long as bikers share the road with cars, there will be an imbalance of power which is unavoidable, so they should feel a bit of indignation.

which will only pay for itself after ~6 months

It can also replace a gym membership.

Why do we dislike Uber? Lets go through the links.

1) Stuff about the CEO's personal life.

2) CEO wants to automate business processes. Those of us in tech would never consider replacing humans with machines, right?

3) Trying to compete for workers. (Didn't we hate Apple/Google for agreeing not to do this?)

4) We love Peter Thiel and he hates it.

5-7) A few Uber drivers are crazy (Uber is helping the cops). Note that if most of these incidents happened in a taxi, the cops would have little info unless the passenger remembered a license #.

8) Standard french advertising in France.

9) Standard PR.

10) Exec discusses hiring journalists to do journalism to journalists. You know, digging up stuff about their personal life, kind of like (1) on this list.

Are these the real justifications? Or are we simply engaging in internet mobbing because we get to feel self righteous, and the CEO is kind of a jerk?

Disclaimer: I've used Uber maybe 3-4x in my life and was happy every time. Lyft rejected my CC. I use autowale.in whenever I can't flag one off the street.

I feel like you're playing the devil's advocate here. Despite the recent witch-hunt surrounded the company lately (which I won't try to defend), you can't deny the fact that they've engaged in some fairly unscrupulous business tactics in order to 1) acquire drivers from competing ride-sharing services, and 2) significantly drop wages (primarily due to competition in cities with multiple ride-sharing services) at the cost of workers pulling fairly inhuman hours.

The latter point is not just Uber's problem, but the ride-sharing industry's as a whole. I point it out mainly to argue that as the leader in the industry, Uber has at least some obligation to treat the pawns on the board a little better.

To succinctly answer your question: there are real justifications, and it's a combination of Uber's business tactics, and the way they're treating their human capital.

I'm simply pointing out more or less nonsensical arguments and mob behavior. The Uber CEO may be an objectivist jerk, but that doesn't mean everything he does is evil.

2) significantly drop wages (primarily due to competition in cities with multiple ride-sharing services)...

Companies competing for workers drops wages? That's an interesting economic theory. I guess the Uber people who were hiring lyft cars in order to try and recruit the driver were saying "come join Uber, we'll pay you less?"

I'm confused here.

>> significantly drop wages (primarily due to competition in cities with multiple ride-sharing services) > Companies competing for workers drops wages?

I think that moab's point was that competition between ride-sharing companies lowers prices, and one of the places those price reductions come from is a reduction in worker's wages.

Yup - thanks for phrasing that better :)

Price reduction has played out its tune in tech before - at cost pricing was how Amazon won (and continues to have a chokehold over e-commerce). At Amazon, however, employees from the warehouse stockers to their receptionists are under contract and regulation, and get guaranteed wages for reasonable hours. Compare this to Uber where there's basically a massive disparity between the number of effective workers (drivers + employees) and the number of actual 'employees'. As a bystander, I'm worried about the humans involved in this bet between Uber/Lyft and co, and hope they start finding ways to either pull drivers into the company itself, or offer better guarantees or securities for the drivers. The first company to do this will probably get a ton of good press, and will also up the ante on consumer perception of ridesharing in general (it's great, but feels 'evil').

I certainly agree with your sentiments, but I thought that Amazon had also had problems, with contractors in its fulfilment centres being denied guaranteed hours, though perhaps I misunderstood the issue. There have certainly been problems like that in the UK, with "zero hours" contracts, where people are offered positions without guaranteed hours, and it is currently a fairly hot political topic without an obvious resolution, beyond banning them, though that wouldn't necessarily be helpful.

Personally, I think the fundamental issues in this area lie not with the flexibility that these types of arrangements offer, but rather in the asymmetry in negotiations between employers and employees. The labour market as a whole is completely distorted by poverty, for want of a better word, to the point where any notions of free exchange are, frankly, ridiculous.

If the collective "we" can implement a way of preserving the ability of people to sell their labour without being placed into unreasonable positions to do so, then we could probably achieve quite dramatic improvements in overall welfare. Until then, as you say, the costs of the system will almost always fall on a group of real people whose difficulties, beyond the occasional editorial piece, are largely ignored (or attributed to something else, such as laziness).

"Companies competing for workers drops wages? That's an interesting economic theory."

That's basic monopoly/monopsony pricing theory you'll find in an introductory microeconomics class. Nothing interesting about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_profit

Your HN posts are hardly of outstanding quality at the best of times, but you're not even trying here.

Why do I dislike Uber?

1) They readily treat their drivers like second-class citizens (I was one of them at one point in time)

2) They use "Special Promotion" as a euphemism for "this wage cut is coming in 2 months, you better start shifting your spending habits"

3) In aggregate, their public persona is one of douche-baggery

> They readily treat their drivers like second-class citizens

Sure, but that is pretty much par for the course for any low-education job anywhere in the world. Can't blame Uber for being like the rest.

Driving for Uber also requires a significant capital investment and risk assumption, so wages could be expected to be significantly higher than the typical low-education job.

Are people buying cars just to be an Uber driver? Or are people seeing an opportunity to make a little money using the car they already own? If people are buying cars just to be a driver, then I would say that is their own fault for making a bad investment.

Whether or not they owned the car previously or not, they are still investing that capital into the business. If they're driving full time with Uber they'll have to replace that car in a couple of years or so, instead of the ~15 years or so of life you can expect out of a modern car.

> 1) Stuff about the CEO's personal life.

You need to get over this. It is absolutely ABSOLUTELY valid to boycott, speak negatively about, and/or hate a company for the personal life and actions of any CEO, board member, or public facing employee of any company!

Re: 4, you forgot to mention that Peter Thiel is an investor in their competitor, Lyft. He's not exactly being altruistic.

There is plenty of very real, legitimate criticism.

- http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2014/07/28...

- http://www.cnet.com/news/uber-disputes-kidnapping-claims/

looking at your comment history you seem emotionally highly invested into a company, which according to your claim, you have used 3x4 times in your life.

I have no idea why you believe I'm "emotionally highly invested" in Uber - could you explain?

I don't like mob behavior and intellectual dishonesty. There has been a lot of it on HN lately which drives me to comment (also, due to an injury, I have way too much time on my hands).

Thanks for asking.

I basically refer to your comments in which you quite vehemently defend the companies extremely shady tactics. As for mob behavior, which apparently disturbs you so much. This may, or may not be true. personally, I don't buy it.

Let's look at your original comment to which I replied and let's try to rephrase the points you make.

  1) Stuff about the CEO's personal life.

Misogynistic comments (Boob-er) to a magazine has nothing whatsoever to do with the CEOs private life. The statements where not made at a private function, but to a mass market publication.

  2) CEO wants to automate business processes. Those of us in tech would never consider replacing humans with machines, right?

The point here is not that the CEO wants to automate business processes, but the disdain and disregard that he shows for his employees. Your phrasing of this point is, at best, highly disingenuous.

  3) Trying to compete for workers. (Didn't we hate Apple/Google for agreeing not to do this?)

The point, as you are probably very well aware, is not competing for workers, but the methods used to do that. The tech company violation of anti trust laws, while also unethical, has pretty much nothing to do with Ubers shady tactics in this context.

  5-7) A few Uber drivers are crazy (Uber is helping the cops). Note that if most of these incidents happened in a taxi, the cops would have little info unless the passenger remembered a license #.

Uber helps the cops? I'm sure they do if the cops have a warrant, since, in this case, there's not much choice anyway. for the rest we only have the word of Ubers PR Departments word on this Interestingly that's always the same standard broken record: "We're looking into it, actively support the investigation and we have deactivated the partner from the Uber platform"

The problem is that in my opinion they come over as a bunch of liars in their PR, even in the not very trustworthy field of public relations.

Hiring drivers, whom's background check must have failed, if done seriously, or smearing the victims of those incidents (again, in a partially very misogynist fashion) doesn't help much either.

  8) Standard french advertising in France.

I get it you where never in France. Hiring hookers as driver is not a French standard advertising practice.

  9) Standard PR.

maybe, but again with extremely shady tactics applied (and not very well executed, either)

  10) Exec discusses hiring journalists to do journalism to journalists. You know, digging up stuff about their personal life, kind of like (1) on this list.

Sounds more like a Scientology black ops towards critics, than a standard journalistic tactic. What you glossed over is their abuse of private data if it suits their interest. Which, again in my opinion, is actually worse than the idea to smear a journalist and go after her family.

Put this reply of yours together with your comment history and applying Occam's razor you come over as an Uber shill and not as a person who hates mob mentality and has too much time on his had.

But that's just my opinion.

  8) Standard french advertising in France.

Guy doesn't live in France or is highly delusional.

Only got through the first two links before I stopped reading.

First link: says that Uber CEO Travis comes off as a bit of an ass in interviews, and therefore Uber should hire a PR person. So you're switching to Lyft because they have better PR people?

Second link: an article with a headline that is misleading and would have a good run at being ruled libelous. TLDR: Travis said "I love [self driving cars] all day long. The Uber experience is expensive because it’s not just the car but the other dude in the car. When there’s no other dude in the car, the cost [of taking an Uber] gets cheaper than owning a vehicle." You have a problem with a business identifying a way to eliminate one of their biggest expenses? Humans driving cars around is a complete waste of time; anyone saying otherwise is a luddite (the best kind of luddite: one with a twitter account).

Biggest expenses AND biggest liabilities.

If I could take a self driving Uber/Lyft/taxi I would do it in a heart beat, my experiences with Uber/Lyft have been much better than a run of the mill taxi which is why I tend to use them over taxis whenever possible. That being said, a self driving car with no personal motives, road rage, cell phone, etc. sounds like an even better experience.

They seem to be in chronological order, from oldest to newest. Obviously this is a "straw that broke the camel's back" situation, not one where each individual thing is reason enough to stop using Uber.

The idea of any one company owning such a large proportion of global transport infrastructure seems scary to me. And the fact that Uber's leadership seems to have a very poor ethical compass makes the path we're headed down seem pretty ominous.

I've been trying to think of better, less centralized solutions, and they're not too hard to imagine. An open transportation marketplace, populated by independent vendors, isn't so far-fetched. In fact it'd probably look quite similar to Craigslist, except with better handling of user identities and reputations, and a much better mobile-focused user experienced. Anyone could list a delivery service in one of a number of different categories, with custom price rules, and categories might include taxi/human transport services, food delivery, package delivery, etc. A review system, payment integration and mapping would come built into both the provider and user's mobile apps, but insurance etc. would be up to the individual vendors. Fees for listing services would be nominal, and almost all the revenue would go directly to the vendors themselves.

The trouble with this kind of service is that it'd end up being quite a bit less safe and quite a bit more messy than interacting with a single company like Uber. But the lower transaction costs should make services significantly cheaper, and power would be much less centralized.

I think the solution is taxi cabs. If you want to disrupt taxis, petition your city/state politicians.

And this, folks, is why taxi regulation is a thing. Of course, there is crime and corruption and they have their own variety of scams[1]. But what you won't see is a sweeping sense of impunity because if you go out of bounds to this degree so blatantly (and at regular intervals, it seems), a rather large hammer will come down on you and your union. Taxi drivers in general are well aware of this.

But a bunch of broexecs, who answer to no one, setting the tone for everyone else is unlikely to feel any need to change any time soon.

[1] http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/tlc-22-000-cab-drivers-p...

So taxi regulations are in place to ensure faceless execs don't make mean remarks? Uber might not be startup of the month right now, but given the choice of excellent service for customers at the cost of a couple assholes in a boardroom somewhere versus crappy service while the execs try to please everyone, I'd choose excellent service every time. Ignoring the fact that, of course, taxi regulations don't stop people from being assholes; after all it has never stopped drivers from not picking up minorities.

No, taxi regulations are in place so this kind of nonsense gets your license revoked: http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/26/6067663/this-is-ubers-play...

I think regulations have more to do with the drivers not taking you on 20 mile detours, trying to sexually assault or yelling at a cancer patient (all Uber stories).

So you have 3 stories about Uber.

How about 1733 complaints against taxi drivers in 1 year in San Francisco alone? https://www.baycitizen.org/news/transportation/cab-complaint...

"San Francisco taxi drivers routinely flout the law by refusing rides, declining to take credit cards, charging unauthorized fees, speeding, smoking, and talking and texting on cellphones while driving, according to a year’s worth of passenger complaints reviewed by The Bay Citizen."

How many of those drivers lost their license, do you think?

I was giving examples, it certainly isn't an exhaustive list. How many complaints against Uber in a year? We don't know because there isn't any regulator oversight besides trusting Uber.

To be fair, there would be countless equivalent stories from the taxi side of the fence. The ability to rate drivers to encourage better service strikes me as one thing Uber gets right.

There might be bad attitudes filtering down from the top and from handlers/motivators, but that's less about regulations and more about just being nice people. Taxi drivers could often do with the same improvement.

And all taxi stories. Seriously, you think they're immune to stuff like that?

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/taxi-driver-se...

http://www.ksbw.com/news/central-california/santa-cruz/santa...

Rude taxi drivers and huge detours to charge you more money are par for the course when it comes to taxis. Regulation doesn't fix this. I'm not sure what does, really.

I never said they were immune... I was merely pointing out that there is a lack of regulation. There is no taxi commission to go to if Uber screws you.

I think what'll come out of this entire experiment is something very, very similar to the current taxi industry - simply with better apps and dependability, and I will not complain at all. A little part of me suspects that this will not be Uber (at least in America, where the regulatory blockade feels really impenetrable as an engineer), although at this point it's anyones game.

My honest hope when I first heard of Uber was that it would give a huge wakeup call to the industry. Let's face it, America is a service industry and many of its services suck. The attitude is marginal at best, horrifying at worst. I hoped this level of customer scrutiny on performance would bring it up to the same level as in Japan.

I'm still hoping someone will make it happen. Or rather, perhaps an entire army of services will make it happen as we've seen, a de facto monopoly, yields terrible results.

Your point reminds me of that recent New Yorker article on learning [1]. In particular, the author points out how particularly niche industries (competitive sports, theatre, orchestras) have seen significant improvements in median performance over the past few decades. However, this has been limited mostly to fields where there are a small number of potential openings and a pool of candidates significantly larger than the number of openings. One of the big questions I think about sometimes is how America can push its citizens and employees to be a little more disciplined/dedicated (ahh not exactly clear how to phrase that..) purely through economic manipulation (and not cultural impetus a la Japan).

[1] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/10/better-time

That was a fantastic article! Thanks for linking that. It certainly gave me a lot of food for thought.

Über's ran into legal problems in Germany, but a city like Berlin has a very same regulatory system. Taxi licenses are available at a reasonable processing charge, drivers have to be licensed for driving skill and commercially insured, and the majority of drivers are single or a few car small businesses. Also, the cars are plentiful, inexpensive, clean and modern (there's some variery, but a random hail will usually net a Mercedes with leather seats). It's mostly what Uber says they want, except that if they play by the sensible rules here then they don't have any competitive edge.

There are multiple apps like mytaxi which add a layer of usability, estimated pick up time and cost, pay from app, interactive maps, and driver rating.

Why haven't taxi companies done this themselves to see off the upstart competitors?

Probably because taxi companies are a dime-a-dozen across various cities and states, and the capital required for an engineering investment to pull something like this off just isn't there at any given shop. It's a technology problem that the existing industry faces, and because the existing competition is essentially a coalition of independent companies, they can't band together to build something like this without a joined effort (nigh impossible).

I was recently in Pittsburgh and saw a clunky touch-screen app stuck to the back of the passenger seat that sounded just like Uber, so it's clear that someone out there is working on building Uber-like dependability for your taxi. But I also remember talking to the cab-driver on that trip, and having him tell me that their 'dispatch' is still one person sitting in an office somewhere manually dialing and dispatching cabs to received calls. The status quo in the industry is just so ancient in so many ways. Here's to hoping they can start moving and respond though.

Probably because it would be expensive and risky to roll out something across a large, already existing network, but at the same time running an innovative "side project" may well be met by anxiety (and corresponding resistance) by those who aren't able to participate. It seems to me that both of these responses are fairly economically rational, given the corresponding risks.

Regulation could be useful here, if properly designed, by helping to alleviate the fears of those in the existing industry who are most likely to be directly affected by these useful innovations. Unfortunately, the allergic political response of some sectors of society to anything interventionist makes coming to reasonable arrangements quite difficult, so we just end up with something that isn't really that great for anyone.

The Taxi drivers in Seattle protested by blocking downtown traffic in their cabs on multiple occasions when the Uber/Lyft vote was going on. Uber and Lyft are now capped at 150 cars each.

>There are too many instances of immaturity, deception, corruption, and negligence.

As an uber and lyft driver (I prefer lyft) who has created a runway to launch a startup nonprofit by driving for both, lyft has had its share of immaturity and negligence, you just haven't heard about it as much. But only 2/4 is an improvement. What worries me is that in many cases lyft has looked at uber and done exactly what they do. In most cases so far it's been merely superficial, but I worry it is only time until it becomes more than that.

A common mantra in the dual driver community is "uber is evil; lyft is incompetent"

If you are willing to share more, I would love to hear more about your experiences with each. The Uber news definitely drowns out the Lyft news, and it would be great to get a balanced view of each.

This article lacks any kind of substance: it is a short summary of a couple of links about Über with an accompanying graph of the blogger's Über/Lyft usage.

The author has stated that he has reached his breaking point, and others should consider whether they have too.

Disruptive companies have this narrative of being some sort of underdog fighting against the corrupt elite of a broken industry. If I'm going to agree with letting them take their huge margins (partly due to illegally not implementing regulations/collecting the proper taxes), they can at least pretend not to treat people as shit. Not like they need to penny-pinch anyways.

At the end of the day, we always seem to end up becoming greedy exploiters of some underclass.

Uber breaks the law, everybody knows about it and yet no one goes to jail or get sued.

How does that happen? How does Uber avoids any consequences for their flagrantly illegal (according to you) behavior?

Do they have magic "get out of jail" card?

Did they manage to buy police, district attorneys, judges, the whole enchilada?

Is it time to turn to street to overthrow our government, which, at least according to you, is incapable of performing it's function of preserving law and order in the face of those blatant criminals from Uber.

There's not much content, no. But there is something there: a brief story about how someone lost faith in a product/service. I like that instead of waxing lyrical about why they deleted the app, they point us to references instead. It's good enough for me.

Meh, the article is a collection brief on pretty much everything that's been posted on HN. You're right though, it could have been summarized and sorted out better. Nobody is going to click and read every single article.

Yep. Just what I thought.

I also deleted the app earlier today. Even mentioning threatening journalists is incredibly ridiculous. I'm happy to see Lyft getting bigger in my city, and have had great experiences with them.

I wish I could delete the US Government for this same reason. :)

But seriously, I would love it if Lyft came to Philly...I think they're waiting to see what happens with UberX around here. I know this probably isn't going to be a popular opinion around HN, but should Uber succeed at circumventing the law in Philadelphia, Lyft and Sidecar will surely follow. Prior to UberX, other companies like Sidecar attempted to set up shop and got shot down by the state. Perhaps that's one good thing that came out of all this mess, since Uber isn't afraid to step on toes to get places, they've caused one hell of a discussion in Philadelphia and have forced the cab companies to really step up their game, providing better services, cleaner vehicles and easier dispatching. It used to be so difficult to get a cab, nowadays I can't even imagine walking anywhere just because I think maybe cabs will be out there...

This is why no one will beat Uber. Its competitors aren't willing or aren't capable of winning the fight themselves. If Uber dies the ridesharing industry dies with it.

I've only done Lyft and Uber a few times in LA and I'm almost inclined to say that those who drive for Lyft and Uber are eerily projecting the company they're working for. Lyft the company is far from being saintly, but the drivers I've encountered have been much more mature than the Uber drivers I've had (I once got a guy who insinuated that he drives under the influence). They have been a kind of odd experience. I am curious how many new drivers are following the politics.

I really haven't kept up with this at all (I saw the articles, but didn't read), but I'm wondering why saying to journalists (and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken) "if you try dig up dirty laundry on us as an attempt to discredit us, we'll do the same to you" is unfair? Isn't this just a "reap what you sou" type scenario?

I like Lyft, but the app usability could seriously use some work.

This is a company that pushed subprime loans on its drivers then substracts the debt from their income. That's called indentured servitude. http://valleywag.gawker.com/uber-and-its-shady-partners-are-...

My primary form of transportation is a bike, but my ride-sharing trends are pretty similar to David's. I've been using Lyft far more than Uber lately even though I view them as completely interchangeable services and I'm not known for having strong brand loyalty. In SF, Lyft and Uber are comparable on both price and speed, so it's an easy decision to use one service over the other, even if you only have a slight preference. For me the shift hasn't happened out of outrage at Uber, but because I like the Lyft experience so much more. Lyft drivers are overwhelmingly friendly and Lyft Line tends to attract similarly friendly people. I've had some great conversations while sharing rides on Lyft Line where I actually didn't want the ride to end so soon. I've swapped contact info with some cute girls, met a potential hire, and landed a couple new customers all while sharing rides on Lyft.

I like that Lyft has a reputation for taking care of their drivers. In the words of one driver I rode with, "there are no drivers protesting outside the Lyft office". Instead, their drivers speak highly of the company. As a company, they seem like they are starting to find their stride. Their mission from the beginning was to get people to shares rides and fill up all those single-passenger cars you see everywhere. They're making good progress on that mission today and cutting down on traffic is something I care about as well. Uber has a ride-sharing option too, but they don't seem to be nearly as motivated by that purpose. I'm not sure what Uber's mission is actually.

It's interesting how taxi brokers are also like other fads and people will align to them according to their own values. Since before Uber there are many taxi companies with their own Uber-like service and taxi brokers similar to Uber. I know of people who switched company or broker based on statements the owner of the one company made on radio about cyclists. When Uber is new in town it is a 'cool' thing to do, but once they are not so new people find reasons to change. This makes for an interesting and dynamic market. I think companies like Uber hope to dominate the market and keep doing better at it through economies of scale, but passenger personal emotive preferences will probably always leave room for alternatives.

One of the things I've always hated about Uber is that they are in expert in euphemisms for wage cuts to consumers.

"February is a slow month! We're gonna make this deal sweet for you by lowering prices 20%!"

"March Madness, 20% off all rides!"

"Summer Special, 20% off all rides!"

"Summer Special is here to stay! 20% off all rides is permanent!"

Now, lets not kid ourselves here. Uber is always going to get their cut. If you talk to any Uber driver (I was one of them at one point in time), they'll tell you their hourly wage has dropped from $30/hr to about $18/hr now. Still not bad, but now factor in the longer hours, the maintenance fees, the city fines...not so much a good deal anymore for the other side.

> One of the things I've always hated about Uber is that they are in expert in euphemisms for wage cuts to consumers.

Oh please. Your average Lyft/Uber consumer has no clue about and no interest in what the labor-vs-capital cost breakdown is of ANY product they buy. It's really stretching the facts beyond all comprehension to say that calling it a price cut is a "euphemism": the people they're talking to with those messages only interact with the price and it's a price cut. No euphemisms involved.

Complaints about whether the wages for their drivers are too low are completely fair game, but intellectual dishonesty and nonsense about how they use "euphemisms" to hide wage cuts is just Grade-A bullshit.

Uber will lose a few principled customers when, for example, a tech blogger blows something an executive said way out of proportion for their own financial gain. However, the market as a whole simply doesn't care about an executive that vents at a party, or that they engage in anti-competitive behavior, or that the CEO is kind of a jerk.

People care that their ride shows up on time and gets them there safely. For the most part with Uber, that happens. Like it or not, Uber has attained critical mass and is here to stay.

Uber won't be using driverless cars. They'd have to buy and maintain them. That would kill their "lightweight" business model.

Their "car financing" deal is awful for buyers. See "http://valleywag.gawker.com/uber-and-its-shady-partners-are-...

I was expecting a more analytical analysis or a personal reason on why the OP decided to quit Uber.I'm not undermining the articles in the press, but those could happen to anyone. On keeping with the quality of HN I think we need to have a more deeper understanding of how companies should function.

Uber solves my problem and I think that's good. if Lyft ever expand to Beijing I might want to try it.

In China Uber faces equally fierce competition, but they are doing well and expanding. (They are No.3 in China I guess)

It's always nice to see more players get into this space.

I stopped using Uber about six months ago. Lyft is both cheaper and more fun. Most of drivers I rode with were not full time driver. For me it's always fun to meet new people who are doing all sort of different things in their life.

Lyft sounds like it's more for extraverts--to me, the idea of sitting in the front seat, fist-bumping the driver, and riding around in a car with a stupid pink mustache on it sounds horrifying in much the same way that going on a cruise ship or getting caught in a cheesy tourist trap sounds horrifying. I think it's great that there are different services for different customers though.

> Lyft sounds like it's more for extraverts--to me, the idea of sitting in the front seat, fist-bumping the driver, and riding around in a car with a stupid pink mustache on it sounds horrifying in much the same way that going on a cruise ship or getting caught in a cheesy tourist trap sounds horrifying.

I've taken both Uber and Lyft dozens of times each over the last couple of years, and I really don't understand the sharp distinction that people seem to draw between their model of service. I get that their _marketing_ might differ (apparently Lyft was marketed as the smiley friendly Uber originally), but my experience has been literally identical: I sit in the seat I want to sit (I've never even thought about it..) and if I feel talkative, I talk to the driver and he/she always tends to talk back. If I don't feel talkative, Uber and Lyft drivers alike will leave me alone.

They are 100% interchangeable services: just remember that when you get a ride with either, you're consuming the actual service, not the advertising.

As long as the stupid pink mustache is optional then maybe I'll give it a try.

I was just in SF on business and had never used Uber or Lyft before. Obviously, voting with my dollars, I used Lyft and it was great. Lyft line was fast, cheap and got me where I needed to go.

Regarding its CEO: "When I tease him about his skyrocketing desirability, he deflects with a wisecrack about women on demand: “Yeah, we call that Boob-er.”"

What a big big douche.

If (keyword if) the CEO is as much of a douchebag as the media makes him out to be, he likely won't continue to be CEO for much longer.

I see. So you check the CEO of all your apps before using them? You are obviously swayed left and right by media.

Why do you trust your media sources so much?

Last time I tried Lyft it wouldn't let me login without a Facebook account. Has that been fixed?

You can now do it via email only. If you are often in heavily crowded areas (like bars around 2am), I strongly recommend uploading a picture so the driver can recognize you in the masses.

I can also get you a referral code :) pm me.

Never used UBER. But from what i heard they don't seem friendly people

Just an assortment of links and rant. Nothing substantial in the article.

It's a summary of why they feels they're done with Uber, drawing attention to publicised incidents. What substance did you expect, exactly?

Did David quit using Facebook too?

This is silly. Make decisions based on actual experiences rather than hearsay in media.

It is honestly appalling that you are attributing thus decisions to some sort of higher moral ground. If you are an american, that country wages war and kills at will. IPhone are made at foxconn, most products are made in China who gives a shit about our planet. I could go on. Did you quit all these already?

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