> For a while, VC subsidies meant Uber and Lyft could pretend they were fundamentally different somehow
You must have very rosy glasses because calling a tired/rude Taxi operator at 1am and not knowing whether your cab was coming in 5 or 20min was a major drag, so you always had to plan for 20min+ and sit patiently without social media to fill the void.
Having 2 ubers cancel before you get a 3rd commitment, within a short time frame, and only at the airport or a busy concert isn't that bad at all. Modern entitlement IMO
> The cars are increasingly beat-up too
Regular taxis never had an anonymous review system and they often just bought old police cars, used by 2 drivers across 2 day/night shifts . Good chance the night driver drank on the job too
Uber requires them to have a newish car which in my experience is usually a decent hybrid. A big improvement IMO (although I do love old crown Vic's from back in the pre Uber days).
If anything the biggest issue is Uber not strictly enforcing reuse of other authorized drivers accounts, usually by immigrants without official company clearance
I frequently have to wait 20-30 minutes for an Uber or Lyft pickup at my apartment in south Brooklyn. I'm sure it doesn't help that I'm usually going somewhere like Bay Ridge if I'm ordering an Uber and not somewhere popular. If it's after 1am I just open both Lyft and Uber and book both because at least one of them will just park the car and not come and wait out the timer before it assigns a new driver. I wish the situation is them just canceling, but drivers get penalized for that but apparently don't get penalized for parking at a gas station waiting for you to cancel and pay the fee or sit out the 10 minutes.
One time the guy was just 3 blocks away so I walked to where his icon was, found the car, and banged on his window.
During a weekend trip to Orlando trying to get from our hotel to Disney it took 6 drivers until someone finally came to pick us up.
At least the price is given ahead of time and paid through the app. I once had a cab driver charge my card for $300 when I was borderline blackout drunk in Miami Beach trying to get back to mainland Miami. Didn't use the card reader in the cab either, he used something like a Square reader on his phone. Not exactly sure which one, I didn't piece together what he was doing was fishy until the next afternoon when some blurry memories started coming back and I called my bank.
Book Uber Black and 99% of those issues go away. Have taken more Ubers than I'd like to admit, so I'm comfortable calling this a large enough sample size to qualify as anecdata.
Not sure how old you are but I spent half my adult life dealing with a government regulated Taxi medallion system and the other half using Uber in multiple countries and I’d 100% take “post-VC” Uber over old taxis every single time.
FWIW they both still exist so you’re free to choose, which is the nice thing about competition.
Pre booked airport black car taxis have always been a niche within the wider system for a good reason. Uber’s fluid system is not perfect at every scenario.
You must have very rosy glasses because calling a tired/rude Taxi operator at 1am and not knowing whether your cab was coming in 5 or 20min was a major drag, so you always had to plan for 20min+ and sit patiently without social media to fill the void.
Having 2 ubers cancel before you get a 3rd commitment, within a short time frame, and only at the airport or a busy concert isn't that bad at all. Modern entitlement IMO
> The cars are increasingly beat-up too
Regular taxis never had an anonymous review system and they often just bought old police cars, used by 2 drivers across 2 day/night shifts . Good chance the night driver drank on the job too
Uber requires them to have a newish car which in my experience is usually a decent hybrid. A big improvement IMO (although I do love old crown Vic's from back in the pre Uber days).
If anything the biggest issue is Uber not strictly enforcing reuse of other authorized drivers accounts, usually by immigrants without official company clearance