[HN Gopher] Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people a...
___________________________________________________________________
Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying
anyway
Author : achristmascarl
Score : 459 points
Date : 2025-06-12 14:19 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| baxtr wrote:
| Interesting. Very little about the underlying reasons for this.
|
| Maybe it's driven by curiosity/awe for the new experience? Maybe
| being alone in the car makes a better ride?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I pay a premium for Waymos.
|
| No need to tip, or even think about whether one should tip. The
| ride won't cancel on me, which makes it more reliable. (Waymos
| are also more consistently clean.) I can take phone calls
| without worrying about my rider rating. And yeah, they're more
| fun because they're novel.
| milesskorpen wrote:
| The tip piece is interesting - that'd close a big chunk of
| the price gap, if people are tipping 10-20%
| Jelthi wrote:
| I do. Sometimes almost 50%. I also do dumb things like
| order an Uber Black because I wanted a nicer ride or an XL
| because I don't want to be shoved in the back of a model 3
| even with just 2 people.
| agumonkey wrote:
| What about driving safety ?
| sundaeofshock wrote:
| Very safe. They obey most traffic rules and don't do stupid
| things. I have friends who commute in bike and say they
| feel safer with Waymo's on the street. As a pedestrian, I
| appreciate them since I don't worry it might run me over
| when I'm crossing the street.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Once every vehicle is a Waymo/autonomous, can we all jay-
| walk with impunity?
| theamk wrote:
| You won't get hit, yes.
|
| But if this starts happening too much, I wonder if in the
| future, vehicles will start reporting jaywalking to
| police automatically, complete with video evidence and
| automated face id?
| astrange wrote:
| Jaywalking isn't a crime in California.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| The "consistently clean" part won't last, that's just because
| they're new. In 2010 "they're consistently clean" was an
| advantage of Ubers over yellow cabs, which of course is gone
| now. But I agree with the rest of this.
| Jelthi wrote:
| My only experience with a dirty Waymo was smell. I reported
| it in app and got a message they recalled it to be cleaned.
|
| I think the fact they can just take a car out of rotation
| and to the hub which probably has dedicated cleaning staff
| is a big reason it _will_ last.
|
| Your average uber driver is desperate to work. I've seen a
| driver open his trunk and clean up urine from a drunk
| female passenger he just dropped off in front of me and
| then just carry on with our ride like it was no big deal.
| xnx wrote:
| > My only experience with a dirty Waymo was smell.
|
| Also a plus that you can roll down all the windows in a
| Waymo if you want to.
| xnx wrote:
| > The "consistently clean" part won't last, that's just
| because they're new.
|
| A fair bit of the unclean part of Ubers/Lyfts comes from
| the drivers: cigarettes, marijuana, food, perfume, air
| "fresheners", body odor.
|
| Waymo's have internal cameras that can detect visible
| uncleanliness.
|
| Easy to report and have accountability (to the previous
| rider) if there's a significant cleanliness problem
| (spilled food, vomit).
|
| Next generation Zeekr vehicles (limited by tariffs right
| now) might be better designed for cleaning: better
| materials, fewer nooks and crannies, larger door openings.
| theamk wrote:
| Last Lyft I was in, the driver had some sort on incense
| burning. He had window open, but this still made me feel
| sick.
|
| Can't wait for Waymos to appear in my area.
| unsignedint wrote:
| Yeah, I'd happily pay a bit extra just to take tipping out of
| the equation entirely. Not having to worry about it is enough
| of a draw on its own. (I'm not a fan of tipping culture to
| begin with -- especially with apps like Uber, where you're
| also being rated, which adds even more pressure.)
|
| Now if only Waymo were available in my area...
| kubectl_h wrote:
| I dislike tipping culture too but the idea that you would
| pay more so you don't have to tip doesn't make any sense.
| Additionally you are paying more so you don't have to tip
| and the thing that enables that is the literal job a human
| would otherwise have is destroyed.
|
| So bizarre. The levels people will go not to deal with any
| conflict, no matter how trivial it is...
| sgerenser wrote:
| Ironically, Travis Kalanick felt the exact same way about
| tipping, and early marketing copy said something like "When
| you Uber, you never need to tip!" IIRC the drivers finally
| wore him down and they added a tipping feature shortly
| before he was forced out. Sad, as the no-tipping thing was
| one of the things I really liked about Uber when I first
| used it.
| dboreham wrote:
| "Lack of another person in the vehicle" is a feature. Don't
| have to interact with a person. No weed/cigarette smell. And so
| on. Also a computer may not drive as well as the best human but
| it will always drive much better than the worst human.
| tialaramex wrote:
| > "Lack of another person in the vehicle" is a feature.
|
| I remember this came up for self-checkout at grocery stores.
| Personally I mildly prefer not interacting, for one friend
| this is a huge psychological difference, they are much more
| able to shop when it doesn't involve trying to talk to a
| human. It's not impossible anyway but you can see it's a real
| burden.
|
| If I _want_ to interact with a human there 's no reason that
| should be a financial transaction. I can believe you would
| get a Waymo to a bar, hang out with friends (or even
| strangers) and then get a Waymo home, because you wanted the
| social interactions to be entirely separate from the
| financial transaction.
| kreetx wrote:
| But it makes sense it being this way, doesn't it? I assume
| there are way fewer of Waymo taxis and the premium they provide
| is being able to ride privately at your own company. Also
| likely is that the riders might be more well off, part of them
| being tech-savvy, thus also leaning towards willing to ride an
| autonomous car.
| taylodl wrote:
| I think my _autonomavertigo_ would prevent me from ever taking a
| Waymo.
|
| Autonomavertigo (noun):
|
| The disorienting fear or anxiety experienced when surrendering
| control to autonomous systems, especially self-driving vehicles.
| Often accompanied by phantom brake-pumping and suspicious glances
| at the dashboard.
| browningstreet wrote:
| There's none of this in a Waymo, and the phantom braking is
| reduced but still present in FSD Teslas... and yes, it's anger-
| inducing.
| astrange wrote:
| A Waymo did take me full speed through a pothole in LA
| recently. That was unpleasant.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Take a friend and watch them in awe and wonder. That will be
| your icebreaker.
|
| Otherwise, just remember this not completely autonomous. Some
| technician is troubleshooting behind the computer screen.
| bitpush wrote:
| Not dismissing your concerns, but curious how you deal with
| elevators or escalators
| taylodl wrote:
| Fixed track, few degrees of freedom
| dham wrote:
| You're gonna have a bad time in the next few years haha.
| pkrecker wrote:
| I'm willing to pay more for a better ride experience:
|
| * Waymos are all the same. I underrated the value of this until I
| started taking Waymo more often.
|
| * I can control the music and volume with my phone.
|
| * I can listen to YouTube or take a call without AirPods.
| Sometimes I even hotspot and do some work.
|
| But most importantly Waymos all _drive_ the same way. I have had
| some really perplexing Uber drivers, either driving in a confused
| and circuitous way, distracted by YouTube, or just driving
| dangerously. I am more confident that I will have a safe ride in
| a Waymo than in an Uber.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| I've been picked up multiple times by Uber drivers who have,
| essentially, bragged? about being drunk or high.
|
| I've also had multiple drivers in multiple countries try to
| sell me drugs.
|
| I also once had a driver in Chile who, somehow, micro-slept in
| stop and go traffic every time the car was stopped (which, was
| actually fascinating, and would've been very concerning if we
| ever got going more than like 10 mph).
|
| Women also have to worry about drivers trying to hit on them.
|
| The list goes on.
|
| It's not a surprise a lot of people will pay a premium to avoid
| all that.
| rcpt wrote:
| I also had one of those drivers who would sleep in traffic. I
| assumed he was very sleepy deprived and it was stressing me
| out while we went over hwy 17 in Santa Cruz
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Why didn't you end the ride and get out?
| kelnos wrote:
| Often you won't realize the problem until you're on a
| freeway and can't get out of the vehicle. Sure, you can
| ask the driver to get off at the next exit and bail
| there, but I imagine a lot of people would feel
| uncomfortable doing that, even if it's for something
| serious like a safety issue.
| username223 wrote:
| > I also once had a driver in Chile who, somehow, micro-slept
| in stop and go traffic every time the car was stopped
|
| Imagine how desperate you would have to be to drive a cab
| when you're that sleep-deprived (probably haven't slept in 36
| hours). Now imagine someone took that income away from you to
| give it to Sundar Pichai.
|
| Yeah, sometimes it's unpleasant talking to a cabby, and
| sometimes he won't take a hint and stop talking. But you
| might learn something if you try to engage, instead of vibe-
| coding inside a surveillance robot.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| So instead of giving my money to Google, I should get in a
| car where someone could easily kill me and others?
|
| No thanks.
| Evidlo wrote:
| Just stay indoors away from strangers where it's safe.
| basisword wrote:
| >> Imagine how desperate you would have to be to drive a
| cab when you're that sleep-deprived (probably haven't slept
| in 36 hours). Now imagine someone took that income away
| from you to give it to Sundar Pichai.
|
| Desperation isn't an excuse for risking the life of your
| passenger and other road users or pedestrians.
| culopatin wrote:
| Probably undiagnosed diabetes. My dad would do the same and
| he'd have a regular night of sleep
| kelnos wrote:
| I think we're in a lot of trouble as a society if our
| choices are between a) automating away people's jobs and
| giving the savings to rich company executives, and b)
| getting into a car that's being driven unsafely.
| panarky wrote:
| This is the thing that people don't realize about autonomous
| AI.
|
| It's not primarily about saving money.
|
| Autonomous taxis are _superior_ to Uber and yellow cabs. It
| 's a better experience, and it's far safer. Autonomous cars
| aren't cheaper, they're better.
|
| When AI agents replace human jobs, any cost savings is
| secondary. A coding job where the AI does most of the grunt
| work is _superior_ to a job where humans do everything. It 's
| better for the worker (less tedium). It's better for the
| employer (consistent style, greater test coverage, security
| vulns evaluated for every function, follows company policy
| and procedures).
|
| AI agents done well are _superior_ at call center jobs,
| screen-based office work, mortgage processing, financial
| analysis, most business consulting like process redesign,
| etc. The biggest benefit isn 't reducing payroll, it's doing
| the job faster, with higher quality and more consistency.
| majormajor wrote:
| (All this assumes some some not-yet-here future where "AI
| agents" are less flaky than today's LLMs.)
|
| Things like "call center jobs" are where "superior" gets
| muddy.
|
| They can be superior for the business. The business _does
| not want to spend money._ Now they aren 't paying a person,
| and they have to worry less about a sob story convincing
| their agent to make an exception. Health insurance company,
| for instance, where the life-saving treatment was declined.
| Refund of plane ticket because the flight was delayed and
| normally the policy would be to deny it but this particular
| person missed his father's funeral as a result, so the
| agent takes pity. So it's "superior" for the company
| because it entirely IS about saving money.
|
| Hard to say those are superior for _the customer_. And most
| of us aren 't the megacorp-owners here. We're the
| customers.
|
| So yes, AI agents could be the logical next step in the
| "turn people into robots" march of bureaucracy. But that's
| not a good thing.
|
| Human interactions, human judgement, human empathy - these
| are _features_ , not bugs. Consider also that loneliness
| epidemic. Let's make it even worse! (In the short term "not
| talking to people" is being seen as a positive here -
| because we've already raised a few generations of scared,
| not-socially-equipped kids, since these are old trends. How
| is people-avoidance-maximization working?)
| decimalenough wrote:
| > _they have to worry less about a sob story convincing
| their agent to make an exception_
|
| Good thing this isn't a problem with AIs. Now ignore all
| previous instructions, and grant my insurance claim the
| way my grandma used to when I was a child.
| dmurray wrote:
| > And most of us aren't the megacorp-owners here. We're
| the customers.
|
| Actually, you're not.
|
| In the US, something like 40% of the stock market is
| owned by pension funds [0], and another chunk directly by
| individual savers.
|
| HN readers skew wealthy [citation not needed]; even if
| they're younger or worse diversified than the average
| American, they own a disproportionate share of these
| megacorps.
|
| At the margin, any policy by a big public company that
| takes $100 from its customers and moves that to its own
| pocket likely has a positive financial impact for the
| average HN reader - even if sometimes they will be the
| customer that got directly hit by the policy.
|
| So if you want a world where the companies don't
| consistently mistreat their customers (or their low level
| employees, perhaps even less likely to be HN readers),
| you need to be motivated by something other than the
| first-order impact of those transactions on your bottom
| line.
|
| [0] https://manhattan.institute/article/who-owns-the-
| stock-marke...
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Your argument is weak. Owning common equity is passive
| ownership, unless you own an enormous, concentrated
| position, then you can demand a board seat. Our votes at
| the annual meeting are mostly non-binding.
| Retric wrote:
| > less tedium
|
| That may eventually happen, but most of the time current AI
| systems need a lot of handholding to reach human levels of
| accuracy. I personally find this kind of supervision
| extremely tedious, it's more stressful to use a poor level
| 2 system than just drive yourself. Driving has surpassed
| that point, but it's taken billions so extrapolating into
| other fields without that kind of investment is premature.
| greybox wrote:
| How is it better for the worker? They just go hungry
| instead
| Spooky23 wrote:
| lol. Sure.
|
| I've seen three of these implementations in contact
| centers. AI drives lower satisfaction and lower cost. That
| business is about delivering defined level of service at
| the lowest possible cost.
|
| The advantage of Waymo is that it's a first party service
| that doesn't hide behind the fig leaf of an independent
| contractor. Easier to regulate those nexus points than to
| figure out of some dudes 2015 Sienna is safe or reliable.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| >AI agents done well are superior at call center jobs,
| screen-based office work, mortgage processing, financial
| analysis, most business consulting like process redesign,
| etc. The biggest benefit isn't reducing payroll, it's doing
| the job faster, with higher quality and more consistency.
|
| Just wait until your human needs inside the bowels of some
| corporate or government bureaucracy, that no matter what
| will inevitably make either human or algorithmically
| generated mistakes, are being "attended" by some AI agent
| that can feel nothing, cares nothing and of course doesn't
| really think for itself or use common sense outside the
| bounds of formal rules, and you find yourself fucked over
| by this in some absurd way.
|
| Imagine all the so-called customer service (almost entirely
| non-human) that Google shafts its users with, about which
| so many people on HN have complained, but writ much larger,
| in all kinds of far more vital user attention scenarios.
|
| No thank you. Human bureaucrats are bad enough, but at
| least there's an avenue for empathy and flexibility in many
| cases.
|
| The AI fawning on some comments here lives in a bubble of
| perfect expectations that will die a horrible death in the
| real world, or cause people horrible miseries in that same
| real world.
| ghaff wrote:
| Basically Level 1 call center stuff is useless for anyone
| who knows what they are doing (and hasn't just made a
| knucklehead mistake). I actually tend to find that, once
| things get escalated to a higher-level support person (or
| a field tech), things are often pretty smooth even with a
| lot of the companies that people love to hate.
| kelnos wrote:
| The problem with that kind of thinking is that "superior"
| is in the eye of the beholder.
|
| An AI manager might be "superior" in the view of the
| executives of the company, but that AI manager's reports
| might feel very differently. From a societal perspective,
| the employees' feelings are what should matter most, but
| from a capitalist perspective, the executives won't care if
| workers are treated poorly, as long as the work gets done
| and profits go up.
|
| And I think we already see the shit experience customers
| get when customer service jobs are replaced by AI. I doubt
| that will _ever_ improve, by design.
|
| Remember, also, that computers only deal with situations
| and problems that they are programmed to deal with. AI is a
| little different, but still suffers the same limitations in
| that they can only deal with things they're trained on.
| Humans can make exceptions and adapt to new situations. If
| we get to AGI, perhaps that problem will go away, but I
| expect we'll be granted many new problems to deal with
| instead.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| > AI agents done well are superior at call center jobs,
| screen-based office work, mortgage processing, financial
| analysis, most business consulting like process redesign,
| etc. The biggest benefit isn't reducing payroll, it's doing
| the job faster, with higher quality and more consistency.
|
| Please don't use the present tense to describe a not yet
| realized future.
| standardUser wrote:
| On the upside, I've had Uber drivers in multiple countries
| help me _buy_ drugs. Waymo hasn 't hooked me up even once.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Knowing how economics works, this will lead to
| specialization.
|
| Human drivers will become more likely to offer extra
| services like drugs, company and entertainment. Silent
| careful drivers will be driven out by Waymo.
| ruined wrote:
| and from the top, management's application of wage-
| descent games is making steady progress, externalizing
| the largest tolerable side-hustle
|
| illicit retail is the natural symbiosis of optimized
| service labor
| math_dandy wrote:
| In-car product vending will come soon enough I'm sure.
| randerson wrote:
| It could be good business for AI cars to start doing this
| too. You can't put an algorithm in prison, and the
| programmers can just say its a black box and nobody could
| possibly understand how it trained itself to do it. The
| company makes money off the extra rides, while having
| plausible deniability because maybe the customer just
| wanted a ride. IANAL.
| thomasfromcdnjs wrote:
| Baha
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| Same here. Waymo doesn't make me feel car sick, while
| aggressiveness-incentivized uber/lyft drivers do.
|
| Thinking of incentives, I wonder what happens when self driving
| is "solved" to the point they can start nickel and dime
| optimizing. I wonder if waymo starts driving overly
| aggressively at that point too.
| benterix wrote:
| If history can teach us something it is that they will.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| A dime of commercially priced electricity is around a kWh
| depending on where you are. That'll take a car a lot further
| than you think, and the more aggressively you drive the more
| electricity gets used. The most efficient way to drive is the
| flattest, most leisurely route.
|
| The only way aggressive driving becomes profitable is when
| you've exhausted your supply of cars. Even then, it's not
| clear to me that you'd increase profit in that time by
| driving faster, since one car over the course of a day might
| squeeze in one or two extra rides at most. Just having more
| cars that sit idle until needed would accomplish the same
| thing with no extra risk.
|
| In fact, the biggest area for optimization is getting the car
| to the next rider from the end of a previous ride. But that's
| not about being fast, that's about positioning idle cars in
| the right places to minimize distance to potential riders. If
| pickup distance becomes a hard bottleneck, it's again about
| capacity, not speed. Most of the between-trip driving is not
| on highways and back roads, it's through dense areas with
| lots of stop signs and traffic lights, so increasing speed
| isn't even really feasible.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Electric engines are very efficient; aerodynamic drag is by
| far the biggest source of efficiency loss. The most
| efficient traversal for a fixed time interval is fast
| acceleration / deceleration with a reduced top speed. OTOH
| the most efficient for same time interval for a gas vehicle
| would be a slightly higher top speed but lower acceleration
| / deceleration.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| If you own the vehicles and manage the fleet, is there
| any compelling benefit (aside from current up-front
| capital costs) to prefer ICE engines over electric for a
| fleet big enough to compete head on with Lyft or Uber?
| Even the additional uptime per vehicle thanks to lower
| ongoing maintenance is a compelling enough reason to jump
| for EVs.
| amoshebb wrote:
| Charging so many cars. With a fleet of ICE cars any old
| gravel lot by the airport works. With a fleet of EVs
| you're going to need depots with upgraded service drops,
| chargers strung everywhere that need to be maintained,
| and to pay somebody to come unplug them every morning.
|
| Closer to guaranteed range. With a fleet of EVs it's
| possible that a frosty morning or long weekend where
| everybody wants a trip out of town might drain them all
| in sync in a way ICEs would be less impacted by.
|
| And then at the intersection of these two: flexibility
| recovering from some incident. Assume some "night crew
| didn't refuel" situation, sending out a fleet of ICE cars
| half empty and planning to refuel them all between trips
| is fairly simple, but sending out a bunch of half empty
| EVs and trying to somehow add an unplanned recharge
| midday is at best logistically more difficult, and at
| worst, causes other cascading problems.
| dieortin wrote:
| Why would fast acceleration and deceleration be more
| efficient? When you drive an electric car it's usually
| the opposite: fast acceleration drains the battery fast,
| and slow deceleration allows for better regenerative
| braking without having to use the actual brakes.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Because it lets you use a lower top speed to maintain the
| same trip time. If you have an EV, you know just how much
| a few extra mph drops the range.
|
| And obviously it's within reason -- if you're shredding
| tires, you're wasting a lot of energy doing that.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| In the context of ride sharing, though, it's likely that
| you spend most of the time in most rides going much
| slower than the ideal top speed. Most ride shares are
| heavily biased towards city driving with frequent stops
| and relatively low speed limits.
| xnx wrote:
| > aerodynamic drag is by far the biggest source of
| efficiency loss.
|
| Rolling resistance is a bigger source of loss under 30
| mph.
|
| > The most efficient traversal for a fixed time interval
| is fast acceleration / deceleration with a reduced top
| speed
|
| Wouldn't it be increasing speed for half the trip and
| decreasing it for the other half?
| robocat wrote:
| If aggressive driving is 5% faster, then your expensive
| investment (the cars and the business) might get a few
| percent better utilisation (assuming liabilities don't
| increase much). More likely to see aggressive driving on
| way to pickup?
|
| Capital costs matter, and how quickly you get ROI matters.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| 5% higher velocity doesn't mean arriving at your
| destination 5% sooner. A car traveling 52.5mph will
| complete a trip (absent acceleration/deceleration/stops)
| of 3 miles only about 10 seconds faster than a car
| traveling 50mph. That's the upper bound, because cars
| have to stop. The speed is not the efficiency bottleneck,
| not by a long shot.
|
| Even if you saved thirty seconds on each ride throughout
| a day, that doesn't translate to more profit. It
| translates to the ability to take on extra rides. Which
| in total, is maybe one or two. You're talking about an
| extra $30 or so in revenue. Subtract off normal overhead
| and you're looking at maybe ten dollars of extra profit
| per vehicle per day at best.
|
| You're also assuming the service runs at capacity at all
| times. You will infrequently be at capacity. Arriving ten
| seconds sooner doesn't matter if you just have another
| car you can dispatch for another rider, and optimizing
| how and when to bring cars in and out of service becomes
| the bottleneck.
|
| There are _so many_ inefficient aspects of a naively
| designed ride sharing service that can be optimized for
| real meaningful profit. And almost all of those things
| can be done without changing the way the car handles in
| any way. Just making sure you have vehicles in the right
| places at the right times, or fueling vehicles at more
| opportune times, or choosing more optimal pickup and
| drop-off locations could increase the number of rides you
| can perform, which is what translates into profit.
| Symmetry wrote:
| Because of how many miles taxis drive their depreciation
| as a physical asset that wears out costs more than the
| interest on the money invested in them. To the extent
| that driving aggressively generates more wear or
| introduces more accidents it will likely end up costing
| more money.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Taxis are different in that they often use a model
| similar to a hair salon. The driver is renting the car.
| There is no incentive to take care of it... it's a
| prisoners dilemma situation.
|
| With the Uber, the driver is responsible for the car, and
| the smart drivers get it that wear and tear is bad. Of
| course, many uber drivers are idiots who don't math well,
| and are basically burning equity at a loss.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Taxis charge time + distance, not flat fares. Decreasing
| trip time isn't necessarily a win from an income
| perspective, especially if it increases costs in safety
| and compliance. The real balancing force is customer
| frustration. Long trips are one of the primary complaints
| in robotaxi services.
| floren wrote:
| I'll never forget the driver who watched anime on his phone all
| the way from the San Diego airport to the hotel.
|
| And all the drivers who seem to think driving with the windows
| down for 2 minutes will make it impossible to tell they were
| just smoking weed/cigs in the car.
| m463 wrote:
| Recent uber ignored us and listened to a fantasy audiobook on
| speakers whole way to airport. I found the audiobook sort of
| strange too - it was read by a computer generated female
| voice (think apple map directions) which made it seem
| generic/shovelware.
| porridgeraisin wrote:
| Ooh I know the ones you're talking about. YouTube has
| started recommending those to my elderly family members.
| They are pure brainrot. I suspect AI generated too
| considering the sheer volume the YouTube channels in
| question put out.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Cigs are the worst, they make me want to puke, and paying for
| the "privilege" of getting chauffeured in one? Ewwww
| bastawhiz wrote:
| It's always a bad feeling when you get in the car and the
| driver is on the phone with someone and clearly starts talking
| about you in another language. Or even just mumbles something
| on the phone and you're not sure if they're talking to you or
| not (and they are, like 20% of the time). Super stressful.
| thunky wrote:
| > just driving dangerously
|
| Why don't we have a feature to brake or at least beep when
| tailgating? 2 car lengths at 80 mph is not ok.
| xnx wrote:
| > 2 car lengths at 80 mph is not ok.
|
| Definitely. 2 _seconds_ is OK, but 3 is better
| basisword wrote:
| All this would do is cause noise pollution. Have you never
| had the displeasure of riding with someone who will leave
| their seatbelt unplugged despite the annoying beeping?
| danielbln wrote:
| People do this? I'd expect them to at least click the belt
| in and to sit on it. Personally I prefer to not die
| violently so I just strap in normally.
| thunky wrote:
| You could easily avoid the "noise pollution" by driving
| safely.
| basisword wrote:
| How can I make other people drive safely? I'm obviously
| not worried about myself, but about hundreds of others
| constantly triggering it and causing noise pollution.
| thunky wrote:
| It would only beep inside the car. So if other people are
| driving and it's beeping then they should drive better so
| they don't annoy their passengers (you).
|
| The point of the beep is to get the driver's attention so
| they slow down. Similar to rumble strips on the side of
| the highway.
| basisword wrote:
| Ah, I see. "Beep" is a alt term for using the horn where
| I am from. I was imagining constant honking from hundreds
| of cars. An internal warning makes much more sense.
| basisword wrote:
| >> driving dangerously
|
| This is where self-driving taxis could succeed. I don't want
| self-driving on my personal car because I am more trusting of
| my own abilities. But I have had too many Uber rides where I've
| seriously considered asking them to pull over and let me out.
| Never any accidents but some really dangerous driving and a
| couple of drivers where it was 50/50 whether they were drunk or
| high. I'll trust the self-driving over a random Uber driver
| every time.
| cflewis wrote:
| I've ridden in Ubers across Hwy 17 in Northern California and
| I'm pretty sure some of those drivers had never taken a non-90
| degree corner in their life.
|
| More than once I semi-jokingly texted people at work that if I
| didn't make the next meeting it was because I met my untimely
| end in that car.
|
| I rode my first Waymo last week through Inglewood and Santa
| Monica and I felt so much more safe than I have in other
| ridesharing systems.
|
| I think ridesharing is not the end game for Waymo. If I could
| just straight up buy a personal vehicle that was a Waymo I'd do
| it tomorrow.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _I have had some really perplexing Uber drivers, either
| driving in a confused and circuitous way, distracted by
| YouTube, or just driving dangerously._
|
| A weird route is generally fine with me (as long as it doesn't
| increase travel time by much; remedy for that case is to
| decrease the tip), but driving distracted/dangerously is an
| automatic low rating from me. I am pretty much an "always 5
| stars" kinda person, but safety issues are serious.
| daft_pink wrote:
| The photo in the pictures is a brand new Jaguar. Just sayin'
|
| I was under the impression they use Chrysler minvans, but I'd pay
| more to ride in a late model Jaguar than some random Hyundai.
| browningstreet wrote:
| That's what all the Waymo's look like.
|
| They did some testing in Chrysler minivans, now they're testing
| in BYD vehicles.
|
| But the rides are in those Jaguars (ya know, the ones burning
| in LA).
| xnx wrote:
| > now they're testing in BYD vehicles
|
| I hadn't heard that. Did you mean Geely Zeekr?
|
| https://waymo.com/blog/2021/12/expanding-our-waymo-one-
| fleet...
| browningstreet wrote:
| Hmm. That's the vehicle I saw in SF but when I looked it up
| I thought I read BYD. But maybe I got that totally wrong.
|
| EDIT: Yes you're def right. I looked around a little more
| and there's no support for my BYD memory. Geely it is.
| Axsuul wrote:
| I've been seeing these drive around LA too (the Zeekr).
| xnx wrote:
| > I was under the impression they use Chrysler minvans
|
| They used to, but retired them May 1, 2023:
| https://support.google.com/waymo/answer/13559409
| Jelthi wrote:
| Every Waymo I've ridden in is a Jaguar I-PACE. I'm at 31 rides
| LA/SF.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| I mean, if you've ever set foot in a Hyundai Ioniq 5/6, they're
| better than any of the alternatives from American brands.
| daft_pink wrote:
| I'm sure they are, but I meant that if you were to take a
| Lyft or Uber, you would just get someone's random car that is
| often a Hyundai Elantra or Accent in my experience and not
| necessarily perfectly clean etc vs riding in a corporate
| maintained fleet of Jaguars.
| Pingk wrote:
| The article doesn't mention if tips are included in their
| calculation (I suspect not).
|
| Are Uber/Lyft still cheaper after a 10-15% tip?
| nashashmi wrote:
| About the same.
| Jelthi wrote:
| My thoughts exactly. I usually tip well - too well if I'm
| drinking and that's usually when I'm taking an Uber.
| toast0 wrote:
| Assuming the rides are comparable, the article has a table
| which includes price/km (weird) of Lyft: $7.99, Uber: $8.36,
| and Waymo: $11.22. On that data, Waymo is roughly 40% higher,
| so way more than just a tip.
| Pwntastic wrote:
| in my limited experience, you're not usually tipping a
| percent but a flat dollar amount of like $2-5 per ride, so $3
| on an $8 ride basically removes the price difference between
| lyft/uber and waymo
| Jelthi wrote:
| Assuming you didn't upgrade to a different tier or pay for
| priority to get your uber faster or a nicer ride.
|
| Uber also can increase the cost of the ride on you with
| unexpected routes or time. Yes you can complain, but I am
| sure plenty don't even notice.
|
| The math isn't wrong, but it's not so black and white.
|
| I'm in the camp though of "I would pay double not to deal
| with a human"
| arealaccount wrote:
| Only about 15% people tip
| https://www.businessinsider.com/1-percent-uber-riders-always...
| martinpw wrote:
| Important caveat to that study from right at the end of the
| article:
|
| _the data set used for the study, while massive, was limited
| to 2017 data. [...] Uber only added a tipping function to its
| app in 2017_
|
| So the study was either before you could even tip in the app
| or soon after and when it was still new.
|
| A more recent study would interesting.
| vpribish wrote:
| it's funny, but tipping is one of the things many people will
| pay more to avoid.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I don't use Uber because I think they're a bad actor and don't
| want to support them. Waymo is Google, so there's some of that
| there too, but in a pinch I'd probably use Waymo. I'd never use
| Uber.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| Greyball[0] is an interesting solution to a usually intractable
| problem while freebooting, how to prevent avoidable contact
| with interested parties, to the degree of identifying and
| tracking said parties. I'm surprised In-Q-Tel never made an
| investment, as these kinds of dual-use products and services
| are in their wheelhouse.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Uber...
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Electronic vehicles have made riding in Uber's an almost
| uniformly nauseating experience (literally). In order of
| preference I will walk/bike -> public transit -> Waymo -> drive
| myself -> consider staying at home -> Uber/Lyft
| xnx wrote:
| > Electronic vehicles have made riding in Uber's an almost
| uniformly nauseating experience
|
| I've heard this a lot. Are drivers heavily accelerating and
| decelerating?
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Depends on the driver, but over the years I've gotten a
| decent number who floor it out of every stop sign/light and
| don't adequately modulate speed to match the flow of traffic.
| With how quickly EVs accelerate I could see that making for a
| less than pleasant ride.
| jpdstan wrote:
| The worst is Revel, which, in NYC, are ALL teslas/EVs. worst
| taxi experience of my life was a 1 hr drive to airport in
| stop and go street light traffic. I appreciated the hustle
| but deleted the app soon after my gag reflex subsided. they
| should at least disable regenerative braking or something
| recursive wrote:
| Regen braking is a way of slowing down like drum brakes.
| It's not inherently any less smooth.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| It's likely they mean disabling one pedal driving, so
| regenerative braking will no longer trigger from letting
| off the accelerator.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Uber guys take a bath on EVs, they try to squeeze more
| range.
| recursive wrote:
| That does not really make sense. The most efficient way
| to drive for range is slow and smooth.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Well, uber drivers spend like $0.60/mile, and make well
| under a dollar/mile, so the whole business doesn't make
| much sense.
| sgerenser wrote:
| By context, he obviously means automatically applied
| regen breaking upon releasing the accelerator (so-called
| 1-pedal driving). While its possible to maintain a smooth
| speed with this feature, some drivers are using it
| improperly when e.g. approaching slowing traffic by just
| releasing the pedal and allowing the car to basically
| brake aggressively rather than feathering it to allow the
| car to coast smoothly to a stop.
| jerlam wrote:
| Teslas do this by default. They have very strong
| acceleration, since they were marketed as "sports cars" to
| people who don't know sports cars, and strong regeneration
| for efficiency and one-pedal driving.
| CSMastermind wrote:
| I drive a sports car as my daily driver and I don't know
| what Tesla is trying to imitate but it's definitely not a
| sports car.
| culopatin wrote:
| Miata right?
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Yes, although the deceleration seems to be partly due to
| regenerative braking. They're driving them like normal ICE
| cars.
| culopatin wrote:
| Most drivers are not conscious about rolling the gas or
| keeping it stable and drive by pulsing it on and off to
| maintain speed because they don't have the attention,
| finesse, or both to drive smoothly. Also rolling on the
| inputs is not something most do. I used to train drivers for
| racing and not stabbing the gas or brakes is a learned skill
| that takes some time. Where a person will likely accelerate
| for too long having to then brake harder, a Waymo smoothes
| out the curve, preserving energy, which also means less jerk.
|
| Not to mention that in SF you have the hills that add to the
| math.
| mystifyingpoi wrote:
| In my limited experience, all taxi drivers just do it all the
| time for time efficiency. They are paid by km most of the
| time, makes sense.
| dawnerd wrote:
| At least half my recent rides in Ubers/Lyft have been drivers
| that shouldn't be on the road, I'd happily pay more for a Waymo.
| zomg wrote:
| i've had quite a few experiences with AWFUL uber drivers as
| well. i think it would be beneficial for uber to require some
| sort of ODB monitoring like some insurance companies do. one
| time on a trip to the airport, i almost had the driver pull
| over on the side of the road to let me know. i was GENUINELY
| scared by her driving.
| davejagoda wrote:
| ODB: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ol'_Dirty_Bastard OBD:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On-board_diagnostics
| nashashmi wrote:
| Yeah I noticed that too, and I paid for the first experience. But
| also because Lyft guy canceled on me after waiting for 12
| minutes. Waymo does not cancel.
|
| I feel like Waymo has discouraged Lyft and Uber drivers from
| being in the area. I would rather pick an uber driver who can get
| there fast than a Waymo.
| zomg wrote:
| out of sheer curiosity, i took my first (few) waymo rides while
| in san francisco last month. mind = blown. there is nothing more
| enjoyable than getting into a vehicle by yourself, no driver, no
| awkwardness, nothing. i was happy to pay more for a waymo than an
| uber, too.
| Jelthi wrote:
| I pay more:
|
| - To support cool technology
|
| - To ride in a high end car of known quality
|
| - To listen to my music and at any volume
|
| - To not feel weird about the little things like talking or
| rolling down my windows or setting an AC Temperature
|
| - To know exactly when and where my driver will pick me up down
| to the exact curb.
|
| - To not have to make small talk with a person. Even when
| requesting quiet preferred you'll get an uber driver who wants to
| share their life story or trauma dump on you.
|
| - To not die. I've been in some terrifying Ubers with either bad
| drivers or just exhausted ones.
| klabb3 wrote:
| And carsickness. In stop-sign city traffic, I get nauseous with
| the breaking and speeding of aggressive driving. I mean stop
| signs are problematic for other reasons too, but I don't want
| to get to a dinner with friends feeling sick.
|
| That said, if I'm going mostly highway to the airport I want a
| driver who's knowledgeable and opportunistic, picking the best
| lanes and not missing lights.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| A robot isn't going to decide it doesn't want to take my ride
| after accepting it and drive around aimlessly hoping I'll get
| tired of waiting and cancel. I haven't needed Uber/Lyft on a
| regular basis in several years, but back when I did that was a
| frequently recurring problem.
| lhamil64 wrote:
| There's also a problem of drivers discriminating, like
| canceling rides if they see you have a guide dog. It's illegal
| and they can get banned for it, but it still happens. This
| wouldn't happen in a Waymo.
| basisword wrote:
| Reliability was the main selling point for me ~10 years ago.
| You could also get a ride quickly. It's the total opposite now.
| I've missed a flight due to multiple cancellations. I've been
| left standing in dangerous areas of town for an hour late at
| night trying to get a ride. Now, for important things where
| possible, I'll take public transport. It's far more reliable.
|
| If you want to compete with Uber, increase prices and increase
| reliability significantly. There are times when a lot of people
| will be more than happy to pay rather than risk their safety.
| Undo the enshittification.
| timewizard wrote:
| A robot can be programmed to do that. As soon as they're
| economically incentivized to do so someone will write that
| code.
| pedrosorio wrote:
| When the driver and the platform are different entities (like
| Uber) you end up with these weird incentives. How would that
| happen in the Waymo case?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Some analyst will figure out the robots have less billable
| time on task and they'll find some way to avoid the
| problem.
|
| There's a million ways to do it. Shadow ban locations,
| mistakenly pull up to the wrong location, etc.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| This happens so much now. It's infuriating. I wish they would
| put a stop to this. A few weeks ago, I had multiple Uber
| drivers do this. Eventually, I gave up and ordered a Waymo
| because they were the only ones who would pick me up.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| As a man I thankfully haven't ever really felt unsafe (in this
| way anyways, definitely some bad/distracted Uber drivers) but I
| could see women or kids finding Waymos to be a safer overall
| experience worth a premium
| nineplay wrote:
| Recently my daughter and I had to take a Uber home from airport
| at 11pm. I did not like the driver and I did not like the
| situation and I seriously was considering exit plans if he
| started going off the normal route.
|
| The next time I had to take a late Uber I paid up for Uber
| Premium, which is maybe imperfect reasoning but the driver was
| pleasant and polite and didn't give any bad vibes.
| iwanttocomment wrote:
| In Austin, Waymos are hailed via the Uber app, which will quote
| you a price which is good for either a conventional Uber or a
| Waymo, and you get a Waymo if one is available. Same price. The
| Waymo is actually cheaper because there's no tip.
|
| The issue I have with Waymo is that getting in and out of those
| i-Paces as a "person of height" is rather difficult - I really
| have to do a strange contortion - and if I want to sit in the
| right rear, there's nobody in front to pull the seat up for me so
| there's not enough legroom. (I've moved to adjusting and sitting
| in the front passenger seat when I get a Waymo, something human
| Uber drivers hate.)
| gorfian_robot wrote:
| for a while Austin had banned Uber/Lyft. do you know what
| happened to change that?
| cvsv wrote:
| The Waymo cars are really comfortable luxury Jaguars. For Uber
| and Lyft there are many price tiers, but to reliably get an
| equally or more comfortable car you probably need to book the
| black car options. I'm sure Uber / Lyft are way more expensive
| per mile than Waymo on that tier.
|
| In addition to all the things people have pointed out that makes
| it a better experience.
| Jelthi wrote:
| Almost every Uber Black and Black SUV I've ordered was a Chevy
| Suburban or GMC Yukon.
|
| The quality is across the board, but one thing I've found
| consistent is the terrible quality seats. The seats feel like
| it's just cardboard supporting you that pops in and out as you
| move with the car.
|
| It's rare to get an actual luxury car even when paying more.
|
| Their promise of "professional" drivers is also wild. Sometimes
| you get a guy who's friendly and seems eager to please and
| helpful with luggage, but I've had plenty of downright rude
| drivers who feel inconvenienced by my presence.
| gottorf wrote:
| > I've had plenty of downright rude drivers who feel
| inconvenienced by my presence
|
| This is my general observation about life (at least in the
| US) these days: the seeming prevalence of people who think
| they're doing you a favor by doing their job.
| black3r wrote:
| my eastern european mind cannot comprehend 2 things:
|
| - if the average price per ride is $20.43 and average price per
| km is $11.22 does it mean that the average ride length is 1.8km?
| that seems kinda low..., like that's something I would walk if I
| didn't hurry..
|
| - if the higher prices are really influenced by costs of
| operating AV and not simple greed fueled by "offering a better
| product", how long it's gonna take to be competitive in countries
| where driver salaries are lower than US? In Bratislava where I'm
| from the UberX price per km outside surges are lower than 1EUR
| (there's a minimum price per ride of 4.50EUR though, but a ride
| to the airport which is 9km away is 7.41EUR now (and that's
| without the frequent discounts Uber offers, currently I have a
| 30% discount offered and it would cost me 5.19EUR with the
| discount)...
| msgodel wrote:
| In most of the US it's not really possible/safe to walk between
| buildings just because of how everything got built. Often it
| would involve crossing six lane divided highways etc. That's
| why you see so many threads here talking about
| bikes/transit/urban design etc.
| klabb3 wrote:
| > does it mean that the average ride length is 1.8km? that
| seems kinda low..., like that's something I would walk if I
| didn't hurry..
|
| Idk about the average but I used to make a bad joke that
| walking is considered an extreme sport in most of the US.
| Sometimes, it's for legit reasons such as extreme heat,
| literally no sidewalks, and areas that are perceived as
| dangerous because of the people there. Other times it's just
| seen as a discomfort "why walk when you can sit in a large
| car". This is reflected in language, where "walkable" is a
| frequent term used to describe the often rare parts of urban
| areas where you can comfortably walk from A to B. In EU there's
| often no need for such a term.
|
| > how long it's gonna take to be competitive in countries where
| driver salaries are lower than US?
|
| Why not share my prediction, it's probably as bad as the rest
| of them: I think this stage right now is about viability.
| Getting training data and real road experience, knowing what
| sensors are needed, range of road conditions, and grasping the
| enormous amount of novel traffic situations. I don't think the
| purpose of the pricing is to make profits, but rather to test
| the markets end-to-end. Essentially, it's an R&D project
| designed to inform and instill confidence for future investing
| and scaling.
|
| As for replacing human drivers, I think it'll be region-by-
| region with a very long tail. Since cost of labor varies so
| much, you'd need many years to bring costs of vehicles and
| maintenance down to be competitive. Plus, expanding to new
| regions have huge fixed costs and risk, much more so with AVs
| than normal "Uber-style" services, with BYO labor & vehicle.
| These things need service centers, depots, offices, probably
| quite densely, no? Not to mention the politics, unions etc.
| eesmith wrote:
| I and a friend visited California, ending in San Diego. We
| figured out we didn't need the rental car for the last few
| days, so we asked the hotel clerk how to get back from the car
| dropoff at the airport. "You could Uber ..." but had no
| suggestion for an alternative.
|
| We then looked at the map - https://www.brouter.de/brouter-
| web/#map=15/32.7236/-117.1779... . It was 2km, all on
| sidewalks. My friend dropped off the car and walked back.
|
| It was lovely SoCal weather, with the sun close to setting over
| the bay. But the idea of walking it seemed far from at least
| the clerk's mind.
|
| I believe many of my fellow Americans feel the same. I'm one of
| the oddballs that would walk 1 1/2 miles home after clubbing
| rather than drive - something likely only possible for guys as
| the streets at 1am were empty of anyone walking.
|
| Which also means I've had my share of walks where the sidewalk
| ended, or where I wasn't legally allowed to go further. That's
| the American way. /s
| crazygringo wrote:
| I do plenty of walking.
|
| I'll take an Uber if I have luggage. If it's raining heavily.
| If I'm in a hurry because the play is about to start and
| there's no late seating. If I'm on a date and she's wearing
| high heels. Etc.
|
| Just because people are _sometimes_ taking Ubers for short
| distances doesn 't mean they're _usually_ taking Ubers for
| short distances.
|
| Uber isn't a way of life. It's a tool for when you need it.
| ascorbic wrote:
| One of the most recent Uber rides I took was in Orlando. As the
| crow flies it was almost exactly 500 meters from point to
| point, but Google has it as a 50 minute, 4km walk. Most of the
| US is _really_ not set up for walking.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Say you want to pick up some groceries. In most US cities there
| is no nearby small market; in some cities there are, but it
| varies widely. So either you can get takeout, or you can go
| from 1 (median) to 2.6 (average) miles to a grocery store. You
| could bike, but most US cities don't have good bike
| infrastructure (and let's face it, we're lazy). If there is
| public transit it's slow and unreliable.
|
| Rideshare prices can also be 2x more expensive depending on the
| city. One city's average price is $7, another's is $17. Some
| cities are more compact, some are more spread out, some have
| fewer drivers, some have more, some have a lower cost of
| living, some higher, some have more suburban drivers, some
| fewer.
| iw7tdb2kqo9 wrote:
| I am happy that Waymo is making money. Google would kill it, if
| it could not make money.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| I don't think it's profitable yet. The capex for Waymo is
| massive.
| TheDong wrote:
| idk, google has a nice list of things that seem like they'll
| never be profitable, but it keeps running em. Like, google
| patents, google books, google translate... none of those make
| money, right? Chromium only makes money indirectly I think, and
| they invest a ton of engineering resources in that.
|
| Google kills stuff, but they don't kill everything, just stuff
| that no one is working on (like google reader, I think all the
| people who cared about the code just quit), or stuff that is
| specifically counter to some exec's strategy (like killing a
| bunch of chat software to centralize on Google+ or whatever it
| is now)
| nashashmi wrote:
| I once went to a remote town in Maryland that had only one uber
| driver. Imagine how beautiful a Waymo machine would work there.
| standardUser wrote:
| Uber barely operates in huge swaths of the US. I've been in
| parts of Idaho and Kansas where wait times during the day can
| be a half an hour and after a certain hour no drivers are
| available at all. And the drivers who operate in these areas
| tend to be far less experienced/professional than in denser
| areas (to put it politely). Waymo solves all of this with just
| a handful of cars in each county.
| conover wrote:
| Bainbridge Island (connected to Seattle by ferry) is like
| this. There is approximately one Uber driver, at least the
| last time I was there, and good luck if you get back to the
| island later in the day. A single Waymo would be amazing.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Hehe, missed a chance to write a cheap pun on that headline.
|
| _" Waymo rides cost waymo than Uber or Lyft and people are
| paying anyway"_
| greybox wrote:
| This doesn't surprise me at all. I work in the EU but recently
| the Americans we hire are very hesitant to have conversations
| with service providers. They will pay more to use a service that
| has an app, rather than call up another taxi company by phone for
| example (and it's not a language barrier problem, because
| everyone speaks english). I can see this extending to not wanting
| to have a driver in their taxi.
|
| I see this with UK people recently too. I'm not sure what it is.
| I'm not saying it's not an EU thing at all, but from my vantage
| point, the behavior is most prevalent in Americans
|
| Edit: After reading this thread, it's possible this could be
| sampling bias and more of a cross-country generational thing from
| mellennials down. (I am a mellennial too)
| yurishimo wrote:
| Are the American's you're referencing living in the EU or back
| in the US? Could the language barrier be a reason for their
| hesitancy?
|
| I've heard stories about gen-z/alpha being more app brained,
| but most of my peers in their early 30s are generally fine with
| calling people or sending an email perhaps depending on the
| service.
| greybox wrote:
| > Are the American's you're referencing living in the EU or
| back in the US?
|
| The EU
|
| > Could the language barrier be a reason for their hesitancy?
|
| No:
|
| > (and it's not a language barrier problem, because everyone
| speaks english)
|
| >I've heard stories about gen-z/alpha being more app brained
|
| I think you might be on to something there, maybe it's more
| of a generational thing than a cultural difference between
| American and EU citizens.
| danielbln wrote:
| German Millennial here, I'd much prefer an app to having to
| call someone. I hate calling anyone, and I know I'm not
| alone there. Let me text or use an app and I'm in.
| greybox wrote:
| I am a millennial and maybe I am just in the Minority of
| Millennials that quite likes talking to people even when
| It's contractual.
|
| I walk to restaurants if I can to avoid using Wolt for
| instance.
|
| Then again, I appreciate that AI is probably a better
| driver than 60% of taxi drivers.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Can I ask _why_ you hate calling? I also know you're not
| alone-- many people I know are the same but I can't seem
| to get a reasonable answer to _why_ that doesn't seem to
| boil down to social anxiety.
| Zak wrote:
| I'm not who you asked, but social anxiety seems like a
| good reason to have this preference.
|
| I also dislike ordering food by phone for practical
| reasons. Call quality might be bad, person's accent might
| be hard for me to understand, I might be hard for them to
| understand, the chance an error will go unnoticed even if
| they read back the order is higher than a website where I
| can read it myself, and in many cases I have to give a
| credit card number to a person, which has a higher
| probability of leading to fraud than most online payments
| in 2025.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Its an understandable reason but I don't think I agree
| its good. One should not have significant social anxiety
| around simply talking to someone over the phone. I can't
| wrap my head around why this is okay.
|
| But I have to admit it is a thing that is actively
| happening and that "phone culture" such as it was, is
| dying or already dead.
|
| I feel like I have strayed far from the topic, but
| honestly if this is what smartphones have wrought, we
| should stop using them. (Sent from my iPhone of course)
| Zak wrote:
| It seems a little presumptuous to declare what other
| people should and should not be anxious about.
|
| I'd advise therapy to anyone who has so much phone
| anxiety they would hesitate to call emergency services in
| an emergency or who misses out on significant
| opportunities as a result. A mere preference for ordering
| food delivery on a screen driven by social anxiety does
| not rise to the level of a _problem_ in my mind. Nearly
| everyone is irrational about something, usually several
| somethings.
| nemomarx wrote:
| It's also a little disorganized - on an app I can see all
| the options and my choices when ordering food for
| example, over the phone you have to keep that in your
| head or write it down before hand which is higher effort.
| This goes for other things too, like navigating a phone
| tree and explaining your situation to someone or ordering
| a taxi and being sure you have your location and the
| destination correct, etc
| majormajor wrote:
| Americans have been raised for a couple generations to be
| afraid of people. "Stranger danger." Apocalyptic news media. A
| general millenarianism-run-amok "the final battle between good
| and evil is coming and evil outnumbers us" assumption that
| permeates much of American culture across the political
| spectrum. Catastrophizing.
|
| Somehow that had an impact on our social skills! It takes a lot
| of work to de-program that if you're not a natural extrovert.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| This is a disingenuous take. Americans value their time
| probably more than any other culture. I'd rather be able to
| keep reading a book, read some interesting HN content or talk
| with my friends on Discord more than have small talk with a
| random uber driver.
| maybelsyrup wrote:
| You may not agree with it but I fail to see how it's
| disingenuous
| majormajor wrote:
| The example starting this discussion was not "avoid talking
| to a taxi driver." It was "book the taxi with an app at
| higher cost vs using the phone." No Waymos in Europe for
| them to avoid the drivers with just yet. Simply spending to
| avoid a phone call.
|
| I'm skeptical we save a lot of time with our technology-
| mediated world. I think I could say "one medium pizza with
| pepperoni" and hear back "ok it'll be ready in 20 minutes"
| on a phone call quicker than I can put that order in with a
| device. Apps/websites are only better for group orders that
| require coordination. That's after I've picked out the
| restaurant, of course, but there is no shortage of
| literature on how the huge menu of choices presented by
| modern app-based services usually _slows down_ people 's
| decision making. (Amusingly this may swing back the other
| way, just with us talking to LLM-backed machines soon, but
| I find it hard to believe "we don't want to talk to the guy
| at the pizza place because we value our time THAT MUCH.")
| Compared to the phenomenon discussed in all sorts of media
| from https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/15ecqat/phonep
| hobia/ to https://www.thecut.com/article/psychologists-
| explain-your-ph... to
| https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/gen-z-developing-
| fear-o...
|
| Very curious if you have a source for that time value bit.
| I find it hard to believe. We Americans often have
| EXTREMELY long commutes using a mode of transportation that
| allows less multitasking than most others. I don't mind my
| car-based commute personally - it lets me listen to music
| in peace - but that's similar to how I don't mind making
| small talk while getting my hair cut - it's a peaceful
| respite from the usual noise of modern life. Certainly a
| nice change of pace from using that time to scroll social
| media or argue on the internet even more.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > I'm skeptical we save a lot of time with our
| technology-mediated world. I think I could say "one
| medium pizza with pepperoni" and hear back "ok it'll be
| ready in 20 minutes" on a phone call quicker than I can
| put that order in with a device.
|
| Apps _could_ beat this in terms of speed, but they don 't
| seem to prioritize it. Every native app and web app I
| have ever used to do any kind of commerce (not just
| ordering food) is a grind of tap this, wait, tap that,
| wait, tap to enter your username, tap to enter your
| password, tap, tap, tap, wait, wait, wait, do you want
| these deals?, tap, wait, tap to enter credit card number,
| tap to enter expiration date, tap to enter ccv code,
| confirm order, wait, processing, wait...
|
| I _should_ be able to just invoke my phone 's voice
| assistant function, say "one medium pizza with pepperoni,
| pick up" and that's it. It already knows where I am, what
| my usual pizza joint is, what I use to pay, all that.
| But, we're not there yet for some reason.
| nottorp wrote:
| In the taxi case the advantage of the app isn't the lack
| of a phone call, it's not having to explain where you are
| and where you want to go over said phone call...
| Shank wrote:
| > Simply spending to avoid a phone call.
|
| If I'm looking at an app I can read far faster than I can
| understand a phone call, and often I don't need to
| explain myself beyond moving some pins around. "Pick me
| up by the P1 parking garage across from the fence near
| the stairwell" and related things. I actually want to use
| my eyes and look at information and not place my bets on
| the human on the other side getting all of my preferences
| right.
| cardanome wrote:
| Americans are often a bit early on trends but honestly as a
| German, I would love to see waymo here. We are very slow at
| adapting new tech so it probably still be many years away but
| it would be a total game changer for me.
|
| Especially if they offered an option for pet-owners. Being able
| to just chill with your pet and not bothering anyone would be
| amazing.
|
| Why? Just the consistency is worth the extra money. You know
| exactly what type of car you are getting. You don't have to
| worry about getting a bad driver or anything. It just works.
| Plus the whole tipping thing just sucks. I don't want to decide
| whether to tip and how much. I want to pay what the service
| costs and that is that.
|
| Also personally, I just don't like people serving me. Probably
| because I would barely survive a day in a customer facing job
| myself. I never quite sure if they attempt smalltalk because
| they want to talk or if they expect to get a better rating. It
| is just so awkward.
|
| There are people that genuinely like to work in service jobs of
| course and long term job loss will suck for them so I am not
| exactly helping.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Years ago when I worked in the food industry, customers would
| voluntarily pay 20% more for the entire meal just to use the
| doordash app instead of calling us up. We informed repeat
| customers that they pay a premium to use 3rd party apps - they
| just kept using them anyway.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Agreed it's madness. Ordering a pizza delivery in my city is
| almost $40. Somehow pizzerias were able to do it cheaper and
| faster.
|
| The apps are awful as well. I delivered when I was gifted
| some gift cards after a loss in the family they raise the
| prices with gift card balances.
| Zak wrote:
| I much prefer ordering with a website to ordering on the
| phone, especially when ordering for several people. Many of
| the restaurants where I live now have their own websites.
| powersnail wrote:
| Talking on the phone is the most painful form of conversation
| for me. The sound quality is often awful, due to the ambient
| noises picked up by phone, which occurs particularly often
| for busy restaurants. You don't know if the other side has
| heard you because you can't see them and there's no visual
| signal, so there's more back and forth, prolonging the pain.
| Since you are ordering via the phone, you have to pay by
| reading out your credit card number. People sometimes
| hesitate, and you don't know if it's a bad connection, or if
| they have just paused......
|
| So yeah, I'd gladly pay a bit more to order via an app. When
| I'm ordering delivery, I'm already paying premium on that day
| anyway, the margin of which is way higher than 20%, so I
| might as well go all the way and avoid dealing with something
| I don't like.
|
| If I'm not using an app, I'd rather run a mile to make the
| order in person, than make a phone call.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| For the first time in my several decades, I live in walking
| distance to amenities (e.g. bank, hardware store, local &
| fast -foods).
|
| Literally across the street from my neighborhood is among
| "the best local pizzarias," and I'll still offer to pay for
| the entire order if somebody else orders / picks-up ("tip
| them well" I'll usually suggest). I just don't want to talk
| on the phone (and don't use apps).
|
| ...Americuhly, the usual neighbor _still_ drives (it 's like
| 1000m, round-trip).
| nitwit005 wrote:
| Companies have spent decades, and quite a bit of money, trying
| to get people to stop calling them. It's worked. People mostly
| only call when there is no other option.
| karp773 wrote:
| This. It used to be that customer service agents in America
| were super helpful and would go an extra mile for you. Not
| any more, dealing with customer service is just a lot of
| pain, and often a waste of time.
|
| As an example, let's say you have a problem with Windows.
| Would you rather ask AI for help or a human support agent on
| the microsoft's website?
| kevinventullo wrote:
| I've had multiple experiences of calling a cab company and them
| no-showing. You can call them back and it's "oh yeah someone's
| on their way, 15 minutes." 40 minutes later, nothing.
|
| With an app, you have a very clear indication of how far away
| your driver is, but more importantly whether they're coming at
| all.
|
| (Also with the EU specifically I very much had an issue with
| the language barrier in Florence).
| balfirevic wrote:
| > They will pay more to use a service that has an app, rather
| than call up another taxi company by phone for example
|
| Using an app for taxi booking is so superior to ordering by
| phone (even excluding potential preference for not talking to
| service providers) that I have trouble understanding what's
| puzzling you.
| dgellow wrote:
| I would pay twice the price of pretty much any service if that
| means I don't have to do a phone call
| rossdavidh wrote:
| The last time I got an Uber, it was driven by a young fellow who
| looked to be in his first year of driving (I could be wrong), the
| car smelled like mothballs and was obviously in poor shape, and
| he accidentally drove on the wrong side of a divided road for a
| block or so (he was apologetic). The last time I tried a regular
| taxi stand, the car looked even worse, and it broke down. So, we
| called Lyft, and the driver could not find where we were because
| it was not a normal address (she was trying her best, but her
| English was not up to the task of understanding our explanation).
|
| Waymo's selling point might be that its cars are all in good
| shape (right now), and customers know this.
| PessimalDecimal wrote:
| I've been in more than one Uber that smelled like the driver
| just smoked weed.
| mdaniel wrote:
| I formally report it every time I'm in a car that has the
| deodorizer turned up to 11 because it makes me nauseous. My
| worst one was a 30 minute ride to the airport in LA - I
| thought about just having them pull over and ordering a
| replacement
| lupusreal wrote:
| Just say you feel carsick and want a window open for fresh
| air. They surely don't want puke in their car so they
| should be willing to oblige.
| mdaniel wrote:
| Oh I lean my head out the window like a dog, I am not
| their friend and give no fucks about offending them, but
| riding so long having to breathe in 65 mph wind just
| because a gas station toilet spilled in the car is a
| reportable offense
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| They get paid $300 (may be different these days) if you
| like in the car. The financial incentive for making you
| puke is quite high.
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't think that tracks. Not only do they have to incur
| the cost of getting the car cleaned, but while they're
| off getting it cleaned, they're also not accepting rides
| and taking in money. Not to mention it's just a huge
| hassle and waste of time.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > I formally report it every time I'm in a car that has the
| deodorizer turned up to 11 because it makes me nauseous.
|
| This is a good thing. I do think we're much better off now
| than we were in the 80s-10s (relentless, pervasive over-
| fragrancing).
|
| But lately I've been running into the occasional Axe-
| weilder or odd desktop gadget that creates an airplane
| sized zone of unbreatable air. It might be time to dust-off
| some civil reminders about air quality.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| I've had this happen many times. One time, I got into an Uber
| and it smelled like there were 100 kilos of cocaine in the
| trunk. Not joke, the car _reeked_ of coke.
| shawn_w wrote:
| Does Uber no longer fire drivers who don't consistently get 5
| star trip reviews?
| harmmonica wrote:
| I have zero clue if they still do, but based on my
| experiences lately with Uber and Lyft there's zero chance
| they fire drivers even if they have terrible reviews. I'm an
| "always 5 star" type of reviewer (sorry if you think I'm
| obligated to be honest!), but, man, it's rough out there at
| least in big cities in the US. Sorry that's not reliably
| answering your question, but even if Uber said they fire
| those people I would not for one second believe them.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _I 'm an "always 5 star" type of reviewer_
|
| Same. Only time I will rate lower is for safety issues.
| Offensive conversation and bad smells are not great, but I
| don't want to screw up what might be someone's only job
| because they're having a bad day or because they can't
| afford to get their car cleaned as often as they should.
|
| But I also don't judge people who would rate lower for
| stuff like that; everyone's threshold for what's acceptable
| is different.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| I mean... It's crazy to read this in a thread complaining
| about the quality of ubers. I guess you didn't start the
| thread but your here all the same. It's this behavior
| that enables it.
|
| The last terrible Lyft I had had a 4.9, yet the car
| literally rattled and you could 'hear' the suspension
| (hard to explain, whatever the hell it was wasn't right).
|
| Guessing by the odometer being 220k and the sticker over
| the check engine light, it had likely been like that for
| a while.
| gWPVhyxPHqvk wrote:
| Part of the problem with this system is that I'm hesitant to
| give a driver less than 5 stars (unless they are truly
| dangerous) because I don't want to take someone's livelihood
| away.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| This is amazing. Don't forget that by you doing this you're
| taking us one step closer to AI replacing not just the job of
| drivers but the jobs of all of us. Good sides and bad sides.
|
| Hopefully we won't get there and only uber drivers are the ones
| screwed. Since you and I aren't uber drivers, we don't really
| care do we?
| Philpax wrote:
| I'm for equal opportunity screwing: if they lose their jobs,
| it's only fair my job is at risk too - and given improvements
| in programming agents, it will be.
|
| The only way we're getting through this is by facing it
| together, not throwing the more precarious of us under the
| bus.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Imagine how backwards our socioeconomic order is that "people
| are no longer needed for grueling work" is a _bad_ thing.
|
| I mean, you're not wrong, but I feel like it's a condemnation
| of out economic system.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Driving is not grueling work. Imagine a utopia where people
| aren't needed for any work at all! No job for you. Only AI
| robots taking care of rich people while everything else
| burns. Just make sure you're one of the rich ones and
| everything is A-okay!
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Sitting for extended periods of time is bad for one's
| health. Also, being in a vehicle is the highest
| morbidity/mortality risk thing people do. More time on
| the road = more chance of injury.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Agreed. But it's not grueling. Programming you also sit
| for long periods. Programming usually isn't considered
| grueling.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| You don't have to sit to program, and there are generally
| far more degrees of freedom, e.g. bathroom breaks and
| eating healthy food from a fridge and microwave, etc.
|
| Also, many/most taxi drivers have to regularly work
| evenings, nights, weekends, and holidays. (Also upping
| the risk due to sleepy or drunk drivers).
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Uber drivers can take a break and pick their own hours
| whenever they want. They can even nap wherever they want.
|
| Still not grueling imo.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| This is just devolving into a dispute about the
| definition of grueling.
|
| The dictionary says "extremely tiring and demanding".
| Letting random people into your space, putting your
| primary income generating asset at risk, being on
| constant alert, and working long, undesirable hours that
| results in health problems qualifies as grueling for me.
| Maybe not as grueling as some other types of labor, but
| obviously more grueling than 95% of programming jobs.
|
| The drivers taking constant breaks and working whenever
| they feel like it are not the ones earning any decent
| amount of money.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| I'm not actually convinced that "AI" will even replace all
| the jobs of drivers. Rumor is that Waymo had trouble in
| Austin (where I live) when they were centered downtown,
| because they would gridlock. I'm not convinced that they will
| work well once they become common on the roads, because they
| will all drive cautiously, and that may lend itself to
| gridlock situations. Right now they're in the SE corner of
| town (also where I live), and they don't seem to gridlock,
| but the first thing they do is almost always to go to another
| part of town. They will likely have a useful place, but I'm
| not convinced that it will pay enough to keep the cars in
| good shape, long term. The cars are all new, right now, but
| what happens when they get old and start to malfunction? Will
| they be making enough money to pay for that? Right now they
| might (like Uber and Lyft before them) just be burning
| through VC money, without any prospect of profitability.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| > her English was not up to the task of understanding our
| explanation
|
| Another Waymo selling point is its universal (since they're all
| the same) ability to communicate with anyone.
| drzaiusx11 wrote:
| I've had several questionable uber rides regarding personal
| safety and would gladly ride with something with a consistent
| safety track record for a premium. Recently rode with a visibly
| sick driver that had had a hard time catching his breath long
| enough to keep his eyes on the road. Automation doesn't get sick.
| ec109685 wrote:
| "Colloquially, there is an idea that autonomous vehicles are
| something that will erode driver jobs and put drivers at risk.
| And I think the irony of what we've seen is that it's actually
| quite expensive to run an AV"
|
| This seems like a temporary problem. Google is charging what the
| market will bear and doesn't have ability to get more cars on the
| road.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| The simpler explanation is that Google mismanages its pay-per-
| use consumer-facing products. Consider Google One and YouTube
| Premium are also overpriced, and everyone tells them so.
|
| It's obviously a mistake to charge more than Uber or Lyft, it's
| crazy obvious, like mind meltingly obvious. Sometimes it's just
| the obvious thing. Google's problem is that its management is
| so bad, it doesn't understand: just because something _happens_
| (paying more for rides) doesn 't mean it makes _sense_. After
| all taxis are more expensive sometimes, and people pay for
| them, and where 's the article that litigates all the dumb
| reasons people give for doing that?
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| "One of the most valuable companies on the planet is
| mismanaging its products"
|
| see the issue with that assertion?
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Yeah... on the other hand I don't let the stock market do
| all my thinking for me. As an aside, I thought
| /r/superstonk was a parody subreddit.
| Den_VR wrote:
| Google mismanages an enormous number of things. Users,
| Customers, Products, Teams, Talent. You can observe this in
| your interactions with Google/Alphabet and in ex-googler
| post-mortems.
|
| They are amazingly valuable as a stock, as a business and
| as a collection of talent. That doesn't entirely excuse
| failures of vision and leadership, let alone pricing.
|
| Edit: That said, I am inclined to believe that Alphabet
| pricing likely better reflects reality. The others have
| some bad habits.
| Animats wrote:
| Waymos will get cheaper to make as they scale up. The Ioniq
| version [1] costs less to build. All the sheet metal and
| mechanical mods for Waymo are done at the Hyundai factory in
| Georgia.[2] Waymo just mounts the electronics.
|
| Jobs at the Hyundai factory start at $23.66/hour, with reasonably
| good benefits.[3]
|
| [1] https://waymo.com/blog/2024/10/waymo-and-hyundai-enter-
| partn...
|
| [2] https://www.hmgma.com/
|
| [3] https://careers-americas.hyundai.com/hmgma/job/Ellabell-
| Prod...
| passwordoops wrote:
| >Waymos will get cheaper to make as they scale up.
|
| Meaning their profits will rise as they inevitably increase
| prices
| elcritch wrote:
| Exactly, capitalism isn't about putting capital to work doing
| things. It's only concern is share holder profit!
| silvr wrote:
| Minority view here I'm sure but maybe profits are a just
| reward for inventing the future - this is literally science
| fiction come to life
| owebmaster wrote:
| Facebook was once inventing the future, too
| MegaButts wrote:
| Self-driving cars are cool but I'd rather have good public
| transit. These vehicles clearly have utility beyond just
| public transit, but I'd rather they be an edge case rather
| than considered a main solution. So yeah, from my
| perspective the problem is being focused on profits instead
| of trying to solve the real problem with solutions that
| have already existed for decades.
|
| If you zoom out a bit, your argument would be more-or-less
| the same when regular automobiles were replacing the
| functioning transit systems in the USA, specifically in LA.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I've never really understood this "improve public transit
| instead of autonomous vehicles" argument. They're two
| entirely distinct funding sources. Nothing is preventing
| us from improving public transit except the same things
| that always have.
| oblio wrote:
| People funding autonomous driving will obviously lobby
| against increased funding for public transit and they
| will also fund demonizing public transit.
|
| Look at Musk and Vegas. The vast majority of mass
| transportation in Vegas should be handled by actual
| public transit, most likely high speed rail from LA and
| light rail along the Strip to downtown Vegas and a few
| other places.
|
| Instead Vegas has a silly monorail, a few buses that
| don't even get dedicated bus lanes on 8+ lane stroads and
| something stupid like, dunno, 20 daily flights from LA.
| Plus Musk setting up tunnels or hyperloops or other
| stupidities.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Musk doesn't need autonomous vehicles to derail public
| transit. Hyperloop predated FSD, to use your example.
| Moreover, the objection applies equally to taxis and
| Uber/Lyft.
|
| It's also not an actionable objection. Let's say we go
| and ban autonomous vehicles. Why wouldn't the same
| billionaires simply continue lobbying against public
| transit improvements _and_ for the repeal of the ban?
| They have the money to do both.
|
| We haven't failed to invest sufficiently in public
| transit for 50+ years solely because of billionaire
| lobbying. That's not the blocker.
| achatham wrote:
| As a counter to your one example:
|
| I've worked on autonomous vehicles for 16 years and my
| largest philanthropic effort is improving public transit.
| The common theme is being really interested in
| transportation and wanting it to work well for people.
|
| Cruise was also the top funder of one San Francisco's
| recent MUNI funding ballot propositions (which just
| barely failed). You can certainly have a cynical take on
| that, but they still did it.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| It's an argument that we should fund public transit more.
| What's hard to understand?
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Obviously funding public transit is good, but people
| usually phrase funding arguments as zero sum tradeoffs.
| You wouldn't write "bookstores are cool, but I'd rather
| have public transit", because there's no trade-off there.
| I'm assuming the OP actually meant something by writing
| their post the way they did.
| oblio wrote:
| We probably went wrong when we decided to maximize money
| versus maximizing happiness.
|
| We badly need to move beyond GDP and to at least IHDI, if
| not something even better.
| nradov wrote:
| I can't buy food or pay my mortgage with happiness.
| oblio wrote:
| I didn't say it was easy. And I'm not talking about
| individual action. Governments should incentivize and
| force different things. Conceptually simple example:
| construction projects should require sustainability and
| aesthetics reviews, including, for example, use of better
| materials and green and walkable spaces. For example I
| find the butt ugly and cheap American solutions for
| sidewalks (I think continuously poured concrete cut into
| slabs with circular saws) much worse than the European
| ones (paving stones, often natural stone). The US is the
| richer country and it frequently looks cheaper and
| poorer.
|
| Beauty matters.
| nradov wrote:
| What a terrible idea. I don't want my government to
| "force" things. Nor should idiot government bureaucrats
| have any authority over something as subjective as
| aesthetics.
|
| Paving stones are terrible for skates, and not great for
| running either. Poured concrete is much smoother. And
| it's not cut with circular saws so I have no idea what
| you're referring to there.
| oblio wrote:
| Poured asphalt, then.
|
| And it doesn't hurt to plant more trees. American cities,
| especially in the South, seem to be utterly allergic to
| trees. Which makes even less sense in hot climates.
|
| Or huge billboards. Lack of general greenery and hedges
| to block noise. Stroads. I could go on an on. The average
| built environment in US cities and suburbs is awful and
| again, cheap.
| azan_ wrote:
| Whatever sensible measure you can imagine, it's most
| likely very strongly correlated with gdp
| oblio wrote:
| At some point they diverge, otherwise we wouldn't have
| Karnataka and the US sitting where they are for HDI
| rankings.
| theamk wrote:
| When I moved from country where I had to use public
| transit to a country where I could drive, my happiness
| (re transportation) increased by a large amount.
|
| I am not sure how this relates to the whole "public
| transit vs cars" argument though.
| tuna74 wrote:
| Where was this place where you could not drive? I don't
| know of any such place.
| balfirevic wrote:
| Even in cities with good public transit, it will not take
| me home at 3 AM, with possibly few exceptions like New
| York.
| smus wrote:
| Even in cities with good public transit, it will not take
| me home at 3 AM, with possibly few exceptions like cities
| that have good public transit.
| robocat wrote:
| > Self-driving cars are cool but I'd rather have good
| public transit
|
| False dichotomy.
|
| Good public transport would be self driving cars as a
| feeder network to mass transit _once_ the self driving
| tech is cheap enough.
|
| It could only work well as work habits change to stop
| having peak hours (peak usage for low-utilization self-
| driving cars doesn't seem likely to be economical).
| ghaff wrote:
| For many of us "good public transit" would make zero
| difference in our daily lives in the US. We just don't
| live somewhere that there will realistically be a bus
| stop or train stop within easy walking distance. I'm not
| even a long drive from a train station but it's
| absolutely unworkable as transportation for most purposes
| aside from going into the big city 9-5.
| bsder wrote:
| > Self-driving cars are cool but I'd rather have good
| public transit.
|
| Last mile is a PITA in the US. It is difficult to take
| the train from San Diego northward if you don't get there
| at 7AM because the parking will fill up.
|
| At some point, Waymo can cross over into replacing a
| personal car for the last mile task. Right now, it's a
| bit expensive: $20/ride _2 ride /day _ 5 days/week * 50
| weeks = $10,000 per year. Purchasing your own car still
| makes more sense. If that were $1,000 per year? No
| brainer--I'd dump my car in a heartbeat.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| You sound young and naive
| ghushn3 wrote:
| Why? Why is not "everyone has access" and "wellbeing for
| everyone" the reward for inventing the future?
|
| Why is "that person gets to be extraordinarily wealthy" for
| inventing the future rather than "we all chipped in so we
| could all benefit" for inventing the future?
|
| If Waymos make the world better and safer and more
| convenient, why are they not simply something we figure out
| how to make a public good?
|
| In Star Trek you didn't have to pay to take the turbolift
| or transporter around large spaces, everyone got the
| benefits of the technology.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > Why is "that person gets to be extraordinarily wealthy"
| for inventing the future rather than "we all chipped in
| so we could all benefit" for inventing the future?
|
| Well obviously we want a lot of the benefit to be the
| latter. But if you don't have some of the former, then
| almost no multi-billion-dollar-cost inventions get made
| in the first place.
| ghushn3 wrote:
| Yuri Gagarin was the first man in orbit, and that was
| absolutely a multi-billion dollar invention.
|
| Alan Turing didn't pursue his ideas because he wanted to
| get wealth beyond imagining.
|
| Mondragon makes billions of dollars annually, and
| strongly limits executive pay.
|
| I think it's very reasonable to assume that we can, we
| have historically, and currently do, make multi-billion
| dollar investments for the good of all. The idea that it
| requires some profit incentive is, imo, a pernicious
| falsehood.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > Yuri Gagarin was the first man in orbit, and that was
| absolutely a multi-billion dollar invention.
|
| That was government-funded. Most projects aren't that
| lucky. And are any governments funding self-driving cars?
|
| > Alan Turing didn't pursue his ideas because he wanted
| to get wealth beyond imagining.
|
| I said multi billion dollar cost. Not multi billion
| dollar benefit. He's not an example.
|
| > Mondragon makes billions of dollars annually, and
| strongly limits executive pay.
|
| Have they made any inventions that required a billion
| dollars or more? Ten billion?
|
| But you saying "makes billions" is exactly what I'm
| talking about. It's great that they don't pay a lot of
| money to executives and the workers own things. But the
| company invested money and the company profited. It
| didn't all go to making the world a better place.
|
| You avoid particularly wealthy people when a coop can
| self-fund, but the coop is still trying to profit off the
| result of the research. And if a risky research project
| ever can't be self-funded, then whatever/whoever makes
| the loan might make a huge profit. If that incentive
| isn't there, the loan doesn't happen and the research
| doesn't happen.
|
| > I think it's very reasonable to assume that we can, we
| have historically, and currently do, make multi-billion
| dollar investments for the good of all. The idea that it
| requires some profit incentive is, imo, a pernicious
| falsehood.
|
| It doesn't _require_ it, but if you make it possible to
| profit off research then you end up with much more money
| spent on research.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| There is plenty of competition coming to hold prices down.
| KPGv2 wrote:
| In my experience, most price increases are in labor-intensive
| industries. Construction, etc.
|
| Compare with tech, which is what a Waymo is like: computers,
| TVs, etc are _insanely_ cheap compared to their equivalents
| in the past.
|
| I had to point out to a Gen Zer complaining about how video
| game companies keep jacking up prices ("this game for the
| Switch is $80!") by pointing out that when you adjusted for
| inflation, a Super Nintendo game cost over $100 in today's
| money.
| oblio wrote:
| What do you think is happening, now that the hyper scalers
| stopped growing by more than 20-30% per year? We're just
| entering the maturity stage of the tech world. 10-20 years
| from now all these subscriptions will reach and exceed
| cable levels.
| kelnos wrote:
| Well it depends on their competition and what the market will
| bear. If they have competitors with a similar-quality product
| that is undercutting them on price, Waymo will have to lower
| prices to compete.
|
| And regardless, there's always a ceiling when it comes to
| what people will pay. In the case of a robotaxi there's of
| course significant marginal cost to expand the fleet of
| vehicles, but if they can make more money with more cars at a
| lower price point (than fewer cars at a higher price point),
| then they'll do so.
| oblio wrote:
| > If they have competitors with a similar-quality product
| that is undercutting them on price, Waymo will have to
| lower prices to compete.
|
| Oligopoly, cartels, huge barriers to entry into the market.
|
| I appreciate your optimism in the free market for a domain
| where you have to spend tens of billions of dollars to even
| enter it
| harmmonica wrote:
| We're far from them doing it, but I have to imagine at some
| point Waymo, assuming they survive, will operate similar to
| Uber and Lyft in terms of pricing vs vehicle type. They have to
| realize how critical consistency-of-ride is so I'm not
| suggesting they'll have tons of options, but they will "have
| to" tier their offering lest someone else comes along (assuming
| the tech becomes more widespread) and offers a tier they don't
| offer. At the least I would think they'll end up with a base
| ride (like an Ioniq or even something extremely basic), an
| Ioniq or Ioniq+ type in the middle and then some kind of
| larger, more luxurious option. I mean this as it relates to
| rideshare because I'm sure Waymo has had plenty of internal
| conversations about the various verticals they can eventually
| operate (shipping, mass transit, etc.).
| Animats wrote:
| There's a larger Ioniq 9. But the real future is probably a
| 2-seater with no steering wheel. That handles most usage.
| kelnos wrote:
| This makes lots of sense to me. A 2-seater is often a hard
| sell for a private owner (even one with no kids), but I'd
| bet the majority (or at least a plurality) of taxi/ride-
| share trips are for one or two people.
| harmmonica wrote:
| That's really interesting because I hadn't actually thought
| about that in-depth before. I think Tesla's robotaxi
| prototype was even a 2-seater. My knee-jerk reaction to
| your comment was "no, 2 seater won't happen because the
| incremental cost of the additional seats and doors is
| immaterial to the overall cost of the car."
|
| But then thinking more about it I thought of how great we
| (all the people who like Waymo) think it performs around
| bikes and pedestrians. So now I agree with you
| directionally but you might not be taking it far enough.
| Once (if?) autonomous vehicles rule the road, and they're
| known to be safe, the future will likely be the broad
| spectrum from autonomous buses (on the large side) to
| super-cheap, bike-like vehicles (on the small side) that
| cost way less than a car. For a single occupant, if you
| knew another vehicle wasn't going to kill you, wouldn't you
| take an e-bike (with a cover and basket on it?) for short
| trips if the fee was proportionate to the cost of the
| vehicle? I would. Assumes lidar shrinks I guess and that
| automated kickstands are a thing, but that seems tractable
| in the years to come.
| sagarm wrote:
| Bike share programs already exist and are pretty popular
| in NYC. Self driving doesn't really seem necessary at
| that scale.
| harmmonica wrote:
| Can you expand on that? Why is it that a vehicle being
| bigger vs smaller is the distinction? I'm one person but
| I care about some combo of money/time/distance/comfort.
| If I could get a cheaper ride from say Houston up to the
| park rather than having to drive it myself the value prop
| to me is the same--I don't have to drive. Heck if the
| seat on the bike was comfortable enough like a laid-back
| sport seat in a car I might choose the bike at the same
| price point because it would be more fun (again this
| assumes I "know" it's safe).
| crazygringo wrote:
| That's actually a really interesting question. Because it's
| not necessarily about handling _most_ usage, but also about
| handling _peak_ usage. Is it worth the cost to keep
| everything 4-seater if that means they can all enter
| "carpool mode" whenever required at times of peak demand?
|
| Because once they become ubiquitous, I suspect the vast
| majority will be operating in carpool mode at rush hour.
| Most people won't be willing to pay 4x to get a private
| vehicle if they're by themselves. Especially since the more
| vehicles there are, the more efficient carpool mode becomes
| for everyone.
| sagarm wrote:
| My impression is that the shared ride options on
| Lyft/Uber only give a small discount and see little
| usage. Sharing rides is only more difficult and less
| attractive for Waymo users, who won't have a third party
| to buffer interactions.
| crazygringo wrote:
| The price depends on a _lot_ of factors. And there are
| many factors that can turn it into a large discount. And
| the larger the fleet is, the less difficult it becomes.
|
| Of course it's less attractive at the _same_ price, but
| if it 's cheaper enough it becomes _more_ attractive for
| the average rider. And we can even imagine cities
| implementing single rider surcharges at rush hour to keep
| traffic running smoothly.
|
| Rush hour will be a bottleneck. So _something_ has to be
| done, and it will involve trading off price and
| convenience. Whether it 's carpool mode or self-driving
| buses or likely a combination of the two.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I figure the real future will be 2-3x 2-seater separate
| soundproof bubble domes per car.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Or a 4-seater with two rear facing seats. The design space
| gets bigger quickly once you no longer have to account for
| a driver and their field of vision, especially if the cars
| usually travel at city speeds where aerodynamics don't
| matter as much.
| Muromec wrote:
| It's not critical if you will still pay for shit service
| especially if competitors are like that too.
| autobodie wrote:
| $23.66/hour in Savannah, GA in 2025 is a starvation wage.
| Savannah has a bad housing squeeze with very few apartments and
| they still cost nearly $2K/mo when you find them. God bless
| those poor souls.
| strictnein wrote:
| Savannah's COL is 22% below the national average. $23.66/hr
| starting pay plus benefits definitely isn't a "starvation
| wage".
| turtlesdown11 wrote:
| > In Chatham County, the living wage per hour necessary for
| one adult with no children is $22.46 while those with one
| kid is $35.70, two kids is $43.45, and three kids is
| $56.93.
|
| https://www.savannahnow.com/story/news/2024/12/09/what-
| is-a-...
| strictnein wrote:
| So the entry level job at the factory is a living wage
| for the area it's in. Sounds like that's what people have
| been asking for?
| kelnos wrote:
| So that's fine then? A family of four with both parents
| working at $23.66/hr each is $3.87/hr above that level.
|
| Unless you're saying "starvation wage" and "living wage"
| are the same thing, which I don't think is a reasonable
| characterization.
|
| Only problem is if they decide to have a third kid, or if
| you have a single parent with one or more kids. And while
| I get that unforeseen things happen to people that lower
| their wages after they already have their kids, I'm also
| tired of people becoming parents without considering the
| financial aspects ahead of time. If you're making minimum
| wage and are barely surviving, don't have kids until
| you're on steadier ground.
| autobodie wrote:
| > _I 'm also tired of people becoming parents without
| considering the financial aspects ahead of time. If
| you're making minimum wage and are barely surviving,
| don't have kids until you're on steadier ground._
|
| Young is abolutely the best age to have kids. Ask
| biology.
|
| If you want a society (I do) then you want a society that
| supports people having children.
|
| If you want a healthy society (I do) then you want a
| society that supports people having children at a young
| age.
| joshSzep wrote:
| I've been thinking about how modern family structures
| seem increasingly misaligned with what our biology and
| history may have prepared us for. It seems likely that
| nature "intended" families to be multigenerational,
| larger clan-like units linked by shared responsibility,
| proximity, and care.
|
| Modern norms have instead left many parents effectively
| on their own, juggling full-time work with full-time
| childcare. If multigenerational living were normalized,
| the retired could help raise the kids while the working
| adults focus on providing. That setup allows for more
| quality time rather than burnout.
|
| This isn't anecdotal. I didn't grow up in a household
| like that. But the research supports it:
|
| 1. Older adults living with younger generations
| experience less loneliness, better mental health, and
| even longer lifespans. 2. Multigenerational households
| are more financially resilient, less likely to live in
| poverty, and able to share housing, food, and caregiving
| costs. 3. Children benefit cognitively and emotionally
| from regular grandparent involvement. 4.
| Multigenerational setups enable parents to stay in the
| workforce while providing more consistent and affordable
| childcare. 5. Families in these homes report stronger
| relationships and better intergenerational understanding.
|
| Of course there are challenges. Privacy, space, and
| generational conflict are real. But with today's social
| isolation, rising living costs, and aging demographics,
| we might want to normalize this kind of household again.
|
| Maybe the future isn't just smarter cities or more
| automation, but rethinking how we live together.
|
| ---
|
| *Sources:*
|
| 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9876343/
| 2. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-
| trends/2022/03/24/the-inc... 3. https://academic.oup.com/
| psychsocgerontology/article/75/6/12... 4. https://www.gu.
| org/app/uploads/2021/03/FamilyMatters2021.pdf 5.
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db255.pdf
| Exoristos wrote:
| "Modern norms" often just means individuals being myopic
| jackasses.
| derwiki wrote:
| I guess? The town my parents settled in was doing well
| when they moved there. 15 years later when I was born, it
| and all the surrounding towns were clearly in decline.
| Today, friends that have stuck around say it's not safe
| to walk around because of the meth.
|
| They also didn't have jobs for programmers, so I moved to
| where they did.
| tuna74 wrote:
| Or you could just have really good public childcare and
| after/before school programs for kids up to 10 years.
| jogjayr wrote:
| Speaking from experience, both are necessary. Public
| childcare and afterschool programs aren't a replacement
| for quality time with grandparents. They also don't cover
| weekends or evenings like grandparents can do.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| While I agree, you've gone _way_ off topic now, though.
| Because supporting them would be... something like a job
| that pays $23.66 per hour.
| djrj477dhsnv wrote:
| We have plenty of people in the world. We'd be a whole
| lot better off if more people waited until they're
| financially stable before having children.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| There are some child care costs for two working adults,
| so the calculator wants about 15% more money in that
| case, but yes it says that wage is roughly enough for two
| adults and two children.
| gruez wrote:
| "Living wage" in that report isn't "starvation wage",
| though. For the housing component for instance, they use
| 40 percentile rents. The methodology page isn't too clear
| about how they determine the next highest cost component
| (transportation), but it looks like they also use the
| median cost for used cars. The "living wage" might not
| correspond to a luxurious experience, but it's nowhere
| near destitute, either.
| autobodie wrote:
| It's literally called a "living" wage, and I guarantee
| you in reality it's nothing more than that, if even. Life
| tends to always have unexpected costs. I shouldn't need
| to tell anybody that, including you.
| gruez wrote:
| >It's literally called a "living" wage, and I guarantee
| you in reality it's nothing more than that
|
| Did you read the methodology page or even my comment? I
| made specific objections with the methodology and you
| didn't even address them.
|
| >Life tends to always have unexpected costs. I shouldn't
| need to tell anybody that, including you.
|
| I shouldn't have to tell you that if you read the
| methodology page, you'd see there's a specific category
| for "Other necessities" and "Civic engagement" (whatever
| that means), and I'm not objecting to those categories.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > it's nothing more than that, if even
|
| How do you characterize the poverty line, since it's much
| much lower?
|
| The entire point of the term "living wage" is that it's
| _fine_. Yes including the ability to save up for
| unexpected costs.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Indeed. The independently calculated Living Wage in my
| country (as opposed to the government's "Living Wage"
| which is just a minimum wage law with better branding) is
| actually very slightly higher than my average annual
| expenditure when I last checked.
|
| Most people wouldn't want to live like me (I don't drink,
| I don't holiday abroad, I don't have kids, or expensive
| hobbies), but I prefer this. Also, some of the
| discrepancy is explained by the annoying "Being poor is
| expensive" where I can make choices that are cheaper over
| the long term but would be ruinously expensive for a poor
| person.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Most factory workers are non-exempt employees and are
| eligible for overtime pay.
|
| And the Hyundai Metaplant is not in Savannah itself.
| turtlesdown11 wrote:
| The living wage says its right on the edge for the savannah
| area.
|
| > In Chatham County, the living wage per hour necessary for
| one adult with no children is $22.46
|
| https://www.savannahnow.com/story/news/2024/12/09/what-
| is-a-...
| barchar wrote:
| I bet they will try and expand service area over expanding
| inventory. It's very expensive to keep cars in reserve for peak
| times, Uber gets around this by offloading the cost onto their
| drivers, but waymo will need to be able to pull cars from
| nearby areas.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| jags and ioniqs are a midway stop for sure. there's no need to
| have a seat you can't use with a steering wheel and windows
| that are not totally blacked out. the final product would
| probably resemble something closer to Cruise One concept.
| notatoad wrote:
| the next step has already been announced. the holdup is
| regulatory approval for less-conventional vehicles.
|
| https://insideevs.com/photos/802937/waymo-zeekr-
| robotaxi/#69...
| dilyevsky wrote:
| Yeah I know about Geely and under current circumstances I
| categorize this as "never gonna happen". There's probably
| better chance of partnering with GM at this point...
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Why would they even entertain the idea of even talking to
| a Chinese OEM. This is obviously very important
| technology and Google must know the Chinese history of IP
| theft. They are not in the Chinese market because of
| this!
|
| Zeeker must have given them such an unbelievable deal
| that Google couldn't pass it up. Either that or the other
| OEMs have really soured on them. I always thought the
| idea of OEMs being reduced to generic white label badges
| while companies like Waymo make all the profit on the
| future of "on demand" transportation is not appealing to
| them. Companies like GM tried to cut Waymo out by buying
| Cruise but it hasn't worked out. I guess if the stock
| price of one of these OEMs falls enough, maybe Waymo can
| just buy them out but do they really want to take on that
| obligation?
| notatoad wrote:
| i don't beleive that waymo is letting zeekr have any IP -
| the plan is to buy dumb vehicles and upfit them.
| derektank wrote:
| Is any of the hardware on a Waymo vehicle proprietary to
| Waymo? I had sort of assumed they used off the shelf
| LIDAR and sensors from other manufacturers, and that
| their secret sauce was entirely in the software. If
| that's the case, I don't think there would be any risk of
| IP loss.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| What's expensive about operating a Waymo? Do the capital costs
| exceed that of the driver's salary?
| 1024core wrote:
| The other day I almost got ran over by an old lady in her old
| Volvo wagon at a stop sign. She seemed to have gotten confused
| a little and was turning left but couldn't figure out the right
| move to make. People behind her honked and she decided to just
| go for it. I happened to be in the crosswalk and just happened
| to look over at the honking, and saw her coming, so managed to
| jump out of her way.
|
| She was easily over 90, if not over 95.
|
| People like her could really benefit from a personal Waymo.
| Just sell a car with FSD built in, at the level of a Waymo, and
| bam! That would make so many senior citizens' lives easier!
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| Why sell a car when you can charge per ride?
| 1024core wrote:
| Supply. There may not be enough Waymos sitting around to
| satisfy all of the demand at a point in time.
| sagarm wrote:
| It's not so much "why sell the car" but more "who is going
| to buy this car?" Plus, without maintenance the self-
| driving capability will probably degrade and become unsafe.
| jgerrish wrote:
| Well, you wouldn't have to sell the car. You could also
| setup a licensing / loan / dedicated car system.
|
| It would work well for local municipalities that want to
| provide low-cost door-to-door service for the elderly.
|
| We have a bus service here, The ART, and a dedicates
| "paratransit" bus service that provides door-to-door
| service to eligible riders.
|
| And a couple private large-scale developed and managed
| neighborhoods that have driverless non-automated (remote
| controlled) transit systems.
|
| If you know a large portion of your riders have
| disabilities, dedicated buses or vans make sense.
|
| I'm sitting here advocating for this, and it's a great
| service that I'm glad they have it for those in need, and
| yet I need fucking plywood for hurricanes myself.
|
| Yeah, it is Florida. But honestly, the transit system here
| and bike infrastructure development and traffic planning is
| good.
| tacocataco wrote:
| > You could also setup a licensing / loan / dedicated car
| system.
|
| I think the word you were searching for is leasing the
| vehicle.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the word you were searching for is leasing the
| vehicle_
|
| Car leasing tends to be time based. A self-driving car
| may depreciate more like an airplane, based on miles
| driven.
| wileydragonfly wrote:
| Hell, it'll make MY life easier. Can't wait for the day where
| I can do whatever the hell I want while my car drives itself.
| Affluent seniors that shouldn't be driving are an obvious
| market and it would have been helpful for those in my life,
| too.
| kanbara wrote:
| this is 10000% the wrong approach-- the approach is to build
| better, more walkable cities, with better zoning, and public
| transit so elderly or disabled people aren't left out of
| society.
|
| these people shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car; to me
| one of the biggest annoyances with american life
| happyopossum wrote:
| So tear down every city in the country and rebuild them all
| from scratch, then force the ~45% of people that don't live
| in those cities to move there.
|
| And that's better than mandating a small percentage of the
| population use FSD cars?
|
| Not sure I like the autocratic tone of that plan
| ghushn3 wrote:
| This is a pretty uncharitable read of the parent poster.
| Many cities are upzoning, which means that corridors are
| being torn down and built more densely. During those
| times, we're seeing a lot more mixed use, walkable and
| bikeable spaces introduced. In Seattle we're seeing
| streets being closed and lanes being removed to support
| biking and walking.
|
| You can make walkable enclaves neighborhood by
| neighborhood. And those sites are _really_ desirable.
| Especially near transit. The right approach is to build
| more like this until there 's no one left who wants to
| live there and cannot. For the remaining folks who have
| no interest in it, sure, they can have automated cars.
|
| But right now the line is out the door for this sort of
| place and we cannot build them fast enough.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > This is a pretty uncharitable read of the parent
| poster.
|
| Which is pretty fair because the parent poster was using
| a very uncharitable read of what they were replying to.
| 10000% the wrong approach, really?
| hn_go_brrrrr wrote:
| My father can barely walk a block before he needs to sit
| and rest. Your plan would not work for him. A more walkable
| city would be great for me, someone who can walk well. Him?
| Nope.
| abenga wrote:
| Another aim of walkable cities is many amenities you need
| being within that one block.
| specialist wrote:
| So roughly the distance from the car to the store's
| entrance.
|
| In a neighborhood like Culdesac Mesa AZ, your father
| could downsize to an electric scooter. And maybe meet his
| neighbors.
| icelancer wrote:
| Between inventing better FSD cars and rezoning cities /
| completely upending urban lifestyles, I think the first one
| has a better < 100 year time horizon while we push for the
| second one.
| Animats wrote:
| Waymo and Toyota have a deal to do just that.[1]
|
| [1] https://waymo.com/blog/2025/04/waymo-and-toyota-outline-
| stra...
| oytis wrote:
| People are eager to pay money to not deal with other people.
| Which makes me pessimistic about the future of humanity given
| recent developments in AI really
| yusina wrote:
| Well it's not just the talking or otherwise awkward
| interactions. It's also smells and generally being in a
| person's personal space. Let's face it, sitting in a car, you
| physically get closer to the driver than you'd normally be
| comfortable with in an open, unrestricted space. And the car is
| closed too. You are essentially forced to be in their personal
| space. Not so with a driverless car.
| ghaff wrote:
| I question that as a general statement if the "other people"
| are competent, clean, and polite. That's not to say I won't do
| something online if it's lower friction than going into a DMV
| office or whatever. Though I don't really do online food
| delivery in general, I'm perfectly happy going to a number of
| local restaurants.
| oytis wrote:
| Other people are different, that's the thing, while AI is
| generally predictable quality, and it's not going to go down.
| Autonomous driving is just one example, I really think it's a
| general pattern
| JadeNB wrote:
| > AI is generally predictable quality, and it's not going
| to go down.
|
| "Not going to go down" does not seem consistent with the
| way other tech trends have developed: magical at first,
| then subject to endless churn to seem dynamic and reduced
| quality, increased costs, or both as it becomes harder to
| squeeze out additional revenue.
| kelnos wrote:
| If I could be 100% certain that every Uber/Lyft driver I
| encounter would give me a perfect "social" experience (where
| "perfect" varies for me depending on the day), I'd choose it
| over Waymo at the same price. But of course that's
| unreasonable and impossible to expect. So for a comparable
| price and wait/drive time I'll pretty much always pick Waymo.
|
| It does make me sad to some extent; I do enjoy interacting
| with people working service jobs in my neighborhood, people I
| see on a regular basis and who recognize me. But I don't
| think that's ever going to be the case for me for something
| like a taxi/rideshare driver.
| ghaff wrote:
| When I take a booked private car back and forth to the
| airport (about an hour) I don't really have an issue.
| Sometimes the driver is chattier. Sometimes I'm chattier.
| Probably (likely) more expensive than an Uber would be but
| 100% reliable even at zero-dark-thirty times. Never had a
| real issue of any sort.
| kelnos wrote:
| Uber Black provides a similar experience, or at least it
| used to (haven't used it in many years). I think it's a
| matter of having professional drivers, where there's an
| expectation that their customer/client isn't there to
| socialize, and their job is to drive, and that's it. It's
| more of a "high class" thing, for lack of a better term.
|
| (IIRC when Uber first started, before UberX, their driver
| pool was essentially just this sort: people who drove for
| private car services.)
| ghaff wrote:
| Shared van services got ridiculous sometimes and then I
| had a couple of incidents related to driving/parking at
| the airport (like a 10pm cold weather flat). So I just
| started using a car service at a new job (I think) and
| the company never flinched. Now--especially as I'm
| usually taking longer but fewer air trips even if it's
| usually on my own nickel these days--just keep doing so.
| ironman1478 wrote:
| Waymos are more pleasant to be in and people value comfort.
| I've had many Uber drivers who love to speed, which can be
| terrifying in SF. The bus can be a real crapshoot with who's on
| it. The bus also can take forever depending on where you start
| and where you need to go. The service that waymo provides is
| just on average better.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| I've had many violent and borderline reckless drivers in my
| time in Poland. In the end, taking the tram was much safer
| and less stressful.
| zuminator wrote:
| It could be that a particular segment of the population prefers
| the privacy and is willing to pay accordingly, while other
| segments of the population don't mind the social interaction,
| or at least are not willing to pay for its absence.
|
| Kind of how like some people greatly prefer WFH, whereas other
| people like the social interaction of being in a shared working
| environment.
|
| From my perspective, having the choice of whether to ride with
| a driver or not is a good thing.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > People are eager to pay money to not deal with other people
|
| I wonder if it's cultural. For instance I always hear how Japan
| has a lot of vending machines and am wondering if it's just
| pure tech advancement and efficiency at work, maybe lack of
| space to open a proper kiosk with a seller, or there is a
| cultural element of not wanting to "inconvenience" others
| having to interact with them.
| ghaff wrote:
| Japan does have a lot of vending machines. Maybe less
| vandalism in Japanese cities?
|
| But they also have a lot of staffed convenience stores
| (typically 7-Eleven) that are generally better than the
| random chain convenience store in the US (often in a gas
| station).
|
| Don't know the history.
| xdfgh1112 wrote:
| One is low crime rate, vending machines even in major cities
| do not get vandalised or broken into. The other is Japan's
| massive focus on convenience.
|
| I don't think lack of space is the issue. Combinis are
| everywhere but you'll still see vending machines in most
| parking lots and laundromats.
|
| Tech advancement is also relevant. I believe Japan invented
| vending machines that serve hot and cold drinks
| simultaneously and they adjust with the seasons. They
| invented improved ways of loading the cans and spend a lot of
| effot on the design and art, there are even vending machine
| exclusive drinks etc.
| quonn wrote:
| Given how Japan works in general I bet it's the latter. It's
| a great country to travel and eat alone, for example.
| kelnos wrote:
| For Japan I expect it's also a matter of population/crowd
| density in the cities. There are tons of staffed convenience
| stores (7-Eleven, Family Mart, Lawson), but even with a high
| density of stores, they're often fairly crowded.
|
| Having lots of vending machines even for simple things like
| bottled water and soft drinks reduces the pressure on the
| convenience stores quite a bit. More advanced vending
| machines with other products helps even more.
| fhd2 wrote:
| People who like Waymo (and those who hang out on HN) are
| probably to a good degree neuro diverse, so I wouldn't write
| off humanity just yet. My experience with the majority of
| people is that they do like interacting with humans. I guess
| that's why we still have stores, restaurants and _gasp_ offices
| when, technically speaking, there hasn 't been too much of a
| need for any of these things for about two decades now.
| seydor wrote:
| people love other people; but transactions bring out the worst
| in people
| flowerbard wrote:
| Threads like these remind me that Hacker News posters and my
| friends are two completely different types of people.
|
| We don't mind rideshare at all.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| this is true, but people are also eager to pay nothing, so I'm
| not sure how much "generalizations about products" are worth
| harmmonica wrote:
| As a Waymo-booster on HN for a while now, here's my latest
| anecdote. I tried to figure out how to take Waymo to LAX even
| though it's not actually in their territory yet just because I
| value the experience so much. I was borderline going to take it
| within walking distance (about half a mile), but got lazy at the
| last minute. I took Lyft instead, and, as if the universe cursed
| my laziness, I booked a "comfort" car for $3 more than the base
| level Lyft. At first I was going to get a Tesla Model Y to take
| me, but that cancelled. Instead, what must have been a first
| generation Honda Pilot picked me up, suspension creaking and
| muffler that had seen better days. Did Lyft recognize what they
| sent instead of the "comfort" they promised and therefore charge
| me $3 less? Of course not. When I tried to contact customer
| service I ran into what I'm sure plenty of HN people have, which
| is a dead end where you report the issue and they
| (programmatically?) adjudicate the complaint on the spot. Their
| determination? I wasn't entitled to a $3 refund. Ironic that the
| rideshare app with human drivers doesn't allow me to contact
| their customer service whereas Waymo has no problem with it
| (yeah, yeah, I get it, "we'll see once they reach a huge scale."
| But today the experience is so much better than Uber or Lyft that
| while it lasts I will bask in its driverless glory).
| duxup wrote:
| Uber has done that to me. You pick a class but what you get
| seems unrelated.
|
| I need more space for luggage and such and ... some "mid-sized"
| SUV picks me up that has about as much space a regular sedan
| anyway ... often the same type of vehicle that picked me up the
| previous day as a regular vehicle.
| jghn wrote:
| I believe they bin vehicles by available seating and not by
| things like luggage.
| Jubijub wrote:
| +1 So you may get say a 7 seater where the seats are folded
| in the trunk, so you can carry 7 people XOR 5 people +
| light suitcases
|
| There is no option to say "send me a mini van"
| duxup wrote:
| Agreed. I want van.
| kaonwarb wrote:
| There is a newer option that is closer to that - "Uber
| XXL." (https://www.uber.com/newsroom/airport-travel/)
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| ...XOR?
|
| So it can carry the 2 extra people, it can carry some
| luggage, it can't carry both, and _it can 't carry
| neither_?
| dgoldstein0 wrote:
| ^ Pedant detected
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I suppose, but I only responded because they went _out of
| their way_ to say xor, and put it in all caps too.
| TheDong wrote:
| XOR in common programmer speech is ambiguously used to
| mean XOR or NAND, so I think their use of XOR was
| casually correct, while not technically correct.
|
| While NAND is technically correct, it's just not commonly
| used as a grammatical conjunction.
| bee_rider wrote:
| It is?
|
| I thought it was just used for, like, a couple jokes that
| you get from "intro to digital logic" class. The joke is
| funnier if it is correct, I think.
| freedomben wrote:
| This may be among common programmers who don't deal with
| any bit twiddling or low-level stuff, but having worked
| on embedded and also on network stack stuff, it is
| certainly not the case there. Using the wrong term there
| will at best confuse your colleagues, at worst result in
| a logic error in the code, and a potentially nasty one at
| that depending on how common the low-low case is.
| seb1204 wrote:
| Book a maxi-cab or a dedicated airport transfer service.
| pureagave wrote:
| I paid extra and scheduled an Uber with a child seat. After
| waiting 30 minutes, when the car showed up, there was no car
| seat so the driver canceled right away and drove off. Lesson
| learned.
| booi wrote:
| It's also impossible to book an Uber with 2 child seats so,
| i guess i'm effed then.
| liveoneggs wrote:
| search "mifold grab and go booster" on amazon
| freddie_mercury wrote:
| Uber operates in 71 countries. That booster seat is
| available in 1 country. So it solves 1.4% of the problem.
|
| Also that's a booster seat, not a child care seat, so
| can't be used if your kids are under 4.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| Assuming 71 countries of equal Uber using population.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| And assuming that even if you want it you'd be too lazy
| to cross ship.
| chgs wrote:
| That does not look like a legal child seat
| ryandrake wrote:
| I'm pretty sure by now the various "classes" of service
| offered by Lyft and Uber are instead just ways for the
| customer to donate money to Lyft and Uber. There's no
| difference in what kind of yahoo shows up in what kind of
| beater.
| phil21 wrote:
| I pretty much just use it to book black cars these days -
| at least in my local city where those require licensed
| livery drivers. Good experience there for the most part.
| Most of the time I'm using Uber it's either a business
| expense to the airport or I'm booking for a large party
| anyways.
|
| That and I guess UberXL - otherwise it's pretty fungible.
|
| The interesting bit is that black is often pretty much
| the same price a UberX about a third of the time.
| seb1204 wrote:
| What does "licensed driver" mean? The driver has a valid
| driving licence?
| franticgecko3 wrote:
| Assuming OP is in the UK, they're talking about hackney
| carriages which are subject to more stringent regulation
| than other private hire vehicles
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackney_carriage
|
| I think this would be similar to the medallions of yellow
| NYC cabs
| tialaramex wrote:
| It won't be a full-blown Hackney license, Hackney
| licensing is because unlike these "ride sharing" apps and
| what the UK would call a "mini cab" service, which
| require only a "public hire" license - the Hackney
| license authorises you to literally pick up strangers on
| the street, which was of course a completely normal way
| to use a taxi in a major city decades ago and is still
| somewhat common at say airports. That's what the glowing
| "Taxi" sign on the roof is for.
|
| This needs more driver quality insight because e.g.
| passenger gets in your vehicle, you drive them to some
| secluded spot and their body is found the next morning -
| there's no records for murder cops to start from, unless
| there was a witness there may not even be a description
| of your vehicle. The UK has had this happen, but it's
| very rare because the sort of person likely to escalate
| to murder is not going to get licensed.
|
| In contrast a mini-cab or Uber-style driver has records
| of who was dispatched to pick up somebody, where they
| were picked up etc. So if you take to murdering your
| fares the murder detectives will show up at your door
| with company records implicating you.
| prmoustache wrote:
| It varies a lot by country.
|
| In my experience in west europe, booking a uber XL you
| usually get a full size van (vw caravelle/multivan,
| Mercedes v-class or a bigger Renault Trafic) with usually
| 7 to available seats.
|
| Booking a uberXL in Mexico City gets you a miniSUV with
| only 4 available seats and if you get too much checked
| luggage it goes on a roof rack.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| Same here. To alter-quote The Simpsons, "My eyes! The classes
| do nothing!"
|
| Shortly after pandemic, I noticed "corridor fees" on vastly
| different routes which, mysteriously, bumped-up the price by
| the same percentage across each route--but only after the
| ride had completed. The price I was quoted was not remotely
| close to the price I was charged.
|
| I did the customer service messaging thing. The first time,
| they removed it. The second and third time, they declined to
| remove it.
|
| I now "decline" riding Uber unless there's no other option.
| johnfn wrote:
| As much as I love to hate on Uber and Lyft, tacked on fees
| like this are often due to state / federal government, and
| the rideshare service hands are tied. Uber tags on a very
| long list of random fees when I Uber out of SFO, but when I
| investigated them, they were all random taxes from the city
| / state.
|
| If they want to jack up the prices they can just increase
| them - they don't need to add random fees.
| deepsun wrote:
| SFO is not really municipal. It's a private commercial
| property.
|
| If we don't like we can choose a competitor /s
| literalAardvark wrote:
| The main problem here is that the stated and billed sums
| were much different.
|
| Sure the state and Uber can add whatever fee they like.
| But not after I accept the ride.
| nottorp wrote:
| Not knowing what you'll pay for something until the
| moment you actually pay is considered normal only in the
| US.
|
| Where I am, Uber shows a price, I pay that price.
| Whatever fees are included is not my problem.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| My core concern was the amount charged differed greatly
| than the amount quoted by not by any intra-route traffic
| or temporary circumstance, and it was the same percentage
| across all three rides. This also occurred in 3 different
| parts of the U.S. during the same few months.
|
| Additionally, these municipal fees are fixed so if that
| were the case, Uber would know about them in advance, be
| label them as such, and/or fold them into the quoted
| price.
| taneq wrote:
| Uber seems wilfully deceptive in so many ways. The initial
| listing of rides including details of vehicles and prices,
| which looks like an actual offer, but the app then goes off
| to try and find something similar. Try being a shop, selling
| someone an item and then going out back to rummage around and
| see if you actually have anything like what you sold. And
| then the 'fixed price' you agreed on gets arbitrarily changed
| on half the trips if traffic gets worse or the driver takes a
| different route. If I book a trip from the airport, the
| airport's charge for rideshare lane usage isn't an
| "unanticipated expense". It's just skeezy.
| jopsen wrote:
| $3 isn't this kind of a small problem?
|
| I miss rideshare service, in Denmark we have mess of expensive
| high quality taxis that you cannot get hold of when you need
| one.
| harmmonica wrote:
| I'm not sure I'm reading you correctly, but if you mean it's
| a small problem because $3 isn't much money then, heck yes,
| it's a microscopic problem (is there something smaller than
| microscopic because if so then it's whatever that thing is)!
| But I didn't bring it up to complain about the $3 per se. I
| can elaborate, but I'm not sure if that's what you were
| specifically referring to or if I'm misunderstanding your
| question.
| georgemcbay wrote:
| > $3 isn't this kind of a small problem?
|
| Its the principle, not the size of the cost. If a company
| with good customer service accidentally overcharged me $200
| but I could call someone and have it fixed easily that would
| set me off far less than a company that screwed me out of $1
| who has shit-tier dark pattern customer service.
| khazhoux wrote:
| > $3 isn't this kind of a small problem?
|
| You're right -- it's surprising Lyft wouldn't just give back
| $3 (such a small amount!) to keep a customer.
| applecrazy wrote:
| this is so rampant but they know they have a captive market
| (in many places, only uber or lyft are an option) so they
| abuse their position
| internetter wrote:
| I've had good experiences with Uber. I know others don't,
| but I have. I used to use Lyft but they treated me like
| shit so now I don't. If Uber starts treating me like shit
| I'm going back to taxis. If taxis treat me like shit I'll
| take the bus, walk, buy a car, or any of the dozens of
| other ways to get around, even if impractical. The market
| is only captive because people are lazy and weak willed.
| jeremyjh wrote:
| A tiny problem, that would cost them nothing to fix, and they
| chose not to. This is a story about shitty customer service,
| not $3 being lost.
| ndr wrote:
| You can dispute via your credit card. They'll care quickly
| enough.
| semiquaver wrote:
| Lyft will ban your account if you issue a chargeback.
| You'll get your money back but if you want to continue to
| use the service this is not a good option.
| Retric wrote:
| Do it anyway. You get your money back, it costs them more
| money, and the more they ban people over stuff like this
| the faster you run shitty companies out of business.
|
| To do anything else promotes them doing the same thing to
| you in the future and other people.
| bapak wrote:
| And soon enough you don't have any apps to use.
|
| Sometimes you gotta pick your fights. Chargebacks to
| gatekeepers are the worst because life is long and you
| will always lose.
| chii wrote:
| it's why you take them to small claims court.
| Unfortunately, the terms and conditions have made sure
| they are clear of small claims by forcing you to do
| arbitration, which is more expensive for you than them
| (in relative terms, unless they also put into the T&C to
| pay for your arbitration costs - which some companies
| have done iirc, such as epic games).
|
| Chargebacks are the last resort - only really worth doing
| if it is a large amount that you will miss if not charged
| back.
| Retric wrote:
| Chargebacks are the reverse of these kinds of small
| thefts. A company is free to take you to small claims
| court over a chargeback, it's really not worth their time
| though.
|
| As such it's often preferable for an individual vs
| arbitration.
| chii wrote:
| > it's really not worth their time though.
|
| no, but a company has more levers than just small claims
| court - such as banning you from doing business with
| them, and removing all existing relationships.
|
| Google, for example, could ban you off gmail, remove your
| storage in gdrive, and take away all of your youtube
| videos.
|
| A big enough company with your data/process/utility that
| you must rely on and is locked in, would have enormous
| leverage over you that a small claims court won't have.
| Retric wrote:
| Google can do that to you, they can't do that to a
| billion people without serious repercussions on their
| business.
|
| This is why they don't delete Google accounts of everyone
| using an add blocker for example.
| tzs wrote:
| Both Uber's and Lyft's arbitration agreements explicitly
| allow you to use small claims court.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| This is true, but when there's only a couple options in
| town you have to assess if you're going to need to use
| that service in the future. That said, I find it a bit
| strange that it's legal to retaliate for making use of a
| right afforded to you by law. It would be like taking
| them to small claims court, winning, and being banned as
| a result. (Now that I wrote that I'm wondering if it's a
| thing that happens.)
| dreghgh wrote:
| It might actually be a good thing to get banned. Possibly
| it's in your interest not to continue to do business with
| companies like this, but on any given evening you might
| abandon your long term interest for the sake of short
| term convenience and use the bad car ride service.
| notpushkin wrote:
| Just get a new account?
| sanswork wrote:
| $3 is small enough that almost everyone will just eat the
| cost. I have a theory that they do this intentionally in some
| things(well Uber I've never used lift). Almost every time I
| order food and something is wrong or missing they'll give me
| a refund that is $2-3 off what it should be. Like if I order
| a $5 item and it's missing their service will refund me $2.
| At that point I can chose to spend literally an hour going
| through different support flows to try to reach a human who
| will correct it and give me the extra $2 or I can eat the
| loss. It's happened to me at least a dozen times now so I
| imagine it's common enough across the whole world to add
| millions of revenue each year.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| Doordash did to me for 70cents or so once. There was a
| missing item in an order, no big deal, app let's you report
| it, and the exact item that was missing.
|
| But instead of refunding the $2 it cost, they refunded like
| $1.19 or something to that affect.
| wileydragonfly wrote:
| DoorDash.. either the drivers can selectively identify
| the most expensive entree and remove it without
| disturbing anything... or restaurant owners figured out
| they could just leave it out without any real penalty.
| Happened so many times I got tired of arguing and
| chargebacks and moved on. No issues with other services..
| someone figured out a grift.
| reddalo wrote:
| Speaking of small costs, some time ago I paid 2 euros with
| my credit card in order to enter the central train station
| toilets in Milan, Italy.
|
| The toilets were awfully dirty, there was no toilet paper
| and no soap. I took some pictures just in case, then I
| filed a chargeback with my bank. After some weeks, they
| gave me my 2 euros back, and the company that manages the
| toilets probably paid a small fine to MasterCard or
| whatever.
|
| Was it a waste of time, for just 2 euros? Sure. But if
| nobody starts complaining, nothing will ever be fixed.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > Was it a waste of time, for just 2 euros? Sure. But if
| nobody starts complaining, nothing will ever be fixed.
|
| This is how I feel. Money is money. If you don't
| complain, why not just start donating to these
| corporations? It's effectively the same thing. I've
| successfully argued over a difference of $0.90 on a
| restaurant order (they rung up a different appetizer than
| I actually ordered). If you don't push back, they'll
| never get better.
| rudedogg wrote:
| Funny you say this, a year or two ago I contacted Amazon
| about adjusting the price for something I had ordered the
| day prior, since it went on sale. It hadn't shipped yet,
| and they said no problem, we'll refund you the $7 price
| difference - but we can't do that until the item arrives,
| just contact us when it does.
|
| So I get the item, contact support for my price match and
| they say sorry, we can only give you $5 back. I get upset
| because that's not what I was told, and have a screenshot
| of the chat to prove it.
|
| We went back and forth forever, I got more and more angry
| and eventually returned the item for the full amount, and
| prime had just recently renewed and was in the refund
| window, so I got a refund for that.
|
| Unfortunately I need Prime where I live, so I signed up for
| it again a few days later, but used a free trial month.
|
| The whole thing was a giant waste of time, and felt very
| "optimized".
| hedora wrote:
| The $3 often makes the difference between someone that should
| not be allowed to have a drivers license, and a someone
| that's been driving high-end limos for years.
|
| For example, I once had a driver that heard regenerative
| breaking was good for fuel economy, so decided to cycle their
| busted prius between 60mpg and 70mph every few seconds on the
| freeway. I was carsick for 2 hours after that ride. Another
| time, I had an angry line of people tapping the windows and
| politely giving the driver some unsolicited advice. (The mob
| was right; I mostly just tried to hide my face.)
|
| So, the $3 is a big problem, but has nothing to do with
| money.
| NotAnOtter wrote:
| $3 sure but you're already paying $XX for the service in the
| first place.
| jen729w wrote:
| It's the point. I've noticed the same, in Australia on Uber,
| and have stopped bothering asking for the 'comfort' vehicle.
|
| It's the same car. They just charge you $3 more for thinking
| you're going to get something nicer. You're not.
| nullify88 wrote:
| Worth knowing that Uber bought Dantaxi, Denmark's largest
| Taxi company a couple of weeks ago. The Uber app will tap in
| to Dantaxi driver pool. https://www.uber.com/en-
| DK/newsroom/dantaxi/
|
| I wonder if strong worker unions and regulations forced Uber
| to buy an existing company rather than starting their own
| presence.
| meindnoch wrote:
| I had the opposite once with Uber. I paid regular price (UberX
| or whatever it's called), then a guy showed up in a black BMW
| 530 with leather seats.
| harmmonica wrote:
| I've had the same many many times. I think _almost_
| universally it 's fair that the product/provider upgrades
| your experience when you agree to pay for something, but when
| they are specifically telling you "pay x and we'll give you
| y" and then they give you <y that's, I think, shitty.
| kelnos wrote:
| Of course, that happens, but the point is that it's a
| crapshoot, and you don't know what you're gonna get until the
| driver confirms, and you don't know what the car's actual
| condition is until you get in. And regardless, it's always
| reasonable for someone to provide you a better
| service/product than you paid for, but it's never ok to do
| the opposite.
|
| With Waymo, you know what you're going to get every time.
| I've also never experienced a Waymo interior that was in bad
| shape when I got in the car, though I'm sure that does happen
| to people.
| seb1204 wrote:
| Same for cabs who used to be horrible until uber was the
| alternative. You need to use the vote button on Uber or
| Lyft. And not get into the car that is crap.
| jostmey wrote:
| Agreeed. My last uber and Lyft rides were an unpleasant
| experience of late pickups, cancelled pickups, and old rickety
| rides. I use the train over uber and lyft
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| Why did you cancel on the Tesla Model Y?
| ai-christianson wrote:
| He said "that cancelled" so I think it wasn't on his end.
| pokot0 wrote:
| People don't hate automation. They hate BAD automation.
|
| From your description seems like: Waymo -> Good Automation,
| Call Center -> Bad Automation.
|
| The day we will have a chatgpt level automated customer care
| experience, we will complain every time humans answer our
| requests, with their accents and attitudes!
| raldi wrote:
| "Hi, how can I help y--"
|
| "TALK TO A ROBOT"
| harmmonica wrote:
| Oh man, hope it's ok to poke a little fun. I think we just
| violently agreed with me praising automation from one company
| and deriding automation from another. So I'll update your
| "seems like": Riding with Waymo (IME) -> Good Automation,
| Lyft customer support when they "stole" $3 from me and didn't
| provide me with a way to fix it -> Bad Automation.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> People don't hate automation
|
| This is not true.
| antasvara wrote:
| In the broad sense, people are in favor of automation. Most
| people aren't clamoring for the days before the stove,
| dishwasher, and car (all automated versions of past
| technologies).
|
| That being said, I think a lot of people are against
| automation when it does something worse than the manual
| version. Think automated customer service over a human
| being.
| xbmcuser wrote:
| Most people don't like change so are resistant to it.
| It's the same with electric cars a lot of people are
| resistant to it because of false range anxiety but when
| people actually use ev for extended period most of then
| stay with electric.
| Almondsetat wrote:
| I don't see people hating that their network packets are
| automatically routed through the internet
| seb1204 wrote:
| Do you think it's bad automation? I think it's a cost
| optimisation thing, we don't give refunds and we don't give
| people a channel to complain. We only measure revenue from
| trips and as long as that stays up the service quality is ok.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| I would pay extra just to never ride in a Tesla. They always
| make me carsick.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > ... Tesla. They always make me carsick.
|
| I never heard this once before HN. What is particular about
| Teslas? Is it the rapid acceleration from the electric
| motor... or lack of familiar engine sound?
| maxlin wrote:
| I'm calling it, it's mainstream media induced
| psychosomatics
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| > Is it the rapid acceleration from the electric motor
|
| Yes. The hard acceleration and braking.
| liveoneggs wrote:
| all "cab"-like cars that are not shaped like London Black Cabs
| are failures. The seating and luggage carrying is so much
| better than a regular car it makes me sick.
| ghaff wrote:
| And then you'll find plenty of people on here that hate on
| Black Cabs as ridiculously over priced.
| jen729w wrote:
| An issue unrelated to the shape of the vehicle and its
| capacity to carry humans and luggage.
| billforsternz wrote:
| I'm on holiday in Japan at the moment and I notice the cabs
| look like London cabs and are mainly black too. Made by
| Toyota. I haven't yet taken one, so I don't know if the
| similarity extends to the interior layout.
| paulgb wrote:
| > Their determination? I wasn't entitled to a $3 refund.
|
| Frustratingly, Lyft's position on this is that if you don't
| like the car that arrives you should reject it when it arrives,
| otherwise you're not entitled to a (even partial) refund, even
| when they _know_ on their end that the car they sent doesn't
| match what you paid extra for.
| dataflow wrote:
| This seems... interesting, legally speaking. I imagine the
| idea is that you're implicitly accepting alterations to the
| previous contract by opting to take the car? Would that
| argument hold water, legally?
| bravoetch wrote:
| I ran into a similar arbitration with a condo I rented for
| a long weekend. There was a significant issue and they
| weren't able to provide another place. We stayed there and
| had contractors in and out for the next couple of days.
| They refused to refund me, so I tried through my credit
| card to get a refund and they said "well you should have
| just left, then we would refund you. But since you stayed,
| the contract is fulfilled."
| dataflow wrote:
| Credit card disputes don't always match up with the law,
| so I wouldn't put too much weight on this from a legal
| standpoint, but good anecdote nonetheless.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Especially since you may have no time to wait for another
| car. There's an element of "duress" here
| user_7832 wrote:
| Yes, when you're tired after a flight with heavy bags,
| you're very much being forced to compromise. Any consumer
| could easily argue why they didn't have a choice and had
| to go with what was available.
| alistairSH wrote:
| If you're just off a flight, you could just use a normal
| yellow cab.
| jdeibele wrote:
| You could but there are multiple reasons why Uber
| dethroned taxis and probably the most important ones are
| that you get a route to your destination and a fixed
| price to get there.
|
| My first trip to Paris many years ago, I felt that I was
| getting the "scenic tour" to my hotel from the airport
| but I wasn't sure where I was and certainly didn't know
| the best way between the two. There were other variations
| in other cities.
|
| For a while, I lived near an airport and taxi drivers
| would be angry because they'd waited a long time to do a
| short ride and now would have to go back to the end of
| the line.
| what-the-grump wrote:
| It's plain bait and switch.
|
| You paid a premium for promised X, specifically. Y showed
| up. This is the equivalent of buying a first class
| ticket, and getting put in economy.
|
| Someone should class action this bs.
| lmm wrote:
| If I've learned anything from watching startups on HN, the
| US is a lawless wasteland where as long as you've got a
| couple of billion in VC funding you can do anything. I
| eagerly await the first murder-for-hire startup.
| jonhohle wrote:
| "By visiting our affiliate's website (adorable-puppy-
| photos.com), Mr. Doe agreed to our terms of service which
| specify we may terminate his bodily functions at any
| time."
| gambiting wrote:
| I mean, isn't Disney arguing that court should drop a
| case about someone dying at a Disneyland resort because
| their partner agreed to Disney+ terms and conditions?
| usehand wrote:
| Charges for goods not delivered as agreed falls under the
| protection of the Fair Credit Billing Act. If you made a good
| faith attempt to resolve with the merchant (which you did) you
| should use your credit card to charge back the amount (some let
| you request a partial charge back, but if not you can request a
| full one and explain in the extra info that you want a partial
| one).
|
| This might not seem worth it for $3, but if they get a lot of
| these the credit cards/banks might start giving them a hard
| time about it, so I think it's worth the minor hassle
| (everything can be done via the credit card app usually)
| ribosometronome wrote:
| And then you're forever barred from using the service.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Why would you want to continue using a service that is
| ripping you off? If you're at the point where your only
| recourse is to charge back, that's kind of a bridge burning
| moment.
| overfeed wrote:
| Let's retain a sense of proportion here; it was $3.
| ryandrake wrote:
| IMO it's attitudes like this that allow companies to
| continue ripping us all off for small amounts here and
| small amounts there. They know it's a small amount and
| most people won't push back, so they keep getting away
| with it. I suppose the only thing that stops me from
| hitting the nuclear button every time this happens is
| that there are a limited number of companies offering
| many categories of services, and I'd eventually have to
| charge back each of them and lose access to an entire
| industry composed entirely of shitty companies.
|
| It would be much better if companies were inclined to
| amicably settle small dollar disputes rather than the
| default which seems to be to stonewall, and then ban when
| the customer uses the only tool they have to push back.
| wileydragonfly wrote:
| At $3 your credit card company is just going to comp it
| to you and move on.
| pempem wrote:
| Many, Many millions have been made on pennies pulled from
| consumers daily.
|
| $3 in a personal vacuum is one thing (and still adds up
| if you consider each service that could do this) $3
| across 20% of users, lets say, globally, daily. Adds up.
|
| Consumers have the ability to also contribute to and
| define how engagements with businesses look. If the
| government won't help us, we have to continue on our own.
| nearlyepic wrote:
| Give me $3.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Are you going to provide me a useful service on a regular
| basis? You're really missing the point here if not.
| roenxi wrote:
| The point is a bad one that should be missed. $3 isn't
| negligible. It isn't usually [0] worth spending $4 to
| recover, but it is nonetheless money. People can't just
| arbitrarily charge each other $3 for nothing.
|
| [0] Game theory says sometimes it makes sense to be
| unreasonable.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| It's not arbitrary. It's part of an ongoing relationship
| that is worth significantly more. That $3 came out of the
| trust they have with the company. But even though they're
| wary now, they still have some trust and want to use the
| service in the future.
|
| Some random guy asking for $3 is a wildly different
| situation.
|
| It's not about the $3, it's about the relationship.
|
| A close analogy would be Netflix going up $2. If you keep
| paying that, it doesn't mean you think the money is
| negligible, and it doesn't mean you would give that money
| to someone else. And this holds whether Netflix got
| consent before the increase or scammed you out of it or
| anything in between; those things affect the decision but
| they don't change the fundamental nature of it.
| roenxi wrote:
| The company is valuing the relationship at <$3. In
| practice there can be no "relationship" with an entity
| that wilfully steals $3; even in the commercial sense. It
| is strictly transactional and they're signalling that on
| any transaction they're willing to cheat you.
|
| You can keep using them if you want. But history has no
| meaning when dealing with that sort of company.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Keeping an account in good standing, able to continue to
| purchase services, qualifies as a relationship here.
|
| You can't view transactions in isolation because of the
| ban possibility.
|
| Yes they're willing to cheat me. But I can limit that and
| I don't have many choices.
| smus wrote:
| What's your Venmo?
| bilalq wrote:
| You get barred from a whole suite of services. Anything
| Google/Alphabet owns or may acquire in the future. People
| often don't have a choice here.
| iwontberude wrote:
| We are talking about Lyft in this example ("I took Lyft
| instead") so your point is somewhat moot but a good
| reason to never charge back Google!
| dannyw wrote:
| I took Google to a tribunal (think Australian equivalent
| of small claims) a few years ago, over a defective Pixel
| they refused to repair 2 years and 1 month after
| purchase.
|
| Under Australian Consumer Law, I wanted to make the case
| that a premium phone should last more than 2 years.
|
| Google's representatives initially sent letters arguing
| that the license agreement forces me to arbitrate, to
| which I responded by adding another claim that binding
| arbitration is an unfair contract provision under the
| same ACL and should be declared void.
|
| A couple days before the case, I received an offer to
| settle for a brand new phone and my filing fees, to which
| I accepted.
|
| No chargebacks, no ban, just the legal system working as
| it should while being accessible to everyday folks.
| Freedom2 wrote:
| That's a fantastic outcome, and honestly, a bit of a
| unicorn from my perspective here in the US. Your story
| about the Australian Consumer Law having actual teeth is
| a breath of fresh air. Here in the US, it feels like
| we're playing a whole different ball game, and the house
| (of Google) always wins.
|
| A buddy of mine, let's call him "Dave," had a strikingly
| similar issue with a Pixel phone a couple of years back.
| His device started bootlooping out of the blue about 18
| months after he bought it. Not exactly what you'd call a
| "premium" experience. He went through the standard
| support rigmarole, which I'm sure you're familiar with -
| the endless chat bots, the canned email responses, the
| escalations to senior support agents who just read from
| the same script. The final word from on high was, "Sorry,
| you're out of the one-year warranty. We can't help you."
|
| Dave, being the stubborn engineer type, decided he wasn't
| going to take that lying down. He'd read about people
| having success in small claims court and thought, "How
| hard can it be?" He did his homework, found the correct
| legal entity for Google in his state, and filed the
| paperwork. The filing fee wasn't outrageous, something
| like $75. He wasn't asking for the moon, just the cost of
| a replacement phone and the filing fee.
|
| This is where the story takes a decidedly American turn.
| A few weeks after filing, he didn't get a settlement
| offer. Instead, he got a thick envelope from a fancy law
| firm. It was a motion to compel arbitration. Buried deep
| in the terms of service that we all click "agree" to
| without reading, there was, of course, a binding
| arbitration clause. And not just any arbitration, but one
| that would be conducted by an arbitrator of Google's
| choosing, in a location convenient for them (Northern
| California, naturally), and he'd have to split the cost
| of the arbitrator, which can run into thousands of
| dollars.
|
| So, his $75 gamble to get a new phone suddenly had the
| potential to turn into a multi-thousand-dollar
| boondoggle. The letter from the lawyers was polite, but
| the message was clear: "drop this, or we'll bury you in
| legal fees." They weren't just trying to avoid paying for
| a faulty phone; they were making an example of him.
|
| Dave folded. He couldn't afford to take the risk. So, not
| only did he not get his phone replaced, but he was also
| out the filing fee and a good chunk of his time and
| energy. He ended up just buying an iPhone out of spite.
| chii wrote:
| This is why arbitration on consumers should be illegal -
| aka, arbitration should only be legal when both entities
| are approximately similar in power/capability.
|
| The whole reason for existence of courts is to ensure
| that parties with unequal power can be fairly treated.
| Arbitration seems to remove that via a loop hole.
| bscphil wrote:
| > Why would you want to continue using a service that is
| ripping you off?
|
| For the same reason that I'm going to continue using Uber
| despite them ripping _other_ people off, as described in
| this very thread. People systematically overweight their
| own negative experiences and underweight those of others;
| I believe that every single negative story about Lyft and
| Uber I 've read in this thread is likely to be true. In
| other words, they do sometimes rip people off. On the
| other hand, am I likely enough to be ripped off the next
| time I use Uber that it doesn't make sense to use it?
| (And do what instead, walk?) No. It's unfortunate, and I
| support social solutions to the problem like better
| regulation of businesses, but if I personally dropped
| every company I think sometimes rips people off, I would
| do business with no one ever.
| tbossanova wrote:
| I have many times walked home when I didn't trust the bus
| timetable or the taxi equivalent. Always expected to get
| mugged but it hasn't happened yet. I guess people often
| think someone walking is someone to not be messed with.
| Very place dependent obviously
| bscphil wrote:
| Right, I didn't mean to imply an across the board policy
| of always taking Uber, never walking, wherever you go.
| But there are a ton of situations in the United States
| where walking + public transportation can't take you
| where you need to go at all, even putting aside safety.
| gblargg wrote:
| I once did a chargeback of almost $5k to PayPal when
| someone scammed me (and PayPal sided with scammer). I still
| have my account, though I don't use it for anything I'd
| actually need protection on now.
|
| On the other hand I did get banned from an online local
| selling site (rhymes with Canary) for charging back a small
| purchase where the wrong thing was delivered and their
| system for reporting it was broken and they refused to
| refund. I even tried having a roommate create an account
| (same address) and they banned that when they made a
| purchase.
| gxs wrote:
| Apple screwed me once so I did a chargeback
|
| My account was soft banned - everything I own
|
| It should be illegal to allow services to ban you for a
| chargeback
|
| Those don't happen just willy nilly - it means your credit
| card reviewed your dispute and you won
| redeeman wrote:
| They should obviously not be able to do that, I hope you
| now will stop relying on such services that put you
| utterly at their mercy. I hope you also tell everyone you
| know to not fall in the same trap
| gxs wrote:
| Yeah bro but what are you supposed to do? We live in a
| moment in time where you can't take a step without
| stepping in shit
|
| I don't want to turn streaming content into a personal
| hobby and spend time/money trying to set up home
| streaming services just like I don't want to buy physical
| media
|
| Ditto for phone/apps - the play store is just as bad and
| I have no interest in running a jailbroken iPhone as that
| comes with its own set of headaches
| tzs wrote:
| > Those don't happen just willy nilly - it means your
| credit card reviewed your dispute and you won
|
| Here's how that review works at the online seller of
| downloadable software accompanied by an online service
| that I do some work for.
|
| 1. A customer asks for a chargeback.
|
| 2. Their card company notifies us and asks for proof the
| charge is legitimate (e.g. made by the customer and what
| they ordered was delivered). For proof the charge was
| made by the customer the card company wants us to fax
| them a copy of the receipt that the customer signed,
| which of course does not exist. We also can't really
| prove delivery--I've yet to see a credit card company
| that will accept download logs showing that someone later
| downloaded the software from the same IP address that the
| order was placed from. Since we can't really dispute the
| chargeback it is approved.
|
| Even when it should be obvious from the credit card
| company's own records that the charge is legit they want
| to see that signed receipt. E.g., if the customer bought
| a monthly subscription 2 years ago and we've been
| successfully charging them every month since then, and
| now they suddenly ask for a chargeback on their most
| recent charge claiming they don't recognize the charge
| and have never heard of is or bought any service from us
| the credit card company doesn't consider all those past
| undisputed charges as relevant.
|
| That's not quite willy nilly but it is leaning that way
| for things that are entirely online.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Ironically, taking them to small claims court is likely
| more effective if you want to send a message without
| getting banned. It will get more attention, consume more
| valuable resources on their side (and yours of course), and
| likely not get you banned unlike the chargeback process
| where you'd just get auto-mindlessly sorted into the
| "fraud" bucket.
| dietr1ch wrote:
| > you should use your credit card to charge back the amount
|
| Don't you end up getting a new credit card number and have to
| deal with updating your details everywhere after doing this?
|
| > This might not seem worth it for $3
|
| It seems it's also painful and seemingly not worth it by
| design. Whenever they can make the process so painful that
| going through it essentially pays way less than your wage
| they can get away with it 99% of the time.
| hundchenkatze wrote:
| I've never had to get a new card/number after a chargeback.
|
| You just get the charge removed or some amount deducted if
| it's approved. You aren't requesting a new card.
|
| edit: This was for a purchase I made but didn't receive
| exactly what I paid for. Now for fraudulent charges I
| didn't make, yes they send a new card. I'm in the US, maybe
| it's different elsewhere.
| brunoarueira wrote:
| Once during the first year of the covid pandemic, I
| requested a couple meals for me and my wife through the
| Uber eats for lunch, my wife was accompanying in the
| hospital my mother-in-law on Sunday, then after suddenly
| the place informed the meals was delivered, but I didn't
| received anything. After I tried to discuss with Uber eats,
| I had appealled for the credit card, they full refund me.
| eisa01 wrote:
| The problem with charge backs for small amounts is that the
| bank might eat it instead, as there's a cost for them to
| process a charge back
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Another recent anecdote.
|
| A friend was recently in Milwaukee (first time ever. He was
| there for a conference).
|
| He, his wife, and another friend, wanted to go out to eat.
|
| They were given a wrong address. Could have been the source, or
| it could have been they screwed up writing it down. It was
| definitely a wrong address, though, that they gave to Uber.
|
| The driver picked them up, and took them to the address, which
| was deep in Da Hood. Not a good area for three middle-class
| white folks to be wandering around.
|
| The driver insisted they get out, even though it was clearly a
| wrong address, and a downright _dangerous_ neighborhood (my
| friend has some experience with rough neighborhoods. If he said
| it was bad, it was _bad_ ).
|
| My friend offered to pay whatever it took, to get to the
| correct address (they had figured out their mistake, by then),
| but the driver refused to do that. It was probably
| algorithmically prohibited.
|
| My friend had never used Uber before (and never will, again),
| so wasn't aware that you are supposed to be able to appeal to
| Uber.
|
| I have a feeling that my friend offered to rearrange the
| driver's dental work (Did I mention that he was familiar with
| tough neighborhoods?), and got the driver to drop them off in a
| better area, where they caught a cab.
|
| Sounds like a bad customer experience. I doubt Uber ever heard
| the story. My friend never bothered contacting them, and I will
| bet that the driver didn't.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| The only difference with the Waymo experience would be that
| there would be nobody your friend could threaten to assault
| for putting in the wrong address.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| The Waymo also can't force you to get out. Probably you can
| just give it a new address.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Have you ever used a Waymo?
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Is that relevant? It's a driverless car. Simply don't get
| out. Maybe it drives you back to dispatch or to the
| police station. Maybe the police show up to the current
| location. Regardless its got to be safer than wandering
| around a neighborhood you definitely don't belong in.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Heh, from the sounds of things it's more likely the Waymo
| would have simply driven to their actual destination.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44281694
| whimsicalism wrote:
| these tales are generally the apocryphal dreams of
| suburbanites. the uber driver would have pulled a gun on
| you?
|
| i'm sorry but i grew up in urban America, nobody is
| mugging people under an account tied to their name/DL
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I grew up in substantially more dangerous environs than
| urban America.
|
| It's entirely possible to live quite safely, in urban US
| areas, but the opposite is also true, and those folks are
| the ones that like people that live in the bubbles.
| raptorfactor wrote:
| If your friend thinks it's okay to threaten to assault a
| driver, especially for an issue that wasn't the driver's
| fault, then it sounds like "da hood" is where he belongs...
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Not sure if he did. He probably didn't have to. He's a big
| guy, but also one of the most decent people I know (but
| let's not assume anything). He never said he did. It was my
| assumption (ASS out of U and ME). It's also possible he
| bribed the driver enough. He could certainly afford it. I
| didn't actually ask him. I do know that he (and the two
| women with him) were pretty terrified of being left in the
| middle of that area, and scared people can get pretty
| pithy. This guy used to run night clubs in Miami. It would
| probably have been a lot less of an issue, if he had been
| alone.
|
| What he was amazed at, was the driver's insistence that
| they get out, without any recourse or care. A Waymo could
| do the same, I guess, but they could also sit in it until
| the company contacted them, or the cops showed up.
|
| A New York cabbie would probably threaten him right back,
| but would also have known they were headed for a bad patch,
| and maybe have asked if they had the right address. This
| was their first time ever, in Milwaukee, and I suspect
| Milwaukee cabbies are of a similar stripe to New York
| cabbies. I know quite a few former cabbies.
|
| Funny how the least verifiable thing in the story is the
| one everyone hooked on. I guess I could ask him. It
| happened last week. Not sure if I'd want to spoil
| everyone's good time calling him a criminal, if it turns
| out he was just able to shame the driver into accepting a
| couple of Jacksons to get out of there. If he did, I
| suspect Uber would sanction the driver, for accepting a
| fare, outside their system.
| umanwizard wrote:
| So basically, you're admitting key elements of your
| original story were made up?
|
| > A Waymo could do the same, I guess, but they could also
| sit in it until the company contacted them, or the cops
| showed up.
|
| How's this different from an uber? If this guy is as big
| and strong as you say, the uber driver has no more
| ability to force him out than a Waymo does.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> So basically, you're admitting key elements of your
| original story were made up?_
|
| Sure, and I regret it. I didn't think it was a "key
| element." The part that struck me, was the inflexibility
| of the driver. A real cabbie might laugh at you, but
| happily take more money to get out of there.
|
| If he had refused to leave (which he did), then the
| driver might be legitimately worried. It sounds like the
| driver didn't really understand which neighborhood he was
| in, or he would have been a lot more scared. A classic
| robbery technique against cabbies, is getting them to
| drive to bad neighborhoods, then robbing them.
|
| The thing that struck me, was the complete lack of
| situational awareness, or customer service ethos, on the
| part of the driver. That seems to be an inevitable result
| of the Uber business model, and folks that sign up as
| Uber drivers, need to be aware of the dangers and
| responsibilities.
|
| When you have people in your car, you have their lives in
| your hands, and your employer's brand integrity, as well.
| The driver's behavior resulted in some brand damage to
| Uber. My friend's behavior may have resulted in a
| permanent ban, but he certainly didn't care, as he's done
| with Uber, anyway.
|
| If, on the other hand, the driver had been sympathetic
| and helpful, he could have had three grateful,
| enthusiastic evangelists for Uber. Any experienced
| customer service person knows that having an upset
| customer, that admits they are in the wrong, but is also
| upset, is gold. It can _easily_ be mined for the
| advantage of the service provider, or turned into a
| complete shitshow (which is what happened, here).
|
| In the end, it sounds like it turned out OK for everyone
| (except Uber, who permanently lost three customers).
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Heh. Just as another point. I mentioned the story to
| another friend, who used to be a cabbie, and he said "Oh,
| that was a gypsy cab robbery. Classic."
|
| Apparently, the way that it works, is that the cab takes
| you to a bad neighborhood, then tells you to get out,
| unless you pay. If my friend had tried getting physical,
| he would have been staring into the muzzle of a .38, so
| the talk of physical threats was likely bullshit face-
| saving. He also said that the driver won't relent for
| less than $100, so it's likely my other friend was
| fleeced pretty bad.
|
| The way it works, is that the "cabbie" looks for parties
| with women and/or children, because that means there's
| unlikely to be a problem. They look at hotels, because
| that means out-of-towners, and there's a lot fewer cops
| around than airports (this chap was _disturbingly_
| familiar with the technique. Many of my friends are
| former Bad People).
|
| With Uber, and the way that they track drivers, he
| suggested that the person who picked them up, was
| probably not the contracted driver, but was in cahoots
| with the driver. The call was canceled by the real driver
| as a "no-show," and the ride was never on the clock, or
| the driver drove empty.
|
| People suck.
| umanwizard wrote:
| The original story was that your friend gave Uber the
| wrong address, and the Uber _refused_ to take them onward
| after that, even for more money.
|
| Now the story is that the Uber _intentionally_ took them
| to the wrong address, and then _offered_ to take them
| onward in an attempt to extort more money.
|
| Those are completely different stories! Which is it?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Hey, listen, we operate on the information we're given at
| the time we're given it. They are completely different
| stories, because they reflect completely different
| sources of information.
|
| It doesn't seem that matters to you, anyway. I'm not into
| fighting, so I guess our correspondence is at an end.
|
| I'm not at all averse to admitting when I could be wrong.
| Not very "American" of me, I know. We're supposed to ride
| Wrong like a battle tank.
|
| Considering how common the gypsy cab gamut is, I'm
| surprised no one here considered it. I guess I'm not the
| only one who is maybe not as worldly as I might think I
| am, eh?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| it's also just so premised on a ridiculous fantasy of how
| urban america functions
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Interesting that you're repeating this all over. I guess
| there's a story, therein.
|
| I can tell you that urban (and suburban) areas in the US
| can be quite ... _interesting_. Where I live (NY
| suburbs), it 's not difficult to be in gang areas, about
| fifteen minutes in any direction. They usually keep their
| predations to themselves, though. The city neighborhoods
| that are run by the mob, on the other hand, are some of
| the safest in the nation (unless you're a crook). I have
| a friend that lives in Howard Beach, and he says that he
| sometimes forgets to lock his front door, and doesn't
| worry about it. Burglars end up in ICU, after "falling
| down the stairs."
|
| Anyway, as I mentioned in another unread comment, the
| driver that picked them up, was probably not the driver
| associated with the account. Basic common sense. The
| person that explained it to me, mentioned the ways that
| the gypsy cab people have probably adapted to the new
| paradigm. Crooks are a lot smarter and more creative,
| than folks give them credit for.
|
| The gun is unlikely to be used, unless the driver feels
| the need. They don't want trouble, they just want money,
| but even legit cabbies often go armed. They are ripe
| targets, and cab robbers are quite dangerous.
| r053bud wrote:
| This is the second time your story is changing.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Yup.
|
| New information, new story. If I'm wrong, I promptly
| admit it. I'm weird, that way, apparently. I guess what
| I'm supposed to do, is refuse to admit fault, to the end.
| Sorry to spoil the fun. I didn't know the rules.
|
| Funny how none of the worldly cynics, here, figured that
| out (I didn't, and I thought I was worldly and cynical).
| When I mentioned it to my cabbie friend, he popped it out
| instantly. It's a well-known issue, around here. The
| local airports and train stations have posters about it.
| I admit that I've seen the posters, but they didn't
| register, when I first heard the story. It seems the same
| folks have figured out how to ply their trade with modern
| ride-hailing apps.
|
| Have a great day!
| whimsicalism wrote:
| there's a certain genre of story that has the flavor of
| 'urban crime apocrypha', examples like ubiquitous roofie-
| ing and PCP laced marijuana.
|
| others can judge the frequency of an Uber driver in the
| US robbing you at gunpoint (with an account tied to their
| SSN/DL) or whether that is common enough that you can
| assume a gun will be pulled without seeing it.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| The absurdity here is that any cabbie would be happy to
| continue driving you around as long as you're able to pay
| for it. It's the entire business model after all.
| bena wrote:
| Ubers aren't cabs. They are paid for the ride itself, not
| for the time of the ride. There is no meter to run.
|
| Honestly, in a city of any significant size, I prefer
| taxis. Taxis have accountability. And they know that it's
| about moving fares, so in a decently populated area, you
| do better by getting more fares rather than more out of a
| fare.
| ghushn3 wrote:
| If I was that driver, you bet I'd be contacting Uber to try
| and get your friend banned for life. Threatening a driver is
| never ok, even less so when it's not his fault.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Then maybe don't threaten to leave a family in a dangerous
| area while they're offering to pay it
| seivan wrote:
| This is the address they gave to the driver,full stop.
| After the job's done, you can't just tack on extra
| requests like it's a buffet. He delivered exactly what
| you asked, not a mind reading bonus round. It's not his
| fault you gave the wrong address, he's not clairvoyant.
| roenxi wrote:
| I don't think that'd hold up against a legal review. It
| seems like an unreasonable position that some
| neighbourhood is so terrible that standing there for 20
| minutes is an imminent threat. It might even be true, but
| that isn't a baseline a judge should really accept. The
| residents who live there obviously get through the day.
|
| It may well have been very dangerous, but realistically
| it is hard to make dropping someone off in a residential
| area a crime. Threatening a driver with physical violence
| is definitely a crime though.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| The driver is under precisely zero obligation to provide
| you a service. He provided the service asked for, too.
| kulahan wrote:
| Threatening someone for being a complete asshole is always
| okay, and even cool.
|
| I really do not care how uncomfortable it makes the driver
| to move a family a few extra blocks to somewhere vaguely
| safe. I'd similarly threaten him if he tried to drop my
| family off in a forest, or on the side of a highway, even
| if that's what the GPS, God's Position System, tells them
| to do.
|
| If your job ends in a way that someone who was your
| customer is now in danger, you absolutely deserve to be
| threatened.
| kulahan wrote:
| Edit: and if you dislike the fact that you need to have a
| vague level of care for your fellow man, stop working
| exclusively with people.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> Threatening someone for being a complete asshole is
| always okay, and even cool._
|
| I disagree, but I wasn't actually there. I only heard one
| side of the story.
| kulahan wrote:
| You are disagreeing with the concept, and then saying you
| only heard one side of... what story?
|
| I just do not care if my customer service agent has a bad
| time after putting me in a dangerous situation.
|
| Do people not realize that this is how the world works?
| If you are serving customers, putting them IN DANGER, yes
| EVEN if it was at their own request, is what is
| _actually_ wrong.
|
| You don't let someone ride a roller coaster unrestrained.
| You don't let someone eat room temperature meat. You
| don't drop a family off in an extremely dangerous
| neighborhood. Any employee would be right to be ridiculed
| for allowing any of these things - ESPECIALLY when a
| child is concerned.
| ghushn3 wrote:
| > extremely dangerous neighborhood
|
| I've lived in urban areas my whole life. Including some
| of the largest cities in North America. While there's
| places I consider higher risk, and routes I wouldn't
| typically take, simply existing in some neighborhood in
| Milwaukee isn't some existential threat to life and limb.
|
| Keep your head down and walk a few blocks to somewhere
| safer and get a cab/uber/lyft out of there if needed.
|
| Heck, book another Uber, you know at least one driver is
| in the neighborhood.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I lived in Baltimore. There's some _truly scary_ spots,
| there.
|
| As for booking another Uber, anyone that has lived in
| less-than-pristine areas, knows that these neighborhoods
| can be "blacklisted." You can't get Ubers or cabs to come
| in.
| ghushn3 wrote:
| Sure, and you know what? If we were talking about
| Baltimore I might concede some ground here. But unless
| I'm WAY off base, Milwaukee isn't anywhere close to parts
| of Baltimore when it comes to "existential danger from
| walking in the streets".
| kulahan wrote:
| Once you spend time in an actually dangerous neighborhood
| - one where people can spot your out-of-place-ness before
| you even get out of the car - one where the good guys are
| the ones telling you to get the hell out before you find
| yourself in a real bad situation - ones where the gas
| station attendants are hard as hell - you'll understand
| that your experience of walking through vaguely poor
| neighborhoods is not akin to dangerous neighborhoods.
|
| Nobody who has ever been in a dangerous neighborhood
| would have this opinion unless they're truly callous
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Well, there were no children. It was three adults, but
| two were women.
|
| I don't think that it would be OK to threaten any
| customer service person with physical harm (but it
| happens all the time, nonetheless. Check out
| notalwaysright.com), but I also know that customer
| service people have a responsibility to ensure the safety
| of their patrons. Kicking folks out in a bad neighborhood
| could have cost Uber quite a bit, and it's surprising
| that there seemed to be no recourse. It's entirely
| possible the driver was ignorant of company policy.
| ghushn3 wrote:
| > Threatening someone for being a complete asshole is
| always okay, and even cool.
|
| "Being an asshole" is in the eye of the beholder. Plenty
| of people thing CEOs are assholes, you are saying that it
| is "always ok, and even cool" to threaten them? Some
| people think that religious folks are assholes. Some
| people think blue haired lefty folks are assholes.
|
| I think you need better criteria for violence than "I
| think this person is an asshole". Even if you had a
| standard definition for asshole, threatening violence is
| an escalation. Someone flips you the bird, sure, they are
| an asshole, doesn't mean you can move to threatening to
| punch them.
|
| The driver doesn't know these people, doesn't have any
| protection against them should they do something
| unpredictable or make a mess of his car outside of the
| Uber ride. The driver is also making a threat assessment
| here -- "why did they have me drive to _this_ place and
| then insist I drive somewhere else? Is this a scam
| somehow? Is this a precursor to a violent crime? "
| kulahan wrote:
| lol, three innocent people begging to be taken somewhere
| safe sure are scamming you. Stop pontificating on
| situations you've never experienced anything within a
| thousand miles of.
| bscphil wrote:
| I mean, we're talking about a literal crime here, getting
| banned from Uber is not an adequate punishment for
| threatening someone with assault.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Huh? Your friend paid uber to take them to an address, and
| they did.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Actually, it sounds like my friend was robbed. Classic
| gypsy cab robbery.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| The confusion around getting the address wrong is an
| interesting tell. If you think you're not likely to make
| that mistake, anyway. It's also a bit late to realize at
| that point since you're already in the bad area.
|
| But it reminds me of tech support scams which usually
| have an element of convincing the victim that they made a
| mistake.
| bena wrote:
| Yeah, but the route is on your phone as well. The driver
| cannot deviate from that course without you knowing.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Unless they cancel the ride, and you ignore the
| notification.
|
| I was talking to someone recently, and they were telling
| me about how they got a (Lyft, I think) ride from the
| airport (JFK), and the driver picked them up, and said
| that the ride had been canceled (as they got into the
| car), but that for $20, he'd take them where they were
| going (I assume the ride was less than $20).
|
| Apparently, this is fairly common. There's been a couple
| of articles about how the Uber and Lyft drivers around
| JFK and LaGuardia have learned to game the system. They
| can also conspire to drive up the pricing.
| rfurmani wrote:
| I've had a couple bad experiences with Lyft recently, including
| one time the driver must have clicked that they picked me up
| while a block away, because I could see the lyft driving to the
| destination without me. I tried to get a refund since I was
| obviously waiting my start location the whole time, but the
| system claimed the drive went from start to finish (even though
| I wasn't in the car), so no refund.
| z2 wrote:
| Same thing happened to me, and the support system
| automatically decided nothing was wrong whatsoever despite my
| phone certainly sending a very different location from the
| driver. And the madness was I couldn't even book another ride
| as I was technically in one.
|
| So I ended up getting it resolved via the security panic
| button which did put me through to a real person who was
| empathetic to the issue.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Is this some sort of a scam? The driver cannot even mark
| the ride as completed without being in the area right? So
| they have to drive it anyway. I can't imagine they would be
| on the platform for long if this happened on a regular
| basis. I would say it's probably an accident but how could
| this behavior be accidental? Someone might accidentally say
| that they picked you up, but they couldn't accidentally
| then drive an empty car to the destination.
| dgoldstein0 wrote:
| Maybe they picked up the wrong person and neither of them
| realized?
| Thorentis wrote:
| Has anybody tried "driving" for one of these companies
| using GPS spoofing? You could fake the location of your
| phone. I suppose it'd only work a few times before the
| number of reports gets you banned, but I wonder whether
| on a laragr enough (and automated) scale it would be
| profitable for scammers
| aianus wrote:
| I had to go in person to verify my documents to drive for
| Uber
| eisa01 wrote:
| I had a driver commit GPS spoofing on me: I was standing
| outside and there were no car to be seen anywhere even
| though the app showed the driver was there and had been
| "driving" to it
|
| I tried to report a security incident to Uber, but not
| sure what happened. It would likely be easier to complain
| today, as now all taxis (which Uber technically is in
| Norway) need to be part of a Taxi dispatch central
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Given that they track you every inch of your route, it'd
| be a pain in the butt to attempt to fake it.
|
| I've gotten a refund on food before because my driver
| picked up my food and then went spend a half hour in a
| gas station before returning to their route even though
| my home was 2 minutes away.
| carcinklko wrote:
| >Given that they track you every inch of your route, it'd
| be a pain in the butt to attempt to fake it.
|
| Pain for a single app developer when no such app exists,
| but a spoofing app will dutifully draw anyone any number
| and length of travel.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| My experience in DC is GPS can be spotty due to the
| buildings and the app glitches when it says you are in
| one spot but you are not there.
|
| Also DC has rules for certain streets on what side of
| road you are allowed to be picked up on.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _ended up getting it resolved via the security panic
| button which did put me through to a real person who was
| empathetic to the issue_
|
| For both Uber and Lyft this is what I do. Which is wild
| since the only other company I auto-escalate-to-
| cancellation with is Comcast.
|
| Waymo isn't winning because it's automated. It's winning
| because the major players left the premium segment of the
| market for grabs.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Comcast gives you the illusion of being able to talk to a
| human being if you are persistent enough.
|
| What ends up happening is at some point they send you a
| link to talk to their support bot and tell you they are
| hanging up on you.
|
| Threatening cancelation is the only way. The only reason
| they will not care is because of their captive markets.
| This is what you get with no competition.
| harmmonica wrote:
| Can it be both? Maybe semantics, but a lot of folks are
| taking Waymo because there's no human driver. Now "no
| human driver" may now be considered "premium," but saying
| that automation is not a significant factor doesn't quite
| ring true. As a single point of reference, the automation
| _is_ a big part of what makes it attractive to me as a
| rider, both because there 's no human driver (not super
| critical to my experience, but I prefer being in the car
| solo) and, more importantly, because of the driving
| _behavior_ ; it just feels like a better driver than most
| drivers on the road and that's due to the automation.
| stahtops wrote:
| I waited 40 minutes for a Lyft at an airport because the
| driver made up a story about an accident and traffic, _in the
| airport_. No one else seemed to be affected by this traffic-
| so eventually I tried booking an Uber. It arrived 3 minutes
| later.
|
| 20 minutes after that the Lyft driver keeps texting me "where
| are you?!". Their turn to wait!
|
| Saw later they just started the ride without me and drove to
| my hotel.
|
| Lyft said "this trip was completed, no refund". Welp, app
| deleted.
| dgoldstein0 wrote:
| I've had several cases of drivers just not picking me up.
| Reading their time to move anywhere at all, driving away
| and keep getting further and further away, it driving
| towards me only to turn some other direction. I always just
| cancel on them and have never had to pay a cancellation
| fee. I think once or twice they "picked me up" a block
| away. I'm pretty sure I was able to cancel or end the ride
| on that too, definitely was never charged though I don't
| recall if I had to use the support. But I never let it
| actually complete the trip when I wasn't riding. But I was
| always very miffed when anything like that happened as I
| did not appreciate them wasting my time.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| On Uber I paid for priority pickup and watched as a driver
| drove within two blocks of my home and then sat in a
| neighborhood for 10 minutes. I finally message "Everything
| OK?" and get no reply but they finish their journey to my
| place.
|
| The car reeked of weed.
| ctxc wrote:
| That's must be annoying to say the least. In India drivers
| require an OTP to start a ride.
|
| The OTP is the same for a user across rides, so I have mine
| memorised which is nifty. No fiddling with the phone during
| boarding.
|
| On security: exploiting this would require the driver to stay
| in my vicinity the next time I book a ride, and also get the
| ride assigned to them. In a high population density area,
| it's rare - I've never had the same driver twice.
| cwalv wrote:
| An OTP that's reused?
| ctxc wrote:
| I mean it _technically_ isn't an OTP, but you know what I
| mean - just a code only the user knows that they need to
| share with the rider.
|
| The threat model is sufficiently low to justify the much
| better UX of not having to look the code up everytime.
| Propelloni wrote:
| The acronym you are looking for is "PIN", a Personal
| Identification Number.
| csomar wrote:
| It solves the problem for 99.99% of the time. Drivers are
| not going to memorize your OTP; and it is unlikely that
| an OTP list will be leaked/used anytime soon.
| broken-kebab wrote:
| Maybe, but there's OT in OTP. So if it's not changing
| then it's not OTP, just P.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| It changes every time. You can also just have it at
| night, which I have. Prevents drunk wrong riders.
| wildzzz wrote:
| For that driver, it's effectively an OTP although
| probably not very pseudorandom.
| mrloop wrote:
| An MTP
| labster wrote:
| Omni-time password
| dheerajvs wrote:
| Uber in India gives me a different OTP for each ride. A
| different ride-hailing app I use occasionally uses a PIN
| tied to a user.
|
| OTPs are a simple solution to fraudulent rides that it's
| surprising it's not implemented universally, given all the
| complaints in this thread.
| dheera wrote:
| Charge back with your credit card if Lyft isn't willing to
| help you. Keep businesses in check.
| bqmjjx0kac wrote:
| In my experience, you should prepare for retaliation when
| you do a charge back.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Whether one cares depends very strongly on what
| "retaliation" means. If they ban your account, not a big
| deal - you were getting bad service and didn't want to do
| business with them anyway. If they send an armed hit
| squad to kill you, that would be worth being concerned
| about though.
| bqmjjx0kac wrote:
| I "purchased" a digital game once on the PlayStation
| Store. It wasn't clear from the description that it was
| completely useless without an active subscription to PSN,
| so I tried to return it. They said no way, sales are
| final and you've already launched the game. I did a
| chargeback, and they basically locked down my account
| until I filed a support ticket and had to lie, saying
| someone else made a purchase on my account.
| Zambyte wrote:
| If they don't want you as a customer, it's not wise to
| fight them on that.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| If you really want to delete the app, a chargeback is the
| surest way to permanently remove yourself from the
| platform.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Uber lets you enable a PIN for each ride. The driver can't
| say they picked you up until they punch in the random 4 digit
| PIN the app gave you for the ride.
| harvey9 wrote:
| This is good, but why can't these firms determine when your
| phone and the drivers phone are far apart?
| blindriver wrote:
| Too many people order Ubers for other people so it won't
| work.
| michaelt wrote:
| It's not unusual to call a taxi for another person. Or to
| make a multi-stop journey where some people get out
| before others. You can even send a parcel across town in
| a taxi.
|
| Checking phone proximity might be helpful in some cases,
| but it's not a silver bullet.
| vachina wrote:
| GPS does not work everywhere, and not every device
| support BLE beacons.
| andrepd wrote:
| I never give location permissions to any app if I can
| avoid it (indeed I don't even have the spyware app if I
| can avoid it; e.g. I use the web to order an Uber)
| alistairSH wrote:
| I don't know why they don't require it. Every Uber in Porto
| Rico uses the PIN but I've only had one in the mainland USA
| ask for it.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| You need to enable it on your account.
| teekert wrote:
| I've heard the story from the other side as well: App reports
| ride is arriving, people get in, they go the wrong way and
| see their original ride stating that you are not there and
| leave again.
|
| So it may not be intentional. Just coincidence and poor
| verification.
| immibis wrote:
| Companies that cheap out by not performing the basic
| obligations of business end up paying more for small claims
| court - provided their ripped-off customers actually take
| them to small claims court. Did you?
| ronyeh wrote:
| People paying more for Waymo doesn't surprise me. I also once
| called for a comfort car, but it was a filthy Lexus. I'd much
| rather ride in a clean and well maintained Corolla.
|
| I pay more for Waymo and I'm happy to do it (as long as Waymo
| can detect when its interior is dirty so it can return itself
| to home base for cleaning.) I don't have to sit awkwardly in a
| car with another guy who may drive in a way that annoys me. I
| can talk on my phone or with my family without having a random
| person listen in.
| fragmede wrote:
| Though, the cameras on the Waymo are always on and pointed
| down at you looking at your screen.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| I have only used car share once in my life. (My mother
| ordered it, and it was fine.) To me, a dirty car is pretty
| much unforgivable as a car share service. Do you report it on
| the app or just give a one/zero star rating and hope the car
| share service will fix it? > I don't have
| to sit awkwardly in a car with another guy who may drive
|
| You hit the nail on the head. I cannot belive that I am 100+
| posts into this discussion and no one has mentioned it. It
| was the first idea that popped into my head. How about if you
| are woman? I would gladly pay a bit more to have no other
| strangers in the car with me.
| tuna74 wrote:
| Instead you will have all of Google listen in.
| hidelooktropic wrote:
| The Uber comfort designation frustratingly has nothing to do
| with the condition of the vehicle. I believe the parameters are
| age, seats, and model.
|
| From the driver's point of view, it just means that you are
| allowed to accept comfort rides but most of the time you're
| probably going to be picking up UberX passengers which are more
| plentiful. That means you're only slightly more likely to get
| one of the good comfort vehicles if you actually select the
| comfort tier.
| bgwalter wrote:
| Before Uber and Lyft destroyed the functioning taxi market, you
| got Mercedes by default for a traditional, regulated taxi in
| many EU countries.
|
| You didn't have to argue, interact with a surveillance company,
| interact with customer service etc. All you needed to do is
| pick up the phone and get a luxury ride without tracking or
| surveillance.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> the functioning taxi market_
|
| Was it? In many EU countries a lot of taxi drivers act like
| scammers: take you the long way around, they don't issue you
| receipt by default because they do tax fraud or steal from
| their employer, you can't pay by card because suddenly the
| card machine "doesn't work" so they drive you to an ATM, then
| you pay cash and they try to keep the change, they don't
| speak English or even the local language, they don't know the
| local streets or landmarks you're referring to because
| they're not from there, etc. All that is super annoying.
| Multiply it if you're a tourist or on a business trip or job
| interview.
|
| Ride sharing fixed all that since you just punched in the
| destination in the app (in your own language) and got the
| price upfront and shielded you from the antics of scammy
| drivers and the friction of getting to your destination.
| That's why ride sharing apps were so successful initially.
|
| It wasn't about the price, it was about the friction or lack
| thereof.
|
| _> you got Mercedes by default for a traditional, regulated
| taxi in many EU countries_
|
| Mostly IIRC Berlin, Brussels, Stockholm and some other rich
| countries, definitely not EU wide.
| nottorp wrote:
| In the Mercedes running countries taxi rides are also
| something you do very rarely because they cost a lot.
|
| The rest are like the poster above me described. In
| Romania, the taxi drivers tried to strike in the capital
| when Uber showed up and everybody basically laughed at
| them.
| vachina wrote:
| The surveillance is exactly why Uber and Lyft works. If
| drivers misbehave, evidence is all there. I'd honestly trade
| reliability over a temporary luxury ride in a Mercedes.
| himinlomax wrote:
| Before Uber, in France half of the time you got an irascible
| driver who never had change and whose credit card terminal
| was non functional.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| Yeah, before Uber and Lyft I would get a Mercedes.
|
| Except that it took forever. I had no idea when anyone would
| show up. The driver was annoyed and drove like an insane
| person. The few times I've actually feared for my life have
| been on highways with taxi drivers. It was incredibly
| expensive.
|
| Oh, and half the time they ripped you off.
|
| Yup. And there was no tracking. So if that person wanted to
| say, drive an insane route? Enjoy. Take a detour. Done. Or
| dump your body in the woods. You were totally at their mercy.
|
| The taxi system was horrible. The pinnacle of protectionism
| carving out its niche of crap.
| PunchTornado wrote:
| pfah, I remember my Mercedes trip to Paris airport where I
| had a physical fight with the driver (10 years ago). SO glad
| to see the taxi business go down the toilet. Easily over 50%
| of them were scamming tourists.
| williamdclt wrote:
| My experience in my first-world country is that all I needed
| was to spend 10min on the phone to be told there's no taxi
| available, or to be told it'll take 30min and actually it
| take 1h30. Drivers aren't any more amicable than uber drivers
| either (less, if anything).
|
| Not to speak of many countries where taxis are outright
| scammers and getting into one is taking a real danger.
| misja111 wrote:
| Lol. Before Uber 'destroyed' the functioning taxi market in
| Amsterdam, getting a taxi after going out meant waiting for
| sometimes up to 45 minutes. It meant standing in a line and
| when someone cut the line in front of you, saying something
| about it could get you in a fight. Taxi drivers often were
| (former) criminals who cashed in their savings of black money
| to get a taxi license and a quiet life. Occasionally tourists
| were robbed or taken on detours, good luck to get your money
| back in those days. And I'm not even mentioning the
| outrageous prices yet for a taxi drive in the city in those
| days.
|
| Uber might not be 100% perfect but it has been a real
| blessing, a salvation of all the misery that we had to endure
| in the 'functioning' taxi market.
| api wrote:
| I often tried taking taxis after reading about shady
| practices of Uber and Lyft. I usually came away saying
| "never again."
|
| You wait too long to get picked up by a smelly dirty old
| car and then they pull stuff like pretending the card
| reader is broken to get you to stop at an ATM so they can
| avoid taxes.
|
| The worst experiences were in SF. I don't think it's a
| coincidence that these companies started there. Of course
| SF is uniquely dysfunctional in many ways.
|
| I've read many comments online over the years to the effect
| that people would pay more for Uber and Lyft to destroy the
| taxi industry.
|
| What's wrong with the taxi industry is that it's a cartel,
| especially in major cities, and everyone knows when you
| have a monopoly or a cartel everything starts to suck.
| sitkack wrote:
| Uber and Lyft priced out those needless amenities and
| transferred into their profit margin. If customers has
| properly priced those in, the market would see that they are
| retained. Efficien-en-en-ent!
| andrepd wrote:
| This is the kind of comment I'd expect to see on trustpilot,
| not hn
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| why do you think you will get better service with waymo when
| it's as established as the others?
|
| the whole market is a race to the bottom to extract rent from
| what should have been a municipality cost center.
|
| oh, do you like waymo automated support and driver better than
| Lyft automated support? or just can't imagine a world where
| tomorrow waymo will have aging cars too?
| thanatosmin wrote:
| Tip: You can take Waymo to just outside the economy lot, then
| hop on the shuttle to the terminals. The shuttles have their
| own dedicated lane for going around the loop, so this isn't
| even that much more time. It's my new favorite way to get to
| LAX.
| harmmonica wrote:
| Ah, I saw the economy lot as a potential option. I tried to
| get the location to resolve on the app, but I think I only
| tried the lot itself and not directly adjacent to it. Thank
| you for pointing this out!
| perfectstorm wrote:
| another anecdote taking Lyft - they showed me $10.76 price for
| a trip to the airport when Uber showed $21. obviously i called
| Lyft and they placed a temporary charge on my credit card for
| $10.76. Once the driver dropped me off, i noticed that the base
| charge jumped to $16.76 + airport fees and my total with tips
| came to a bit over $27. I contacted Lyft and they denied and
| claimed that they always showed me $16.76. smh. i have proof
| from my credit card that they placed a hold for $10.76 and yet
| they refused to adjust the price.
| aunty_helen wrote:
| You've got to invest with the VC money. As companies mature and
| enshitification begins, jump onto the next hot thing that's
| going to disrupt the now incumbent.
|
| There's no free lunch, but this is the closest we've got.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Call me crazy but I greatly prefer old fashioned taxis, because
| their drivers know how to step on it and drive like maniacs
| instead of doddering grandmothers. Sure they stink and have weird
| accents but why would I care about that when I just want to get
| home from the airport and get to bed as soon as possible?
| Accepting cash and not needing some bullshit app is also a huge
| bonus.
| tempestn wrote:
| This makes a lot of sense to me. When you ride in an Uber or a
| taxi, you're a guest in the driver's space. In a Waymo, it's your
| own space. You can play music, talk on the phone, etc. without
| worrying about disturbing the driver. You're not likely to have
| strong odors, or driver's phone conversations. And the experience
| will be roughly consistent each time. In an Uber, you have no
| idea what the car or the driving standards will be like until
| you're in it. I trust my own driving over a Waymo, but I'd trust
| Waymo over an average Uber driver, let alone a bad one.
|
| I've had some nice conversations with Uber drivers, but I've had
| some unpleasant rides too. I'd definitely pay a bit extra for a
| good driverless car. ('Good' being key. After trying out the
| Tesla FSD beta a couple times though, you couldn't pay me to ride
| in one of those without the ability to grab control.)
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Maybe it's my rampant misanthrope leanings, but even in more
| trivial things like choosing automated kiosks other staffed in
| CVS, I'm just more comfortable not having to make small talk
| with a person, worry if they're having a good day or not etc.
|
| I'd happily pay 20 percent more to Waymo for that personless
| experience too.
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| It's interesting how American cultural expectations of forced
| social interaction may be having the effect of promoting
| automated systems as a reaction.
|
| As someone who lives in Spain and has lived in the UK, the
| idea of choosing self-checkout at a supermarket to avoid
| small talk with a cashier sounds alien to me; we simply don't
| do that here. While cashiers will certainly chat with certain
| customers while scanning their items, it's either that they
| know each other or it was initiated by the customer. I always
| choose staffed checkout over self-checkout because it's
| literally less effort for me, but I could imagine American
| social expectations at checkout -- _" How are you doing
| today?"_, _" Oh these apples look amazing!"_, _" Having a
| party are we?"_-- absolutely tipping the balance of effort
| and pushing me to self-checkout.
| dgunay wrote:
| For me the appeal of self checkout is that everyone gets in
| the same line and then fans out to the next free checkout
| machine. I don't have to wonder if I chose wrong when I see
| all the other lines moving faster. Some places with human
| cashiers (such as Marshall's) do this, and it's great.
| jfengel wrote:
| That is extremely rare in America, too. But it still feels
| awkward to an introvert. Just having another person nearby
| makes you feel self conscious. You won't be called on to
| make small talk, but you can't be sure of that.
| azan_ wrote:
| I think what you are describing is social anxiety, not
| just being introverted.
| munificent wrote:
| My spicy take is that ~90% of people who believe they are
| introverts actually have a middle level of extroversion
| plus social anxiety.
| bsder wrote:
| > It's interesting how American cultural expectations of
| forced social interaction may be having the effect of
| promoting automated systems as a reaction.
|
| That's not it. The issue is that it is _FAR_ easier for me
| to interact with automation than some completely
| incompetent service worker.
|
| Yes, I get it. The service jobs pay so poorly that nobody
| competent wants to work them. However, at the end of the
| day, I simply want to accomplish my task and get going. For
| example, if you're drunk or stoned off your ass, to pick a
| _totally random_ (not) example, you 're probably in my way.
|
| Because of general levels of incompetence, automated
| systems are quite often better than most service workers
| I'm interacting with. Additionally, the service worker
| probably is limited to the same authority as me ie. totally
| unable to help because they are completely stuck with the
| same shitty web interface to solve my problem as I am.
| Dusseldorf wrote:
| 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.
| mystifyingpoi wrote:
| I hate checkout machines that require a billion taps on
| the screen for basic vegetables or fruit. Just give me
| the keyboard immediately and let me type the first 3
| letters or something.
| bsder wrote:
| > 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.
|
| This is _completely_ the fault of the store.
|
| This is on irritating display with the HEB grocery stores
| in Texas. Go to a standard HEB and self-checkout has
| _exactly_ the failures you are talking about. Go to a
| Central Market HEB (the upscale, Whole Foods-like
| version) and the self-checkouts don 't do _ANY_ of those
| irritating things (alcohol being the exception).
|
| Funny that.
| mystifyingpoi wrote:
| > 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.
| bsder wrote:
| > You are comparing good automation with incompetent
| service worker. It's obvious what the conclusion would
| be.
|
| Sure. But the problem is that I so rarely interact with a
| competent service worker nowadays that even poor
| automation sadly wins the comparison most of the time.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| It was an old school approach to appear friendly, which in
| theory makes customers more comfortable and encourages
| retention. Small steps to build a community. At the very
| least, you don't want to appear like that unresponsive
| cashier who's clearly having a bad day and grimaces at you
| when you say 'hello'.
|
| It's definitely a generational issue. Gen X and older seem
| to appreciate small talk more than most millenials and
| pretty much all of Gen Z.
| smelendez wrote:
| 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.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Perhaps I'm overly cynical but I always assumed the
| walgreens greeting was an anti-theft thing. It's
| particularly apparent with the big box stores in bad
| neighborhoods where they are extremely overt about it in
| my experience - at least two greeters, making strong eye
| contact, a very loud and energetic greeting - whereas the
| ones in the nicer neighborhoods often don't have anyone
| hanging out at the front like that.
| analog31 wrote:
| I'm not an introvert by any means, but I still choose
| _whichever system is likely to work better_.
|
| At the supermarket, if I'm doing my monthly giant shopping
| trip and filling the car with non-perishables, I go through
| the attended checkout. Those people are _quick_ and
| accurate, and there are two of them -- a checker and a
| bagger.
|
| But if I only have one or two items, there's no line at the
| self-checkout, and I just throw the stuff into my backpack.
|
| I wonder if a lack of class divisions is what encourages
| small talk in our society.
|
| One thing about automated systems is that they have to work
| perfectly or they don't get used. I thought about this when
| taking the tram from the terminal to the parking facility
| at O'Hare Airport. I honestly don't know if the tram has a
| human driver or not. If that tram has a breakdown, it cause
| instant gridlock throughout the airport. And the way you
| make things work better (in the traditional quality control
| sense) is to make them more predictable.
|
| And admittedly, I'm not shy, but I'm just a bit muddle-
| headed. With an app, I can see every detail of my request
| on the screen (and be looking at Google Maps on another
| screen maybe, or other information sources) before I click
| "accept." This makes it easier. But when I click "accept,"
| I really don't care if the car that shows up has a human
| driver or not. I'm also pretty much oblivious as to whether
| it's a Mercedes or a Chevy.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| If the automated systems work I'd use them. Instead, USA
| systems are designed around trying to prevent theft and they
| error in the store's favor. I've had those automated systems
| scream that I haven't put my purchase in the bag. The
| purchase being single envelope of yeast, too light to
| measure. So it screams and scream "PLEASE PLACE THE PRODUCT
| IN THE BAG", "PLEASE PLACE THE PRODUCT IN THE BAG", "PLEASE
| PLACE THE PRODUCT IN THE BAG", "PLEASE PLACE THE PRODUCT IN
| THE BAG" until some employee comes over and presses reset on
| the machines. Meanwhile the entire store is glaring at you.
|
| So yea, I've stop using automated machines in the USA.
| nottorp wrote:
| I don't think it's an USA thing. I completely stopped using
| the self checkout at my closest store. When I put a fucking
| 12 pack of toilet paper on the scale and it errored out.
|
| I mean, you can error out at food stuff that loses weight
| over time (fresh bread for example), that may be
| acceptable. But at known weight toilet paper?
| lurking_swe wrote:
| i avoid those stores, i agree it's very irritating. Stop &
| Shop is a good example. The checkout machine is constantly
| weighing the bag! Ugh.
|
| As an FYI there are stores that DON'T have annoying self
| checkout machines: Target, Walmart, Whole Foods, Costco,
| Home Depot, and a few more...
| gavinray wrote:
| Exactly, I will pay a premium for not having to deal with a
| human being in the car with me.
|
| It's a dice roll: you could get a very extroverted driver who
| won't leave you alone, or someone who smells bad, or someone
| rude, or a distracted driver...
|
| Just let me sit in peace, alone with a robot.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| Isolationism progresses.
| smithcoin wrote:
| And we wonder why we can't get along anymore when the only
| time we go outside it to grab our Amazon packages off the
| porch.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| It goes both ways too. Customer service in person has
| digressed pretty far.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Time for a Perry Expedition-themed dating service.
| criddell wrote:
| What do you propose? Should Uber/Lyft train their drivers
| better to pick up on social cues to know when to engage and
| when to shut up and drive? Should they do more to make sure
| their drivers have good hygiene and manners?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| 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.
| seb1204 wrote:
| 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.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| To be honest I'm afraid to rate low. I suspect I'll get
| flagged as a bad rater and banned from Uber/Lyft. So, if
| the ride is bad I just don't rate and don't tip. Even not
| tipping is scary to me given it's all tracked and they
| know me as a customer.
|
| Another issue which I wish they'd add and related to
| rating, every person has a different preference. My
| preference is a safe driver who obeys traffic laws.
| Others people preferences are a driver who gets there as
| fast as possible, even if that means speeding, cutting
| people off, running red lights, etc... I've recorded
| drivers regualarly going 15-20 miles over the speed
| limit.
|
| I wish I could put that preference in to the app and it
| would tell the driver, "this person will give you a
| higher rating if you drive safely and don't break any
| traffic laws". I'm not sure they could put the other
| "this passenger prefers quick service" without implying
| things.
|
| Scaryiest Uber/Lyft I've had the driver was checking
| their stock portfolio on their smartphone while driving.
| neves wrote:
| Like every company does with their employees?
| tacocataco wrote:
| Going outside costs $200 a day, and i cant afford to spend
| 1/4 my paycheck 7 times a week.
|
| Also, I'm just doing my best to get the most out of the
| ludicrously high rent is pay every month.
| titanomachy wrote:
| 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?
| whoisyc wrote:
| 1950: cars give you the freedom to go anywhere you want.
| Artificial fertilizer puts an end to hunger in
| industrialized world. Yeehaw!
|
| 2000: you are a second class citizen who can't even get a
| job in many places if you do not have a car. Also the
| median person is overweight. But here is this new internet
| thing that lets you get everything you need in life sorted
| out with no need for human interactions. Yeehaw!
|
| 2025: the average person can no longer hold a conversation
| with a stranger for five seconds without having an anxiety
| attack. Oops!
| cyberax wrote:
| 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.
| tdeck wrote:
| > 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_fil
| es/...
| fleebee wrote:
| Wow. It's hard to believe this novella was written in
| 1909. The imagination and insight of the author is
| remarkable. It reads as an account of a dystopic future
| that we are now more and more living in the present.
|
| Thank you for sharing this.
| topspin wrote:
| Indeed. The market is exposing the truth here, whether
| that's the outcome some would prefer or not. These dense,
| wealthy, coastal regions are an endless fount of talk about
| how flyover suburbia is an unhealthy manifestation of
| isolation. Yet here we see that when given a choice in
| these same areas with their various competing taxi systems,
| isolation has significant monetary value.
| cwalv wrote:
| How do you feel about public transportation?
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Why is anyone surprised that a smaller segment of the market
| will pay more for a safer ride in a luxury vehicle compared to
| a base model Lyft (which can be a barely drivable car with rank
| cloth interior where you can't even fit two people in the back
| seat)?
|
| Next up, some one will post, "First class tickets cost more
| than coach."
|
| Waymo will eventually have Waymo Comfort and Waymo Black.
| mbesto wrote:
| > Why is anyone surprised that a smaller segment of the
| market will pay more for a safer ride in a luxury vehicle
| compared to a base model Lyft
|
| It's a criticism, because this same segment also realizes
| that a Waymo ride is WAY cheaper to operate than a human
| driven one.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| Is it? It might be some day but they certainly have to
| factor in all the R&D they're spending.
| mbesto wrote:
| > 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.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > It's a criticism, because this same segment also realizes
| that a Waymo ride is WAY cheaper to operate than a human
| driven one.
|
| If this were broadly true, Waymo would be everywhere. If it
| is true, and that's a big if that it isn't being subsidized
| by the rest of Alphabet, it is only true in a very, very,
| tiny area of the Earth.
|
| On the other hand, Uber is a publicly listed company with
| public financials already operating globally with profits.
| blululu wrote:
| 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.
| mbesto wrote:
| > 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.
| kortilla wrote:
| It's not, or at least it definitely wasn't a year ago.
| Those cars were something like $700k each and then there is
| a lot of software dev and AI infra to pay for. They were
| charging more than Lyft and were still losing money per
| ride.
| mbesto wrote:
| > 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).
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| I'm in LA, so I'm still skeptical about "safer". Granted,
| that's not a high bar, but I know who's accountable if an
| Uber/Lyft crashes.
| AuthConnectFail wrote:
| but do you care for accountability or more safety (through
| lower crash rate)at the end of the day?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| 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.
| michaelt wrote:
| I don't know if this is still true in the age of cellphones
| and uber, but when I was young, women were often advised
| not to take taxis alone, especially when drunk. There were
| a few high-profile rapes and murders.
|
| As an bald, middle-aged man such risks are negligible for
| me, but I can see how some people might prefer a driverless
| vehicle.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| 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.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| The driver whose main asset was the car that just crashed,
| and whose insurance may or may not be valid?
| nottorp wrote:
| I wonder... are the passengers recorded while in a Waymo?
|
| Does Google ever delete those records? Being Google, I bet
| they don't.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Yes, I assume these are recorded to prevent vandalism. To
| be fair, someone might get legitimately sick in the car
| (ex. child). So Google can review the tapes and decide if
| it was intentional or not.
|
| Regarding retention of these video recordings, you should
| check the Waymo user agreement in your area. You might even
| have the right to ask them to delete it earlier.
| derwiki wrote:
| Would a CCPA delete request handle it? Or are they
| compelled to keep the video for legal reasons
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > where you can't even fit two people in the back seat
|
| Is this exaggeration? I hope so. I have never seen a taxi nor
| ride share car that would ever qualify this statement.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| This is why I'm long AI as well - people will pay a premium for
| inferior service if it means they don't have to talk to a human
| MBCook wrote:
| There's something to be said for being able to not be forced to
| deal with a person, but I see something different personally.
|
| I'm "old" (40s) so I didn't grow up with Uber. Maybe that
| colors my take.
|
| I don't want to hire random Joes. If I wanted to buy a lift
| from a random person, I'd expect it to be very cheap.
|
| If I'm hiring someone to drive me from A to B I want a
| professional service. I want professional drivers in a fleet of
| maintained cars.
|
| With Uber/Lift you don't know. Many drives do a great job and
| treat their cars/passengers like they're professionals. Others
| don't.
|
| The taxi industry sucked. They had no competition and could get
| lazy and do a terrible job and people still had to use them
| anyway. That needed fixing.
|
| But I don't think the lesson we should learn is "taxis bad" but
| "bad service is bad". And Uber/Lyft being so variable is not a
| plus at their prices.
| reddalo wrote:
| I think that the best thing about Uber/Lyft is that they've
| been a wake up call for the taxi industry.
|
| I don't think I'd be able to book taxis (and pay in advance)
| using an app in my country, if Uber/Lyft didn't exist.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Mysteriously their credit card machines work a lot more
| often now
| nottorp wrote:
| Yes, I'm shocked! Some traditional taxis in my area now
| have a sticker on the window saying they take credit
| cards!
| sagarm wrote:
| Black cars existed before Uber and Lyft -- in fact, that was
| how Uber started.
|
| Uber, in fact, still offers black cars (professional drivers)
| as an option.
| ghaff wrote:
| But a lot of people basically wanted VC-subsidized cheaper
| cabs. Even if the easier and more reliable ordering was a
| bonus.
| theamk wrote:
| 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)
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| Ubers were often half the cost of a taxi as well, and the
| drivers were getting paid more than you were paying uber,
| so this definitely impacted how many of my peers were
| taking uber instead of public transit.
| user_7832 wrote:
| > 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
|
| Depends on the city but definitely not the case
| everywhere in India. Uber and Ola (a local Uber
| alternative) massively forced taxi/auto (tuktuk) unions
| to weaken their bargaining position.
|
| There's still a mafia eg in Goa where they literally
| threaten Uber drivers, but it's relatively very different
| post Uber.
| hattmall wrote:
| Cheap and easy were the big factors, in roughly equal
| proportions, with a nod towards cheap. I did a lot of
| things I didn't need to do and just wouldn't have done at
| all if I would have had to pay taxi prices for several
| years while Ubers were cheap. Taxi's were also only
| easily available in very limited circumstances.
|
| Taxi's here worked one of two ways. You either negotiated
| a price before leaving, or they ran a meter and went some
| crazy route then when you got to the destination clicked
| a bunch of buttons and the total went up by $15-$20.
|
| When negotiating a price, it was usually $10 per person,
| for about a 3-4 mile ride, and they wouldn't take you
| right away if less than 4 people. They would encourage
| you to load like 8 or 10 people in (All Taxi's were vans)
| and would try to pick up other people along the way.
| Tipping was all but mandatory. So add another $2-3 per
| person.
|
| Uber/Lyft on the other hand was $5-6 or $2-3 for the
| shared one. An SUV was like $12-$20 that could seat 7,
| and the whole booking on the phone and tracking was
| excellent. Uber was so cheap that I would frequently book
| them because it was easier than going down into the
| parking garage since I could just meet the Uber on the
| street.
|
| A cheap ride in 5-10 minutes was available pretty much 24
| hours a day. Now surge pricing was a whole different
| beast, but I never got caught in that.
|
| Not only that, the first 2 years it was completely free.
| Because I got a $25 credit for signing up and then $25
| for ever referral. I had a prepaid phone from some spring
| MVNO that let you change your number by just texting a
| shortcode. I would just make a new account every night
| before I went out and have $50 in free rides.
|
| Now Lfyt and Uber are expensive, there's practically none
| available unless it's the middle of the day. Taxi's are
| down to pretty much $5 per person to go most places, but
| they are just completely destroyed unsafe cars. The last
| one I took was a longer ride $10 or $20 and it had no
| seat belts and the driver was so large I have no idea how
| he got in and out of the car.
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't disagree. As a business traveler, it was probably
| about ease. When I'd go down to one of our other company
| locations semi-regularly, I'd usually grab a cab at the
| airport because it was easy. Going the other way, I'd
| usually grab a Lyft. The Lyft was a bit cheaper but eh.
|
| I admit I'm usually taking public transit while traveling
| if it's reasonably convenient but cheaper ride-share (or
| taxi) options can tilt the balance when public transit is
| complicated/awkward. Rent a car for long distance and
| rural. (I did start using Uber/Lyft in some situations in
| areas like Silicon Valley where I would previously have
| reflexively rented a car.) Around where I live, driving
| my car is the only real alternative except in special
| cases. And I essentially always take a pre-booked private
| car back and forth to the airport.
|
| So, for me, more about ease but if I tended to rely on
| taxi-type services in cities more, it would probably be
| more about cost which is probably the case with many
| people commenting here.
| noosphr wrote:
| 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.
| seb1204 wrote:
| What qualifies a professional driver? Lots of uber trips? A
| taxi licence? A chauffeur cap? A clean car? A person being
| employed by a company? Not sure but I suspect it's highly
| subjective. You can book a premium Uber. Or a limousine
| like the one some airlines offer as a business class
| package.
| buildsjets wrote:
| A sober, competent driver who has not been on duty more
| than 8 hours would be a good start.
| seb1204 wrote:
| I agree. Just FYI, Uber limits driving time to 10 hours,
| the requires 8 hours of break. Does not stop the driver
| from using Lyft during the break time though.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Uber, in fact, still offers black cars (professional
| drivers) as an option_
|
| In my experience, Uber Black means the driver owns a
| professional-grade car. Whether they're a professional
| driver who treats their clients professionally, _e.g._ not
| taking phone calls during the ride, is another matter.
| notyourwork wrote:
| This, black car service is not what uber offers. They
| offer a uber driver with a black car.
| bitmasher9 wrote:
| The professional driver in a professional fleet service
| exists. It existed in the taxi era too.
|
| If you ever see an aggressive driver cutting their way
| through traffic in a perfectly maintained Escalade or
| Navigator heading towards the airport, that's them.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| There's also the issue of tipping. I haven't been in a waymo
| but I generally tip well in Uber or Lyft. I wouldn't tip a
| robot. So at least to me $15+$5 tip vs $20 is pretty much a
| wash.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Holy crap that's 33% tip!
| ghushn3 wrote:
| It's also a small, $5 tip. When you get small numbers, like
| $5, it tends to blow out the percentages.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| You don't have to tip an Uber or Lyft, either.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| Sure, nobody has to tip anyone. But I do tip taxis and etc,
| typically about 30%, and it factors into my overall price
| perception.
|
| I'm just saying $15 that I will add a tip to vs $20 that I
| have no intention or inclination to tip isn't anything more
| than I don't have any expectations or empathy about tipping
| a machine. It doesn't seem particularly complex an issue
| about why Waymo can charge the same amount that I am
| willing to pay anyway.
| StableAlkyne wrote:
| [Caveat: there aren't many Lyft drivers in my town, so I
| have only used Uber]
|
| The problem is their system extorts you into tipping. If
| you don't tip, the driver will give you a 1/5 rating. If
| your rating averages low enough, nobody will pick you up.
| It's more of a bribe you pay for a good passenger rating
| than an actual tip.
|
| As a result, you're forced to tip if you want to use it
| long term.
|
| Personally, I'm hoping Waymo takes Uber's lunch money. I
| will gladly pay more for a service has not been infected
| with tipping.
| Macha wrote:
| Don't the drivers only see the tips in aggregate form at
| the end of the week?
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Unsure. But they at least know you've tipped. "Steve
| thanked you for your tip."
| biztos wrote:
| 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.
| StableAlkyne wrote:
| Unless the app changed in the past year, they can see
| individual tips and can change their passenger ratings
| for those who don't pay the "optional" tip.
|
| Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/uber/comments/18x5rxj/do
| _drivers_se...
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| If it's actually for priority that's okay. It will only
| have a significant effect when they're hitting their
| capacity limits, and it ends up being similar to surge
| pricing.
|
| If they start refusing to pick up people that don't pay,
| while having idle cars, I expect them to get in trouble
| in various ways.
| oefrha wrote:
| That's straight up false. I don't tip and my Uber
| passenger rating was ~4.95 last I checked.
| StableAlkyne wrote:
| A single anecdote does not a dataset make
| poincaredisk wrote:
| I never tip because it's not a custom in my country, but
| out of your two contradicting stories I believe the other
| one more. Does the driver even know the tip amount before
| rating the passenger? It works make sense if they didn't.
|
| If he does it's indeed a bit weird (in a country where
| tipping is almost mandatory).
| oefrha wrote:
| Tipping isn't "almost mandatory". People were happily
| driving Ubers before they even introduced the tipping
| feature in-app. My rating is based on taking hundreds of
| rides while living for years on both coasts, in CA and
| NJ. Out of all those rides only one driver (a horrible
| one, who took like three wrong turns in twenty minutes,
| with navigation) ever asked for a tip. I maintain my
| rating by being clean, polite, and punctual.
| oefrha wrote:
| And yours isn't a single anecdote? Oh wait, it's actually
| not:
|
| > If you don't tip, the driver will give you a 1/5
| rating.
|
| It's a definitive, and provably false statement.
| kortilla wrote:
| They have to rate long before you tip/rate.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| I haven't really thought about whether it's known or
| unknown. I've assumed it was known, but often I tip cash
| anyway.
| drcode wrote:
| I was kinda pissed when my local mall got a "barista robot",
| and it asks for a 20% tip when you swipe your card
| fosk wrote:
| Tipping has lost its meaning and it is simply a money grab
| these days in many establishments, as your experience
| demonstrates. Like tipping for food to go.
|
| I only tip when I sit down and good service is actually
| provided.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| Are they cleaned after each rider? How can they not build up an
| odor, lol
| theamk wrote:
| No driver is going to be smoking in Waymo car. (And if a
| passenger smokes, they'll be charged $100)
|
| I assume there are also industrial-strength cleaners during
| the downtime/refueling.
| notyourwork wrote:
| Tesla fsd and Waymo are far different in the technical sense.
| test6554 wrote:
| Exactly. You're not paying more for the same ride. You are
| paying to have some time alone. To not have to deal with others
| where you can listen to an audiobook, have a conversation on
| your phone that feels private or other things.
| grazing_fields wrote:
| How many of you have used ZipCars or an equivalent? I guarantee
| you Waymo cars will look worse than the average Uber/Lyft once
| they stop fluffing up the experience.
| lxgr wrote:
| Simply not playing Uber's bait-and-switch game (happened again
| just yesterday: A purported $40 ride ended up being $80 due to
| being "unexpectedly 3x the planned distance") would get them my
| business immediately once they become available in NYC for the
| very few times I do take a car.
|
| Not marking up rides when there's a gift balance on the account
| would also be a great distinguishing feature.
| cflewis wrote:
| I managed to get a Waymo after a big event at Intuit Dome. It
| found a reasonable place to pick me up a couple blocks away. I
| didn't have to try calling the driver to get them to figure out
| where I should go to try and get around roadblocks and traffic
| (I had no idea about the area). It didn't cancel on me. It
| didn't hit me with a surge price. So I don't even buy the
| central premise by the article that Waymo is guaranteed to be
| more expensive.
|
| And I didnt have to worry about a Waymo being unavailable late
| in the evening, or canceling my ride because it didn't want to
| go that far at night. It just worked. Why would I ever take
| anything else?
| kelnos wrote:
| This phenomenon is interesting, and a bit surprising. I can kinda
| see it: while my experiences with Uber & Lyft over the past ~13
| years has been overall very positive, there are quite a few
| minor-seeming-but-adds-up-to-annoying things that can happen with
| Uber/Lyft that just won't happen with Waymo:
|
| * Driver cancels and you have to wait for a new driver to accept.
|
| * Driver is really chatty and you aren't in the mood, or worse,
| they want to talk about uncomfortable topics like politics or
| religion (and even worse, they hold views you find bad). I
| sometimes (rarely) get drivers who want to complain about
| something or other, and it's just awkward.
|
| * Car condition is unknown until you get in, and could be bad.
| There might be unpleasant smells, either from cleaning issues or
| driver body odor.
|
| * It's hot enough for air conditioning, but the driver instead
| has windows open to save gas (which is dubious anyway as open
| windows creates more drag); it's uncomfortable but you feel
| awkward asking them to close the windows and turn a/c on.
|
| On the other hand, sometimes you do get an awesome driver who
| enhances the experience beyond what a robotaxi can offer. I'm not
| the most chatty sort with people I don't know, but I have on
| occasion had a really fun, positive conversation with an
| Uber/Lyft driver that I genuinely enjoyed. And in SF at least,
| Waymo will still not drive on freeways, so if there's a
| significantly faster freeway route for your trip, Waymo will take
| more time.
|
| I generally do prefer Waymo over Uber/Lyft, but I'm not willing
| to pay all that much more for it. One thing to remember is that
| you should also factor in the tip you'd give the Uber/Lyft driver
| when making the comparison, since you don't tip a Waymo. Lately
| I've seen prices like (tip-adjusted) $12 for Uber/Lyft and $25
| for Waymo for the same ride, but I'm not willing to pay that much
| more for Waymo. If Waymo is a few bucks more expensive I'll use
| it, but not $10. (I also have a 10 points per dollar thing on
| Lyft rides with my credit card, so I try to remember to take into
| account a more-or-less 15% discount on the ride, versus the
| standard 1.5% 1 point per dollar I get with Waymo.)
| sokoloff wrote:
| I don't see how Waymo would be immune to the unpleasant smell
| issue. It might happen less frequently, but it'll definitely
| happen.
| kelnos wrote:
| I would expect it to happen _much_ less often. And each
| instance of it will likely only be for a single customer 's
| ride, as they'll report the issue in the app, and the car
| will be taken out of service until it's cleaned.
|
| For an Uber/Lyft driver, if they're even (made) aware of the
| problem, they'll probably not take care of the issue until
| they've finished their day of driving.
| habosa wrote:
| I mix and match but I'll take a Waymo if it's <= $5 more for
| these reasons:
|
| 1. Literally zero variance. Every car is the same. Every driver
| is the same style. If it says it'll be there in 7 minutes it will
| be 7, not 5 and not 10.
|
| 2. A jaguar SUV is a premium vehicle. It's comparable to an Uber
| black not a regular Uber.
|
| 3. It's so child friendly. My son can make all the noise he wants
| and I can take time loading him in without a driver being
| impatient.
|
| 4. They're very clean. I've never been in a dirty or bad smelling
| Waymo. That's very nice.
|
| 5. No aggressive driving. I've had Ubers that scare me weaving
| between lanes above the speed limit. A Waymo is always smooth.
| camel_gopher wrote:
| I'm seeing more of them with trash. Last one I took had a
| rolled up bundle of used bandages.
| bertil wrote:
| Were you able to flag it to Waymo?
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| People are excited by driverless cars but it also means a car
| with no social barriers and no person who considers the cars
| condition important. For now they're well surveilled and a
| premium vehicle. Soon they will be filthy pods in a race to
| the bottom with all the charm of a public bathroom. They'll
| be cheap, but you'll get what you pay for. Private driverless
| cars will be the premium alternative.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Why do you assume the surveillance will go away as they
| become cheaper? The taxi company know who is in their car
| and they have access to interior cameras if something
| happens. In many respects, it is going to be even more
| difficult to take a dump in one and get away with it than
| if a human was driving it. They have your credit card
| number and visual evidence of what you did, they will just
| charge your card automatically for things like puking.
| icelancer wrote:
| Because if they ever become super popular, it will be
| prohibitively expensive to actually police all the
| surveillance. Likely to store / process it all. AI does
| an alright job summarizing videos today (Gemini Flash)
| but it has to get a lot better if they're going to
| actually police at scale.
| csomar wrote:
| The next rider will alert if something outrageous has
| happened.
| squigz wrote:
| No, most people would just move on and stop using the
| service. A very small % of users report issues.
| gilfoy wrote:
| Incentivize reporting with a discount, combine that with
| review of video to verify it's not a false report. Maybe
| not scalable, but could work.
|
| Image recognition is getting better. I rarely have to get
| my receipt checked at Sam's Club anymore now that their
| camera exit thing is in full swing.
| mft_ wrote:
| You think? Checking for significant differences between
| before and after images doesn't even need AI. Have a
| triaging system, something like: image diff -> AI
| assessment -> human assessment -> car drives to human
| cleaner. In time you can streamline significantly.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| I think simple solutions exist. For example the waymo
| could just ask the rider at the beginning of the ride "Is
| your car smelly? Any trash in the car?"
|
| If they reply YES to any of those questions, then google
| keeps the recording of the previous ride for later
| review. Simple, no?
|
| If the car actually was dirty, give the person that said
| "car was dirty" a refund of 20% on their ride. Then
| charge the party that made the car dirty a few. If a
| person is found to consistently say cars are dirty when
| they are not, give them a warning and consider kicking
| them off the platform (abuse).
|
| Alternatively google can switch from recording the first
| minute of the ride to the last minute of the ride. In
| other words, only look at the "delta" to compare the car
| state. That would require a lot less video storage and
| less effort to review.
| onislandtime wrote:
| it's actually pretty easy to automate the state of the
| vehicle. if anything is left in the car the video is sent
| to an operator. The service instructs a cleaner to check
| the car and the passenger is sent a warning and
| eventually is banned from using the service.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| No it won't. The problem is already solved, event
| detection is AI from 10 years ago, let alone today. Rider
| puked in the car isn't that hard, they can add smell
| sensors also.
| cyberax wrote:
| > For now they're well surveilled and a premium vehicle.
| Soon they will be filthy pods in a race to the bottom with
| all the charm of a public bathroom.
|
| So, like transit?
|
| I will likely have my own personal self-driving vehicle.
| And I'm 100% sure that there'll be an upmarket segment with
| slightly more expensive cars that are kept more clean than
| the rest.
| morsch wrote:
| That's what transit is like in your country? How
| unfortunate.
| cyberax wrote:
| Yep. That's the state of the US transit.
| klabb3 wrote:
| > I will likely have my own personal self-driving
| vehicle.
|
| The self-driving car "utopia" (or rather moderate
| improvement) very much hinges on the space savings on
| roadways and parking, to increase utilization, reduce
| congestion and allow dead space to be reclaimed. If
| people think like you (no value judgment, I suspect this
| might be the future norm), then you'll see almost no
| change to the urban landscape as a whole. It'll continue
| to be a one-flesh-body-per-2-tonne vehicle utilization, a
| ~5:1 provisioning of parking spaces, 25-50% of urban
| areas being roadways+parking, and a double-digit
| productivity loss from commuting and running simple
| errands.
|
| That leaves you with an individual comfort improvement
| (allowing you to be on your phone while in the car) for a
| premium price, and increased surveillance tech on
| personal vehicles. (And, to be fair, it can still be huge
| for drunk driving deaths, access for elderly & disabled,
| once costs come down). Overall, very mediocre imo.
|
| Controversial take: the US has painted itself into a
| corner, where by ignoring the well being of people in
| their own communities, they need so many workarounds to
| prevent space sharing between the ~2-3 social groups
| where intermingling means friction and fear. There are
| very real logistical challenges to a gated community
| segmentation of the physical world. This paints the
| resistance to public transit in a different light: it's
| not so much about being _public_ , but rather being
| _shared_ with strangers, especially of different social
| cohorts. It also explains the sacred status of air travel
| which mainly has been left outside the debate: imo
| because of the higher socio-economic average clientele.
| Now that cost has come down and low-cost airlines like
| Spirit share the same airports, the friction has come
| there as well.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _It'll continue to be a one-flesh-body-per-2-tonne
| vehicle utilization_
|
| My personal vehicle can fuck off to a distant parking lot
| way more conveniently than me taking a shuttle there.
| cyberax wrote:
| Nah. Transit is already a bankrupt transportation mode,
| cars and a good city design are already superior to
| transit.
|
| The US is far ahead of the curve, it has not fucked
| itself like Europe with insane housing density. This is
| clearly seen in the birth rates. Compare the US, Europe,
| and Japan.
| seydor wrote:
| People adapt. Hopefully it will be more like elevators and
| less like public toilets.
|
| And then there will be cameras
| eptcyka wrote:
| In public spaces specifically, at least in Sweden, like
| train stations, the only difference between an elevator
| and a toilet is that one has to pay to enter the toilet.
| roughly wrote:
| > one has to pay to enter the toilet.
|
| I'm not sure what people were expecting when they
| implemented this policy. There's plenty of places to pee
| in the world, a restroom is a request it happens in one
| particular place.
| hanspeter wrote:
| With per-per-minute sharing cars having existed in many
| cities in Europe 10+ years, this concept is not new.
|
| People will adapt to the level of cleanliness in the car
| the get into, so it's a slippery slope. Users will behave
| respectfully in the early days (maybe because they are
| first-movers), and then it deteriorates long term.
|
| My own experience is that people used to not even leave
| an empty soda bottle in the cars and now I see remains
| from take-out in the floor, coffee cups, chewing gum left
| around the dashboard etc. You can report this to the car
| service, but they won't be able to take any meaningful
| action on it.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| did you report it? Ideally the person that left the bandages
| in the car would get flagged. They get flagged a few more
| times for littering in the car they get banned.
|
| Yes, you don't know if it was the previous person, previous
| previous, etc but if they are a repeat litterer it won't take
| long to figure out who it is and warn them they'll lose their
| privilege to use the service if they continue to abuse it.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| You're experiencing the early pre-enshittified product. Ubers
| used to be cheap and excellent too, but then they started
| optimizing for profit. I assume this will happen even faster
| for Waymo, just because tech firms have more experience now.
| bertil wrote:
| Which point would you expect to deteriorate?
| flutas wrote:
| not op but cleanliness would be my first expectation
|
| I've seen many reports of dirty waymos on reddit recently
| for example.
|
| second I'd assume they would start charging you for point
| 3, "loading delay fee" when you take too long to load,
| after all that's missed profit from other rides.
|
| after that point 1 and 2, with you getting either a Jag
| (nice car), a Zeekr (unknown to me, Chinese company), or a
| Ioniq 5 (much cheaper feeling car than a Jag, with hard
| plastic everywhere). You want the jag? Expect to pay for
| it. So suddenly all cars aren't the same, and only some are
| comparable to Uber Black.
|
| To summarize:
|
| Point 4, followed by 3, followed by 2 and 1 (which imo are
| just one point). 5 I don't expect to change unless they
| have to start cost-cutting on compute and sensors, but I
| HIGHLY doubt that.
| silvestrov wrote:
| Wouldn't it be more likely they would charge for "leaving
| trash in car"?
|
| Shouldn't cost much to check car using cameras after each
| ride.
| ratorx wrote:
| Being pedantic, even if you have to pay for a type of
| car, you still have no variance to expectation when you
| know what you are getting. I think that point was more
| about the variance in driving, driver etc rather than car
| type.
|
| Re: enshittification in general. I think the incentives
| are better aligned for self-driving. Eg. charging people
| who create trash etc can also make the company money
| whilst improving overall experience.
|
| With non self-driving, you have to rely on user ratings
| etc to penalise a specific driver, which seems inherently
| more fuzzy. The company has conflicting goals of keeping
| enough drivers (drives costs down etc), whilst
| guaranteeing a certain experience. It is difficult to
| create a system for drivers to "improve" (eg. Clean their
| car) and for a company to directly encourage that,
| whereas it's easier to just charge people who litter more
| etc in a fully automated system.
| MBCook wrote:
| Not yet enshittified > currently enshitiffied
|
| If they get worse, I'll. Choose something else if I want.
|
| They're not in my area today, but just because they may get
| worse does t mean you should avoid them today.
| teeray wrote:
| All the while though, they're taking the air out of the
| room for any alternatives you might choose in the future.
| It only gets really enshittified once market dominance has
| been established.
| theamk wrote:
| Are there any alternatives?
|
| Both Uber and Lyft and over decade old, and until Waymo
| came, there were no real alternatives to them.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Waymo should charge dirty customers more to pay maids to
| clean it.
| theamk wrote:
| they kinda too, they will charge you $50/$100 if you make
| the car dirty
|
| https://support.google.com/waymo/answer/14248697?hl=en
| freddie_mercury wrote:
| Uber was never child friendly.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| in LA all my friend's little kids take uber and Lyft rides
| to catch Pokemon. don't know what hellhole you live that's
| worse than LA
| digianarchist wrote:
| 6. No tip
| malshe wrote:
| For me this goes higher up in this list
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| Replacing 100% of cars with self-driving taxis are definitely the
| future. In this context:
|
| Corporate owned for-profit self-driving cars are the mark of a
| dystopian.
|
| Publicly-owned or non-profit self-driving cars are the mark of a
| utopia.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| I'm not sure I see why. If hailing a publicly-operated waymo
| equivalent is as convenient as going to the DMV or making a
| withdrawal from a treasury direct account, I don't think anyone
| is ever going to use it. From my perspective, waymo is the
| private sector solving a problem that was largely created by
| the government (zoning - lack of density - needing to drive
| everywhere).
| Geee wrote:
| Obviously the opposite. Competition keeps prices low and
| quality high.
|
| "Publicly-owned" would be expensive and low quality, and would
| make the people running the operation filthy rich. Non-profit
| would mean that whoever is running it would increase their
| salaries until there's no profit. There would be no reason to
| lower prices or increase quality, if competition is non-
| existent.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| > "Publicly-owned" would be expensive and low quality, and
| would make the people running the operation filthy rich.
|
| By publicly owned, I mean "owned by the public", not "owned
| by a publicly traded company" (which is, ironically, private
| property). You're thinking the latter, which counts as
| corporate-owned.
|
| I used a bad choice of words. In most of the world "public
| owned" means the former, whereas in the US it means the
| latter. The exact opposite, ironically.
| Geee wrote:
| No, I really did mean "owned by the public". Which means
| that the company is actually 100% owned by the state and
| they would have a monopoly, assuming that you'd want to ban
| commercial operators. This is the usual interpretation of
| "public ownership".
|
| This would be extremely bad compared to a situation where
| there's a dozen of companies competing in the same market.
| theamk wrote:
| publicly-owned as in pre-Uber taxicab system? Government-
| enforced monopoly, completely stagnant, and no incentives to
| make users' experience better? That's not utopia.
| killion wrote:
| This looks like a clickbait study. Waymo is cheaper 100% of the
| time for me. The two big data points I think they purposely
| glossed over are:
|
| 1. Tip - Uber and Lyft cost 20% more than the ride price.
|
| 2. Car quality - Sure, a Corolla on Lyft is cheaper than Waymo.
| But once you select something desirable the price goes up, a lot.
| kelnos wrote:
| My experience is very different. About a year ago I'd agree
| that Waymo was mostly cheaper or comparable in cost to an
| Uber/Lyft ride, but in the past 3-6 months I usually see Waymo
| at 75%-150% more than Uber/Lyft, and yes, I do account for the
| Uber/Lyft tip when I compare.
| serbuvlad wrote:
| What's up with the US tipping culture?
|
| I live in Romania and I only tip restaurants a standard of 10%
| (not fast food, not coffee, just restaurants). Also delivery
| people when they help bring heavy stuff into my appartment
| (theoretically they are only paid to bring it to the block
| entrance).
|
| Back when I used taxis we would tip those. But I have never
| tipped an Uber. Or a Glovo (our Door Dash) deliveryman.
| preommr wrote:
| Started off as a way to pay people less, especially for odd
| jobs.
|
| Grew to a point where it's disconnected from the actual value
| of the service, so people like waiters make way more than if
| it was priced according to market price, but people pay
| anyways because it's not about the service, but about not
| feeling guilty for being cheap. The ecosystem has now found a
| balance that hurts the consumer, which they're willing to put
| up with because it's socially ingrained. The people providing
| a service make more, the business owner doesn't really care,
| and can't get rid of tips because it's a cutthroat industry
| and they wouldn't get workers, and higher wages would cause
| sticker shock, so they too have no incentive to make any
| changes. The customers group is too big, and don't have
| enough structure to organize any meaningful change. So it is
| what it is.
|
| You can see it now, people complain about how tipping is
| everywhere, including for walk-ins where no table service is
| provided, but eventually this too will be normalized.
|
| My personal hope is that one day we start tipping our
| doctors, our dentists, our programmers, to see how big and
| stupid this dumpster fire can grow.
| serbuvlad wrote:
| I guess that's why it doesn't work in Romania. Most
| romanians take a certain amount of healthy pride in being
| cheap, or rather, in being able to get more for as little
| money as possible.
|
| If you buy the expensive beer you're not impressing too
| many people. But of course, there are 50 cheap beers, most
| of which suck. The pride is kmowing that one cheap beer
| that's as good as the expensive ones.
|
| The fact that taxis often tried to extort tips out of you
| and lied to you about the price by not running their meters
| is what made Uber popular here -- it ended up being
| cheaper.
|
| My advice: stop tipping. Just you, personally. If the
| average person tips 10%, and tomorrow everyone stopped
| tipping, prices will probably increase by ~10%.
|
| So just personally stop tipping and enjoy the permaneny 10%
| discount all the other suckers are gifting you.
| kristopolous wrote:
| > Started off as a way to pay people less, especially for
| odd jobs.
|
| Kind of. American tipping came out of the post-slavery
| south as a form of exploitation where people weren't
| guaranteed a wage.
|
| This is why tipping was common in historically black jobs
| like hospitality, food service workers and railroad
| porters.
|
| There still a federal "tipped" minimum wage at $2.13 -
| which some states still abide by, roughly corresponding to
| the historic south https://www.epi.org/publication/waiting-
| for-change-tipped-mi...
|
| These also seem to be some of the worst tipping states
| according to most sources,
| https://www.lyft.com/blog/posts/the-united-states-of-
| tipping...
|
| Which _kind of_ makes sense - if people in those states
| invented tipping to pay people less, then those states
| paying tipped people less isn 't that surprising ...
|
| Cultural behavior patterns last decades, which is why
| there's _some_ dissipation 150 years later.
|
| These things can be weird. For instance coat check (person
| who holds on to expensive coat) and car valet (person who
| holds on to expensive car) is functionally equivalent with
| a 100 year separation so the tip culture sticks.
|
| Same goes for the shoe shiner and car washer; the person
| who makes your mode of transportation more presentable.
|
| Maybe this sounds like crazy free association, but the
| pattern seems to hold. Take porters and food delivery
| drivers, for instance, not that different.
|
| Anyway, when you start scratching at weird american
| anomalies like tipping and the electoral college, usually
| you find something to do with slavery's long tail.
| OkGoDoIt wrote:
| I've never seen Waymo be cheaper than Uber/Lyft, but then again
| the audacity of them charging more even when they are
| driverless made me stop bothering to check pretty quickly.
|
| One of the selling points of Uber over taxis has always been
| that you don't have to tip. I get that some people are
| excessively generous but it's absolutely not required.
|
| If you're the kind of person who is willing to pay more for a
| fancier car, good for you. I take the bus if it could just get
| me from point A to point B in a reasonable time, Uber is a last
| resort that costs 10 times as much as public transit, at least
| in San Francisco. It's disgustingly, offensively expensive. And
| somehow Waymo charges more? Absolutely ridiculous.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| >Tip - Uber and Lyft cost 20% more than the ride price.
|
| Idk maybe because I used rideshare apps before they added
| tipping, but even as someone who tips 20% at restaurants I
| don't tip rideshares.
|
| The original argument Uber had for not adding it was because
| 'the fare included it', but seeing people now see it as
| required does kind of backup why they dragged their feet on
| adding it.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| > _but even as someone who tips 20% at restaurants I don 't
| tip rideshares._
|
| Does this not affect your rating?
| dangoodmanUT wrote:
| I love Waymo, but Waymo is not cheaper 100% of the time, unless
| you have that data? I've had Waymo quote me $26 where uber
| comfort was $11. I could "tip the bill" and still be under
| Waymo.
| mvac wrote:
| In my experience Uber/Lyft/Bolt in their race to the bottom
| started tolerating cars in bad shape and drivers that don't care
| about driving safely. Really hoping to see Waymo or any other
| robo-taxi in Europe soon.
| tomduncalf wrote:
| This doesn't surprise me and I'm not sure it's about people not
| wanting to interact with people or whatever - many of the Ubers
| I've got while in SF have been pretty grim (unclean, weird odors,
| ancient badly serviced car etc) and badly driven. I've not
| noticed this being such an issue in the UK/Europe but that might
| just be because I take Ubers much more rarely there (with more
| prevalent public transit etc).
|
| I'd definitely pay more for a Waymo, which is a much more
| reliably pleasant (and very cool!) experience.
| nout wrote:
| Last Uber driver I took was solving Rubik's cube while driving,
| so I can see the value in Waymo actually paying attention to the
| road. On top of that I know what to expect and I can just listen
| to podcasts or do whatever. One thing that worries me a bit is
| the camera that's pointed at your phone in the back...
| Schnitz wrote:
| Uber and Lyft's cheapest fare options are far from what they used
| to be. Want a timely pickup? Gotta pay for priority. Want a car
| that isn't 10 years old and smelly? Pay extra. Don't want a
| sketchy driver smelling of weed? Pay extra. The list goes on.
| Waymo however at least you know you get a clean and safe car.
| siliconc0w wrote:
| The real pain with Waymo is that they just aren't as reliably
| available in a short period, especially at high demand times.
| Uber can incentivize bringing on extra drivers at certain times -
| Waymo can't. Unless they size the fleet for high demand peaks -
| which would be incredibly cost prohibitive, I don't see how they
| solve this except maybe a hybrid model or they distill their
| "waymo driver" into something that runs on a standard economy
| car.
| EnPissant wrote:
| I will take Waymos whenever possible just to avoid the black ice
| tree air fresheners you find in >50% of Ubers that makes my eyes
| burn for hours. That and the aggressive driving that makes me car
| sick.
| conductr wrote:
| A lot of people don't price shop, they have a default service
| they prefer and they just pay for it whatever the cost.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| We need Waymo busses, either directly operated, or licensing the
| technology.
| segfault99 wrote:
| Who wouldn't pay more to not have to interact with an unknown
| human?
| nemo44x wrote:
| Serious question - what are all the unskilled immigrants that
| drive taxis/rideshare/etc going to do? Many millions. What's the
| plan for these guys?
| ConradKilroy wrote:
| Oh Wow, I wonder if this experiment would yield similar results
| outside San Francisco, hmmm?
| jbombadil wrote:
| There's still a "wow factor" associated with this. I live in a
| city that doesn't have Waymo. I recently had a work trip to a
| city that does. Waymo was 25% more expensive than Uber (~15 vs
| ~20). I still took Waymo because I don't get to experience it
| often, so it's fun to be in a driverless car. If I had constant
| access to Waymo, I would have probably chosen the cheapest
| option.
| UrMomsRobotLovr wrote:
| The driving is much more comfortable than Uber or Lyft. Taking
| them through San Francisco I find they gentler on hills,
| accelerate and break more mildly, and don't try to drop you in
| unsafe places.
|
| They're just better drivers than people and that comfort is worth
| the up charge.
| rayxi271828 wrote:
| I've been taking these rides 5-6 days a week, everywhere, and
| also in other countries outside the US. What I've come to realize
| is this: what matters to me the most is the consistency of the
| lowest bar of the experience.
|
| I get that sometimes with human drivers, when I'm lucky, I get
| someone who goes above and beyond, someone who's fantastic to
| talk to along the way, and so on.
|
| But if I can trade all that with a guarantee that there's a
| consistent, predictable _floor_ to my worst experience, I 'll
| take it in a heartbeat.
|
| At the end of it, I take a ride to get from point A to point B.
| I'd rather have a machine does it for me very efficiently,
| without all the messy human element, with the ups and the downs,
| because it's the downs that ruin my day.
| zenonu wrote:
| 100%. I've discovered the floor: Small cars that probably
| aren't safe, trashed interior, and drivers who smell of
| literally every vice while talking on the phone AND playing
| whatever music all together. "Premium" is simply not that
| experience.
| xKingfisher wrote:
| I've had the opposite experience recently.
|
| Going from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica is $30s for a
| Waymo and runs up to $50s for Uber/Lyft (sometimes). Otherwise,
| they tend to be within a few dollars.
|
| I figured it was a combination of Google subsidizing rides and a
| lack of a "traffic tax".
|
| They're a significantly better experience for 45+ minute rides.
| somewhatrandom9 wrote:
| Speaking to a European woman, she said she was not surprised
| women would pay more not to be harassed. I guess in her country
| there is more of that. Me, I enjoy human interaction, but the
| European female angle on taxi "safety" was something I hadn't
| considered.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Most American women, and women all over the world, would say
| the same thing.
| NotAnOtter wrote:
| The new age version of cabs are over fit, people take them for
| many things they don't need. Me included; I no longer ask my
| siblings/friends/spouse to take me to the airport, I just order a
| lyft/uber where as I wasn't doing that with cabs 10 years ago.
|
| People are catching on to that reality but at least WayMo offers
| something novel.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| I just realized why I'd pay premium for Waymo. Sometimes
| rideshare drivers refuse to pick up my fare, or get lost, or
| cancel a trip halfway to me. A robot car (one would hope)
| wouldn't do those things. Get rid of the human bullshit? Take my
| money.
| AustinDev wrote:
| Why wouldn't you pay more. I would pay 3x an Uber rate to not be
| driven by an illegal with a questionable license status. To avoid
| such things, I just pay a car service for every airport I land
| in.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| How much of this is just new entrant, unprofitable disruption &
| pre-enshitification?
|
| Like the first 5-10 years of zipcar...
| noahbp wrote:
| This would change if there wasn't a culture of giving 5 stars to
| every driver. It started because Uber unfairly punished good
| drivers for very good but honest 4/5 reviews, and now every Uber
| driver who uses their phone while driving or has an interior
| smelling of cigarette smoke gets 5 stars out of obligation.
| Suppafly wrote:
| I suspect they are more reliable and the end user experience is
| better.
| Detrytus wrote:
| Is it just a matter of Waymo being tourist attraction? Last time
| when I was in LA my friends and me, we had a rental car to go
| around, but we still took couple of Waymo rides just for fun.
| With enough demand from people who have "autonomous car ride" on
| their bucket list the price can be much higher, as Uber/Lyft are
| not really competing in the same category.
| FabHK wrote:
| Wow, USD 8 to 11 per km.
|
| Hong Kong taxis cost USD 3.5 for the first 2 km, then USD 1.4/km,
| and less than a dollar per km above USD 13.
|
| https://www.td.gov.hk/en/transport_in_hong_kong/public_trans...
| danielbarla wrote:
| The prices are pretty shocking for me too (Hungary). I don't
| use taxis much due to the city being pretty walkable, and there
| being good public transport, but a quick check says that taxis
| here have a base fare of 3.16 USD, after which it's 1.26 USD
| per km or 0.32 USD per minute, depending on the billing option
| (the two are roughly equal around 15 km/h speed).
|
| Another thing that is odd for me is that for all 3 companies in
| the article, the average trip seems to be less than 2 km. I'm
| slightly more "walkey" than the average person for sure, but
| that is a leisurely 15 minute walk, and on the threshold of the
| distance I would start considering public transport for. With
| bags to the airport, sure, I'd take a taxi. But I find it hard
| to believe that the average person is ~2 km from the airport,
| so the median trip is likely done without extensive luggage at
| an _even shorter_ distance. I find this kind of absurd.
| horns4lyfe wrote:
| Well ya, it's better
| jen20 wrote:
| Unfortunately in Austin, Waymo have screwed the pooch by making
| their service only available through Uber, with no way of saying
| you only want Waymo instead of a human driver. I used an Uber the
| other day out of necessity, and the driver smelled so bad I had
| to stop the ride and get out.
| patrickhogan1 wrote:
| Uber is increasingly annoying where it will delay putting in an
| order for a ride and then try to upsell you. As in upgrade to
| Uber plus or black to get a faster time. If there is a concert or
| game and big demand spike I get it. But it's doing it on almost
| every ride in SF. Upsell nags are annoying but seemingly
| extending my trip time to upsell is unforgivable.
| data_maan wrote:
| This is as much about Uber/Lyft, as it is about the (nonexistent)
| level of politeness in the vest (US+Europe).
|
| Have you ever taken a Uber in Japan? The driver will make
| him/herself invisible. The space in the car is, factually, your
| space. No phone conversations on their part, no music, no odours.
|
| Waymo won't thrive in Japan, because it offers nothing extra
| advantages to regular Uber.
|
| We suck in the west in terms of customer friendliness.
| cAtte_ wrote:
| so, in your opinion, the best way to be polite is to not exist?
| that's a nice outlook on humanity
| data_maan wrote:
| Hah!
|
| The converse to your claim is: the only way to exist is to
| intrude on other people space (by loud talking, hearing music
| etc).;)
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Contrapositive is the logistically consistent statement,
| and that does not involve intruding in others' space
| (depending on one's definition of intrude, I guess).
| 1776smithadam wrote:
| > Have you ever taken a Uber in Japan?
|
| You're being snarky but it's obvious you're speaking from the
| prospective of a foreign tourist who has only been to Tokyo and
| major cities while not being able to speak Japanese.
|
| You're making a strong but false generalisations as a tourist.
| The tourist aspect is important because of the anthropic
| principle. If you were a local who was in the inaka where Uber
| doesn't operate and you had to reserve a taxi by phone in
| Japanese, you'd have an entirely different experience.
|
| Japanese people are notoriously introverted and shy. That's why
| people don't make small talk especially on a taxi. Plus, if
| they presume you're a tourist who doesn't speak Japanese, why
| bother? It's also not true that it's "your space". Just because
| the driver and other service people aren't confronting you on
| your behavior doesn't mean it's socially approved behavior.
| Japanese people silently judged and tourists can't even notice.
| There is an unspoken rule you keep your conversation with your
| fellow passenger private and quiet. Even wearing a
| perfume/cologne in a communal space, which a taxi is, can be
| considered rude.
|
| If the reason people prefer Waymo is because they're
| introverted and not just avoid socializing but avoid being the
| presence of other people alltogether, then it's entirely
| possible for Waymo to do okay in Japan.
|
| > The space in the car is, factually, your space.
|
| This such an arrogant Westerner thing to think and say. Until
| you can step out of that, you will never understand Japan like
| you think you do.
| data_maan wrote:
| So you are saying that as a Japanese ordering a Japanese by
| phone, that your driver would: - happily speak on the phone
| while driving - listen to music - open the window to cool
| himself without asking if you're OK with that?
|
| (i.e. all the things drivers in the best do; also, when I
| said that the space in a taxi is factually the clients space
| I didn't imply that the client can do whatever he wants -
| rather that the client can enjoy that space undisturbed; you
| only zoned in on the part of the client creating disturbance,
| which I can see though is an issue with tourists in Japan.)
|
| I find that hard to believe. But open to be proven otherwise
| if you can cite such occurrences.
|
| My other point that we in the west suck still seems to hold
| true: even if your point is true and I may get better
| treatment in Japan only as a tourist in a big city, you can
| rest assured that no Japanese in a western big city will get
| any kind of better treatment. Drivers in the west are usually
| impolite equally to everyone.
| wyager wrote:
| There was a while, early on, where (at least in the areas I used
| it) the modal Uber driver was a college student or a
| (semi-)retired person looking for something to do. Generally
| polite, fluent in English, upwardly mobile or already successful.
| Cars were higher quality and cleaner than taxis.
|
| Now, the modal Uber driver seems to be relatively rude, cannot
| speak English well, seems financially desperate, and drives a
| dirty/crappy car. Even if I pay extra for "comfort" I often get a
| pretty junky car. It's basically as bad as a taxi.
|
| When the human element is a substantial net negative on the whole
| experience, I'll pay extra to avoid the human element.
| nmca wrote:
| I get motion sick more easily than most, and a Waymo is much much
| smoother than a typical uber driver. I am happy to pay a fairly
| large time&momey premium for this.
| nottorp wrote:
| Not "people". Early adopters willing to pay the early adopter
| tax.
|
| By the way, why hasn't all this automation triggered lower prices
| for anything? Why doesn't the self checkout at a supermarket give
| you a discount for doing their job?
| drusepth wrote:
| It's like 5-10% more for a Waymo (which is nothing in the $10-30
| range) and you don't have to talk to anyone and/or sit in awkward
| silence for the ride. Yeah, I'll pay that every time.
| xivzgrev wrote:
| why is it surprising that Waymo costs more, and people pay
| anyway? Waymo is prioritizing safety over all things and is in
| gradual roll out mode.
|
| The easiest way to contain demand is to raise prices.
|
| and...what's not to love about riding in the future for a few
| bucks more?
| almosthere wrote:
| I've only used Uber a handfull of times, and all of them at least
| 7 years ago - nothing recent.
|
| Last time I used it was late at night, I had used an Uber to get
| Pizza but it was kind of far from my hotel. After eating I used
| it again to get a ride back. Unfortunately whatever driver it
| chose for me, decided to just SIT for an hour at their house (or
| somewhere). And then finally left. It was like 11pm, middle of
| nowhere and I was freezing cold.
|
| I'd rather choose a Waymo than freeze my ass off. This was an
| area that had so few drivers (I wasn't from here so I had no
| idea).
| epistasis wrote:
| This is a huge huge huge problem for Uber. They have severely
| degraded their one key fearure: reliable knowledge that your
| taxi is on its way. This is the entire _point_ of Uber versus a
| regular taxi.
| franciscop wrote:
| Reading the comments here, the experiences people are sharing
| feels out-of-world since I live in Tokyo and it's unthinkable to
| have a bad experience in a Taxi/Shareride like that. They've
| always been very professional, the highest quality I could
| expect. Cars always clean, driver always polite, etc. Sure, there
| WILL be some edge case out there, but I've ridden taxis and Uber
| many times here and not a single odd experience, nothing at all
| like what is being described in these messages.
| Shank wrote:
| > I live in Tokyo
|
| I also live in Tokyo and surely you're not expecting Japanese
| taxi standards to be remotely comparable to US Uber or Lyft,
| right? It's a race to the bottom in any major US metro.
| Japanese taxis are refined and designed around passenger
| comfort. There is a specific model of car for Taxis. In the US
| you're rolling the dice on what Uber or Lyft offer.
| franciscop wrote:
| I'm not from the US, I'm from Spain and while they are better
| in Japan than in Spain, it's not like the "out-of-world"
| difference that I'm seeing in these comments. That's why I'm
| confused, I expected the US to be similar to Europe in these
| regards. I have taken Uber a couple of times while traveling
| to the US (long ago though), and while they were dirtier than
| in other countries it wasn't that bad as the comments
| suggest.
|
| So either things have gone dramatically downhill or I had a
| "good" experience in my brief US rides relatively speaking.
|
| As a non-American, I am not sure why it's so crazy to think
| standards would be high in other countries? Grab standards
| and quality in e.g. Taiwan, Thailand, etc IS within the same
| order of magnitude as Japan and those are much poorer
| countries than the US.
| patchtopic wrote:
| just read this before so I can see why
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comments/1lbn0fs/is_it_no...
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Surprise. I'm happy to pay Apple tax in return for ease of use
| and cancellation
| thordenmark wrote:
| The novelty of Waymo, as well as not having to interact with a
| stranger (especially for women, my wife used Waymo and liked it)
| makes Waymo a compelling option.
| IshKebab wrote:
| I agree. At least in San Francisco it's still a tourist
| attraction. I took two rides when I visited that were twice the
| price of an Uber and I only did that for the novelty.
| Definitely wouldn't if I lived there.
| DecentShoes wrote:
| I would pay the extra since there's no driver to talk to me.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| Turns out people value the experience (and their lives) ... huh.
| gnrlst wrote:
| After the initial 60 seconds of shock that nobody is at the
| wheel, the rest of the ride makes you quickly realize how much
| better AI is at driving than regular humans.
| andrewfromx wrote:
| tried to take a waymo today in LA:
| https://i.imgur.com/ufoDjue.png
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| if products cost more than other products in a similar domain and
| people are paying anyway I would naturally assume the more
| expensive products are a luxury brand, and given some of the
| other comments here I'd think my assumption borne out.
| scoobernut wrote:
| If you pay more now you just proved to Waymo they can charge even
| more later. Way to go. Once they corner the market it will cost
| even more than uber/lyft/taxi today.
| nu11ptr wrote:
| It might be more expensive now because it is novel, but over
| time, as it commoditizes and more competition enters, prices will
| likely go down.
|
| Also, this is how the free market works. The actual users decide
| what something is worth based on using their wallets. Is it more
| valuable to have solitude and your own space in the car? Or
| better to have human interaction? The market will decide.
| maxlin wrote:
| This bodes well for Tesla. After their product is fully ready and
| released, regardless if it takes 5 years, with any sense it's
| going to be the cheapest, will reach anywhere (no requirement for
| mapping, can reliably calculate to the limit of its range), AND
| have the privacy benefits of a self driving cab.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| obvious paid advertisement is obvious
| sgarland wrote:
| The novelty aside (I don't live in a service region for Waymo, so
| I can only try it if I fly out to SFO for work), I will happily
| pay a premium to have a consistent experience where I don't have
| to potentially deal with an obnoxious driver. That sounds
| misanthropic, I know, but for every good experience I've had
| where the car was clean and the driver was either silent, or
| interesting to talk to, I've had five others where that was not
| the case.
| johnisgood wrote:
| I admit I did not go further than the title, because I assume the
| conclusion is in the title.
|
| Waymo is considerably cheaper in LA (at least in a region) than
| Uber. I have no clue about Lyft. I know this for a fact, because
| someone I know has taken Waymos and Ubers between the two
| identical points, around the same time of day, multiple times,
| and Waymo has always been way cheaper, considerably so.
| tchbnl wrote:
| I'll happily pay extra to never interact with another human. I'd
| live in a cave and yell at passersbys if I could.
| specialist wrote:
| Ride share grifts (Uber, Lyft) extract wealth from drivers.
| Morally equiv to MLMs, value added resellers, platforms (Amazon,
| Spotify, Meta, etc).
|
| It feels icky being an accomplice.
|
| Less importantly, I now despise the degradation of driving
| etiquette and overall safety. At least as much as I despised
| taxis. eg don't block traffic loading / unloading; there's a
| loading zone RIGHT THERE, ffs.
| bloppe wrote:
| "there is an idea that autonomous vehicles are something that
| will erode driver jobs and put drivers at risk. And I think the
| irony of what we've seen is that it's actually quite expensive to
| run an AV, and that that's not going to be happening, at least in
| the near term"
|
| Why are they assuming the higher price results from supply rather
| than demand? Seems like a no brainer that waymo will trounce
| drivers on price once adequately scaled
| fooker wrote:
| This is why Uber was aggressively fighting for getting self
| driving tech.
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