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Adventurous_Job_9555 t1_jdpeug3 wrote

Reply to comment by NefariousnessNo484 in Silicon Valley Elites Are Afraid. History Says They Should Be by Mynameis__--__

everywhere i ever went taxi services were overpriced not functional institutions (Taxi drivers themselves complained about it)

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NefariousnessNo484 t1_jdphkku wrote

Lol now Uber and Lyft cost about the same and it's way harder to get a ride than it used to be so I guess tech didn't fix anything at all.

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[deleted] t1_jdpuzoo wrote

[deleted]

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NefariousnessNo484 t1_jdqwxoj wrote

When I go to the airport by my house there are tons of taxis just sitting there. I just get in and they take me to my house. The cost is the same or sometimes less than a rideshare.

If I try to do the same thing with a rideshare, I have to wait for 10-20 minutes for it to show up. The drivers are often inexperienced and don't know the shortcuts to get to my house (the area I live in is mapped inaccurately by Google). A lot of them speak zero English and me giving them directions hasn't helped.

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MightyMoonwalker t1_jdr0dzo wrote

The airport is a pretty small subsegment of national taxi use and this isn't the common urban experience. They might be one place the taxi model worked. For those of us without cars and relying on taxis for normal transportation they were a nightmare.

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NefariousnessNo484 t1_jdr12se wrote

It's pretty much the same deal at any airport I've been to in the past two years. Cabs have been way more efficient for me and sometimes cheaper. The only time I rideshare is when I return from an airport. You can say my experience doesn't matter, but that's a pretty weak argument imo.

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MightyMoonwalker t1_jdr1dca wrote

I'm not saying it doesn't matter. I am saying there are other large markets where the cab solution made our lives a nightmare. You should choose what works best for you and the market can decide where taxis are working great and where they are failing.

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NefariousnessNo484 t1_jdr2fpn wrote

The point is that exactly what you think is happening isn't. The rideshare companies are propped up with investor funds. They were only able to capture the market because of unsustainably low pricing. It is not a fair fight at all.

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MightyMoonwalker t1_jdr913t wrote

I still use them, and they beat both expectations and earnings in Q4. We'll see what the market does, but I don't think Uber is going anywhere. I agree they used low pricing to capture market share and that wasn't a fair fight, but I am still not ever going back to taxis.

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NefariousnessNo484 t1_jdrbtit wrote

Congrats, you bought into their marketing strategy. Remember when they used to argue rideshares would take cars off the road and reduce emissions through carpooling? People don't even remember why it's called ride-sharing in the first place. They basically lied in order to take over an industry using billionaire funds.

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MightyMoonwalker t1_jdrfucb wrote

I like the service for what it is, so I will still use it for what it is. I don't particularly remember or care what their marketing was. I judge it by the value it brings me today.

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Adventurous_Job_9555 t1_jdqav5f wrote

insane mental gymnastiscs to pretend those dont have advantages over taxi, you must be a taxi company owner or something

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mnemonicer22 t1_jdpoykg wrote

Nah, we got a shiny app to harvest all our data out of it.

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altcastle t1_jdqlmyf wrote

Paying ridiculous amounts like 1/4 maybe 1/2 a mil for a medallion, right? Insane.

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BasielBob t1_jdsmpyc wrote

They were overpriced in part because of all the regulations, standards, specialized equipment, medallion taxes, etc.

Uber / Lyft we’re allowed to compete in the same space but without having to follow the same rules and regulations.

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