my new argument against uber with everything going on is simply going to be “why are you giving your money to a US multinational when you could be using a local taxi service?”
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Agree ... Uber is destructive. But, taxis are mostly an urban service and Uber did expand into rural areas. Can we figure out how to mix the good steady jobs for drivers AND the access to underserved areas?
it’s entirely different though. uber isn’t operating a service in that way, it’s just activating its app and letting people drive under it there. you don’t really need uber for people to offer that service in those areas.
Not that it's justified, but the answer from most people would be "because it's cheaper". I know that an Uber drive from home to my work costs me a third of what a taxi costs, for example.
I use Lyft over uber. But regular taxi service was always awful. In an ideal world we’d have some sort of open source service that provided ride sharing-like services for taxi drivers while letting them keep all the money they earned. But that has never been an option.
If you're in north London can I highly recommend http://www.swiftcars.co.uk/ (not being paid by them but they've got me out of trouble quite a few times).
If only we had app developers in australia. Barrier to entry to set up an uber equiv seems very low now Uber has done the hard work of smashing the taxi cartels.
TBH it's because I've just got into the habit of using Uber, which started when it was much quicker and cheaper than the local taxi companies. If they've caught up then maybe I should give them another look...
here in Paris, France we are very lucky with Taxi G7 when i need a car rather than public transit but i recognize that other places don’t have these affordable/reliable options
i also don’t use UberEats or other delivery apps for similar reasons to what you’ve outlined above
Because taxis where I live suck balls. Twice as expensive, no tracking, no recourse if fail. The one exception is taxi from the airport because Ubers seem to hate collecting from the airport and routinely fraudulently pretend to have collected you when they haven’t, forcing you to ask for a refund.
If they provided anywhere near the level of service and accountability that Uber and Lyft offer, I absolutely would. I'm not wasting my time or my money to prop up a local company that doesn't give me any value for it.
taxis apparently suck, yet i take them in cities around the world and have none of these issues people say are endemic to them. many even have apps and web portals where you can request and track your ride. plus the idea uber is so much cheaper is usually false since its post-pandemic price hikes.
It’s also just so much faster to call a taxi. 30 second phone call talking to a human vs. five minutes of trying to sign into an account, tap a bunch of bullshit, random upsells constantly, etc.
Not to mention, that it was cheap so it can eliminate all competition and now they are able to charge a higher price while treating the drivers really unfairly.
a lot don't have apps, i'm not calling if i can just grab a ride via an app. I just looked up the biggest taxi service in AZ and the link to their app page, doesn't have any links to apps.
Can't handle the idea of people so young that they haven't even thought about how we got around on the cheap before the subsidized internet hired-car services
same, have seen the same with app-based food/grocery delivery & able-bodied youngsters who don't know they can use their legs to go to the restaurant or local shop.
I live in a small town. We are 30 minutes to the nearest taxi. I've considered driving a gypsy service at night to keep people from driving drunk. Then I remember that drunks think they are good to drive.
I always use taxis here in Montreal. They are fine and cost the same. Only bummer is you hear the stories about how the Quebec govt completey fucked them over when they caved to Uber.
Yeah, we like Taxi Coop but recently I've switched over to Taxi Champlain. They seem to arrive quicker and last summer they returned a cellphone that had fallen out of my pocket!
I’ve tried convincing others with this argument and the response is usually “I don’t want to change my habits or be slightly inconvenienced in any way”
Am in violent agreement. Why do people use Uber? Original owner was an outside ba*tard. Is there a sense of helping someone make money who isn’t currently making enough to live on? 🤷♀️ Adding yet more cars to the road?
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Uber drivers are small business people who pay a subscription to the Uber big business.
Other Ontario cities have Uride, you can also look into that
i also don’t use UberEats or other delivery apps for similar reasons to what you’ve outlined above
10/10 would do taxi again.
(Curb is the taxi app on the right)