Comment by tempestn

Yes, I'm shocked! Some traditional taxis in my area now have a sticker on the window saying they take credit cards!

This, black car service is not what uber offers. They offer a uber driver with a black car.

Cheap factored in for some but easy of use and reliability were my main reasons for using Lyft/Uber.

Maybe if you lived in a bigger city the taxis were good but I assure you that in Lexington, KY they were terrible. You had to call into a dispatcher, the connection/quality was terrible, they were blunt/rude, and you got a general idea of when someone might show up. I tried once to schedule for 8:45am pick up (I called around 7:30) and someone showed up at 7:45am mad that I wasn't ready. On top of all of that _no one_ took credit card and the drivers were rude and often hard to communicate with.

With Lyft/Uber I could see where my driver was, my destination was already entered, and it was all charged to my card. I cannot stress enough how much better this was and I was happy to see the taxi companies go down in flames.

Uber and Lyft have _many_ problems but they are still leagues ahead of taxis. I recently traveled to Italy and absolutely hated the lack of Uber-like services and the need to use taxis. It felt like going back in time, I was shocked at the state of things there.

Lastly, nothing boils my blood quite like watching the meter all the way to the destination, then the driver pressing some buttons and the total jumping 20-50%. WTH is that? Whatever it is, I hate it.

I don't think "cheap" was the main factor, at least for me and my friends.

Predictable pricing, predictable arrival, automated booking, and an ability to complain to someone was significantly more important.

(From what I've read, this happened naturally in other countries, but in US, the taxi monopoly was so bad, we needed something crazy like Uber)

In 2010 getting any taxi in the us by phone was a crap shoot. Hour long waiting times with the car always being just 10 minutes away. Multiple calls. Unpredictable pricing.

Uber just worked.

People forget just how terrible taxi companies were when they were the monopoly.

A sober, competent driver who has not been on duty more than 8 hours would be a good start.

A “professional driver” does not have the ability to rate me on a scale of one to five.

> So when Vashti found her cabin invaded by a rosy finger of light, she was annoyed, and tried to adjust the blind. But the blind flew up altogether, and she saw through the skylight small pink clouds, swaying against a background of blue, and as the sun crept higher, its radiance entered direct, brimming down the wall, like a golden sea. It rose and fell with the air-ship’s motion, just as waves rise and fall, but it advanced steadily, as a tide advances. Unless she was careful, it would strike her face. A spasm of horror shook her and she rang for the attendant. The attendant too was horrified, but she could do nothing; it was not her place to mend the blind. She could only suggest that the lady should change her cabin, which she accordingly prepared to do. People were almost exactly alike all over the world, but the attendant of the air-ship, perhaps owing to her exceptional duties, had grown a little out of the common. She had often to address passengers with direct speech, and this had given her a certain roughness and originality of manner. When Vashti swerved away from the sunbeams with a cry, she behaved barbarically — she put out her hand to steady her.

> “How dare you!” exclaimed the passenger. “You forget yourself!”

> The woman was confused, and apologized for not having let her fall. People never touched one another. The custom had become obsolete, owing to the Machine

The Machine Stops (1909)

https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~koehl/Teaching/ECS188/PDF_files/...

I don't _want_ to have a random conversation with a person every time I ride a cab. Especially after a long flight and/or early in the morning.

It goes both ways too. Customer service in person has digressed pretty far.

Like every company does with their employees?

After every ride the rider can vote on the driver. At least on Uber the driver gets 'punished' is his rating falls below 4. The driver will loose his rank benefits. As a rider you got to use the start. If it's ok, then 5. If there is something wrong, less than 5. Simple as that. As most people are voting 5 they seem to be over all ok with the overall service.

It's not really a ride share problem. It's simply another crack showing how hard it is to just talk to people these days. There's a dozen other things to address first before I'd try to "make people be social in cars". funding into a variety of public spaces, better public transportation, regulating dating apps, better community outreach for events that already exist. I could go on.

I think you’re kidding, but I’m not sure. Can’t you walk to a park or ride your bike or something for free?

That’s straight up false. I don’t tip and my Uber passenger rating was ~4.95 last I checked.

Don't the drivers only see the tips in aggregate form at the end of the week?

I haven't really thought about whether it's known or unknown. I've assumed it was known, but often I tip cash anyway.

I don’t know if that’s really how it works with Uber, but surely Waymo could charge extra for “priority pickup” if it got popular enough.

They have to rate long before you tip/rate.

> Is it?

Ummm then why on earth would they spend the money to build them if it wasn't?!

> but they certainly have to factor in all the R&D they're spending.

Those are capital expenses.

> Those cars were something like $700k each

Source? Also, those numbers are quoted with including capital expenditures, which will get depreciated over years. Also, to do a like for like comparison you have to include all of the people, processes, and systems in place that support drivers. That cost center at Uber has to be in the millions globally for Uber (and hard to calculate on a per driver basis, but possible if we had internal numbers).

This is true for mature markets but a new technology that a horde of lawyers are salivating over a chance to sue has a significant asymptomatic risk. One accident and the whole business is illegalized.

> If this were broadly true, Waymo would be everywhere.

It's not everywhere because of regulation and Waymo wanting to strategically roll it out carefully to markets. Remember, this is Waymo's first market to offer Waymo through the Uber app. There's a reason Waymo hasn't tested non-human driving in Chicago but it has in Phoenix, SF and Austin (I could give you a hint as to why but I'm sure its obvious).

> Uber is a publicly listed company with public financials already operating globally with profits.

And wants to create even more profit...what's your point? Also it's operating income is a paltry $2B for a company with $41B in revenue. Most of its current net income is from investing activities.

Yeah I'm an ugly middle aged man myself. I'm more worried about the car than the person in it in my case. And I don't trust the tech yet in my area.

Still an easier battle than fighting a millionaire tech company on uncharted legal territory. Most of thr battle will be from my health insurance finding a anyone else to pay in that scenario.

Between modern car safety standards and modern US healthcsre: accountability. The worst case scenario (where I still live) is drastic and I'd rather not add fighting a tech company in court on top of the medical burden, which I'll need to do just to afford the latter.

Would a CCPA delete request handle it? Or are they compelled to keep the video for legal reasons

Yeah, Walgreens (US drugstore chain for those who aren’t familiar) often has their cashiers say “hi, welcome to Walgreens!” when customers come in.

It just doesn’t work. Customers are wearing headphones, or on the phone, or sick with a respiratory infection and wearing a mask and trying not to talk unnecessarily, or don’t speak English very well, or maybe they’re just trying to remember everything they need, and it quickly gets awkward for everyone.

The same store often has the credit card terminal ask customers to donate a dollar to various causes, which I’ve seen completely stump foreign tourists and generally slowing down the line.

I think what you are describing is social anxiety, not just being introverted.

Gotta disagree here. Running a checkout lane isn't exactly rocket science, and as such the vast majority of the experiences I have in staffed checkout lanes are neutral to good.

When using automated checkout on the other hand, if I even so much as move the wrong way, the system stops and makes me wait for a staff member who is busy dealing with 6 other red-flashing checkouts. When they finally make it over to me, I'm forced to sit and watch a video from 3 angles of me not shoplifting. Accidentally scanned some alcohol instead of waiting until the end? Scanning is halted again until they get a chance to make their way over to me. Using my own bags, but guess the wrong number up front and need to add one later? STOP THIEF!

Recently our local Aldi removed all but one staffed register and replaced the rest with automated. This is absolutely baffling to me--the cashiers at Aldi don't make small talk, they're trained for speed! It's fun to watch while I'm bagging up my groceries, because the staffed register is consistently crushing carts at 3x the rate of any of the self checkouts.

Automated checkouts are consistently worse, and it's not even close. I guess the one benefit they have is that they make small talk with the single person managing 14 self checkouts easier--you already have in common your frustration with the self checkout system.

> The issue is that it is FAR easier for me to interact with automation than some completely incompetent service worker

You are comparing good automation with incompetent service worker. It's obvious what the conclusion would be.

What makes you think this? It was flagged by users. No moderators had touched it, or seen it.

I'd say it's the rejection of a tangential political snipe in support of autocratic authoritarianism, in a place where it isn't going to lead to a fleshed-out discussion.

Keep turning the screws on people, and some people will turn to property destruction. The individual acts are wrong and misguided. But the overall dynamic is completely understandable, and ignoring it is as disingenuous as "let them eat cake".