[joeblau]

Are the residents of Austin doing anything to let their state representatives know that the situation is as bad as you're painting it? From what I've read (not sure if it's factual or not), it seems people impacted by the loss of U/L either didn't turn up to vote or were potentially confused by the language on the ballot.

[jdrock]

The consensus is that U/L's aggressive political campaigning prior to the vote backfired big time. They really screwed up on messaging by not understanding their audience. Had they made it about losing 10,000 jobs, they might have won. Hell, if they had just not called people multiple times without consent, they might have won.

There are multiple efforts going on as a result of the vote. Former U/L drivers are trying to put together a rally. A non-profit group (Ride Austin) has sprung up to replace U/L. Certain council members are trying to fight the rest of the council. The state legislature is consider a bill that would pre-empt city legislation.

[tn13]

That is absolutely right. Uber most certainly needs to fire their PR people. If I had to design a campaign to ensure Uber loses the vote, that is how I would designed the PR. It was unbelievably bad.

Asking for votes is essentially an emotional argument and you need to play on people's emotions just the way Coke sells their soda or Axe sells deodorants. Uber should have shown "we are creating well paying jobs". "We are helping women", "we are helping environment" type of emotional arguments showing babies, blondes, mothers and cats.

Just to give an example how horrible Uber is at PR:

Uber's surge pricing is an excellent feature. But why on earth would you name it "surge pricing"? It is like BMW calling its cars "Overpriced Metal". Both "surge" and "pricing" are bad words and combined they are the worst possible naming for a feature.

The correct naming for surge pricing should have been "Uber Urgent" or "Uber VIP". The way it should have been designed is that: 1. Drivers opt in for Uber Urgent. Whenever there is a surge in demand driver goes into Urgent Only mode. 2. Let the passengers wait for the usual low fares or select Uber Urgent and get their rides quickly. In fact asking passengers to bid in 3-4 levels would make a lot of sense.

Uber Urgent could have been advertised as: 1. Empowers drivers to earn more by helping those in urgent need. 2. Helps people in need get the cars faster 3. Reduces traffic on road during rush hour. 4. Skip the line as if you are VIP. No more waiting.

[zaidf]

You're underestimating the value of being a company that always has a cab for you within minutes. With your approach, the default in the public's mind would be "there is no uber till 3am!" vs. "Uber is the on the way...btw it's 25% extra due to the rush."

A name like VIP is bad because it discourages regular use. It sounds like something you use once a year on special occasions.

[tn13]

You are correct. VIP might be not the right word but there could be better wording than the official "surge pricing". If you are charging someone 25% more clearly tell why and what the user is getting more than those who are not willing to pay 25% extra.

Or simply don't tell anything about increased prices. Just show the estimated price and let the user decide if he wants it or not.

In fact you can on-board the user into app to simply be blind to price increases up-to 75% or something.

[eric_h]

Not to mention that Uber already has a VIP concept in their product that's quite interesting. Pairs frequent customers with the highest rated drivers.

Amusingly, in less Uber dense neighborhoods in NYC (i.e. anything that's not Manhattan) Uber VIP is a worse option for getting a quick ride. For me, when I'm in the outer boroughs I opt for regular uber x, but when I'm in Manhattan I do Uber VIP.

[CamperBob2]

If I had to design a campaign to ensure Uber loses the vote, that is how I would designed the PR.

Is it possible that's exactly what Uber's opposition did?

[pc86]

It's possible Uber is run by lizardmen and the Illuminati. But without any evidence actually pointing to that it doesn't really make sense to just throw accusations out into the air.

[CamperBob2]

This isn't a random idea I made up just to dissipate some extra karma on Hacker News, you know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_job

Edit: Also, who's accusing anyone of anything (besides you)? I'm just asking questions here.

[joeblau]

Thanks for the summary of what's going on. I remember when the news broke, but I haven't seen much about what's going on since then.

[jellicle]

What jobs? Uber insists they don't employ anyone.

[Cookingboy]

Self-employed jobs are still jobs.

[hawkice]

I know we are pretty far through the looking glass as far as the semantics here, but surely if someone is self-employed, they would be the business entity that created their job? "Job creation" is kinda a nonsense thing to brag about, so I have no idea what the standards are, but just linguistically speaking I'd assume self-employed=self-job-created.

[snowwrestler]

Any given job has many parents.

Yes, it takes someone to sign the contract to do the work (for self-employed), or post the opening and hire someone (for an employee).

But it also takes investment. Many self-employed jobs sit on a platform that someone else is investing in. For example many construction workers are self-employed, but there needs to be a construction project for them to work on. Many folks in the film industry are self-employed, but there need to be movies for them to work on.

And in the case of Uber and Lyft, even if we call the drivers self-employed, they can't employ themselves in that particular way without the platforms that Uber and Lyft provide. The software is a big part of it, but so is the customer base (an asset in its own right), and the marketing that keeps and grows the customer base.

That's the extent to which Uber and Lyft can claim to create jobs. It's more like they create an environment or platform that enables other people to create their own jobs, but that is hard to fit into a soundbite.

[Sacho]

So they're investing in local businesses!

[ufo]

What message were they using before the vote?

[theli0nheart]

Their big message was that fingerprinting does a worse job of filtering out dangerous drivers than Uber or Lyft's internally-used background checks.

[vkou]

What background checks? [1] [2]

[1] http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/nenshi-not-very-goo...

[2] http://observer.com/2016/05/uber-driver-charged-with-attempt...

[icebraining]

In your first link the mayor later said “I am not aware of anyone convicted of a sexual offence clearing the background check used by Uber in Calgary. Watching the video, I realize that I did not explain myself clearly at all. I apologize for any confusion that I have caused.”

[dbg31415]

Unfortunately not much.

The people who used Uber are up-in-arms, but the people who voted against it were people who didn't use the service and don't know / care.

Our city council is stocked to the brim with people who hate any form of progress. Those dipshits are the reason we have such horrible traffic here in the first place... for years and years and years their mantra was, "If we don't build it, they won't come." And they purposefully made roads much much smaller than they ought to be -- and continue to make roads much much smaller than they ought to be to accommodate growth.

Uber / Lyft played their hand so poorly. Instead of talking about jobs, and the reduction of drunk driving (a huge issue), they let the city and taxi union play them. The campaign, to suburbanites who probably don't use rideshare services anyway, became about safety and how Uber / Lyft drivers would rape you because there was one guy one time who had statutory raped someone before becoming a driver and Uber / Lyft let him drive anyway... The old mayor came on, drummed up fear in the old folks... so then the nursing home vote thought there were these roving rapists being paid billions of dollars by SF tech companies and driving up their taxes. I wish I was making it up.

Oh, and the ballot language was confusing. So yeah, nobody really knew what they were voting for.

Of course the crazy guy shooting people up north didn't help... but anyway now we're back to being fucked.

Ways we are fucked:

* Taxis... are 2-3x more expensive than Uber, if they even show up at all. When I need a ride to the airport I'm back to asking neighbors since I can't rely on taxis showing up on time.

* Since Taxis don't have to show a GPS of where they are going, they take you round-about ways. It took me a minute but yeah, after getting picked up by the airport, I should have been taken down 71 to Mopac to get to Circle C. The guy literally took me to 35 then across Slaughter... stoplights galore. Intentionally driving slow the whole way... speed limit was 75, he was driving 55.

* Taxis aren't clean. They're filthy in fact. No water either.

* Taxi drivers aren't from here. So I get this is racist, but at least with Uber / Lyft we knew it was our neighbors. They spoke like we did. There were no communication issues around where you wanted to go.

Ways we can get unfucked:

* At the moment, unclear. We need a new city government... but because the nursing home / Luddites vote and the tech / younger crowd doesn't... we can't reverse the decision. And Uber and Lyft seem unwilling to pay for the background checks the city now requires. Anything else that pops up... it'll be a temp thing until the city cracks down on it and imposes the same sort of shit they tried to push on Uber / Lyft.

(I fucking hate the "old guard" so much, and all the people who got to vote on rideshares who never even used them... it's such bullshit. Hooray.)

[karmajunkie]

> Taxi drivers aren't from here. So I get this is racist, but at least with Uber / Lyft we knew it was our neighbors. They spoke like we did. There were no communication issues around where you wanted to go.

And yet, knowing that its racist, you barrel right on through that social more... Way to let that freak flag fly, man.

I've had quite a few immigrant taxi and lyft drivers. They almost all spoke english very well, they all got me where I was going by the correct route, and they all get a tip from me.

[blisterpeanuts]

One advantage of Uber/Lyft is that you set your destination in the app, and the fare is also pre-set, so there's hardly any verbal communication required, aside from chit-chat and maybe some negotiation regarding alternative routes etc.

[sjs7007]

The rates are preset. The amount you pay at the end includes a time component as well.

[dbg31415]

So look, Austin is a small town, and people are on the whole very friendly. It's very jarring to be treated rudely by someone who doesn't bother hiding the fact that they are trying to milk you for all you're worth to them... however they have to drag the trip out they will. Driving slow, pretending to miss exits, pretending they don't hear you when you ask them to go different routes... it's infuriating.

[karmajunkie]

Yeah dude, I hear ya. That sucks, and I'm as pissed as you probably are that Lyft and Uber pulled out.

But that doesn't mean your statement was any less racist and xenophobic for it.

[Sacho]

What's the principle difference between denying former convicted felons a job as a taxi driver, and denying outsiders because they are "unfriendly, rude, difficult to communicate"? They both make broad assumptions, which might even be generally correct.

[karmajunkie]

Felons, by definition, are found to have committed some act which marks them as part of the class. Leaving aside for the sake of answering your question the unjust aspects of American jurisprudence which distort that process of a guilty verdict, a member of the class has essentially (again, in theory) joined it voluntarily.

The same is not true of "outsiders". It is a racist and xenophobic presumption that an immigrant will be unfriendly, rude, or difficult to communicate with, and that natural-born citizens will not be.

[i_don_t_know]

> Taxis... are 2-3x more expensive than Uber, if they even show up at all. When I need a ride to the airport I'm back to asking neighbors since I can't rely on taxis showing up on time.

You can get an airport shuttle. Cheaper than a taxi and so far I haven't had any problems with them going to/from the airport. You have to share your ride with others, so it's slower than a cab, but then you get what you pay for.

[bmm6o]

> Taxi drivers aren't from here. So I get this is racist, but at least with Uber / Lyft we knew it was our neighbors. They spoke like we did. There were no communication issues around where you wanted to go.

Is this particular to Austin? I've taken exactly 4 Uber rides, and I think twice the driver was an immigrant. (Not that there's anything wrong with that - just countering this nativist data point)

[sehutson]

Even if your Uber/Lyft driver is new to the area and knows very little of the language or local area, the app tells them where to go and makes sure they're taking you on an efficient route. If anything, it makes recent immigrant/ESL drivers more appealing.

[roldie]

I've had U/L drivers in Austin who had trouble with English or were clearly not from Austin. One time, I used Uber Pool or Lyft Line and the drive asked me to call the next passenger because he couldn't communicate with them. I also had to direct him to where the pickup location was.

The rest of your points are true. Austin has done a good job of trying resist growth by not investing in infrastructure or transit. Then people come here anyway and getting around is a mess. Ridesharing is essential in Austin. The new ridesharing apps that have cropped up have not filled the void.

[pm90]

> The rest of your points are true. Austin has done a good job of trying resist growth by not investing in infrastructure or transit. Then people come here anyway and getting around is a mess. Ridesharing is essential in Austin. The new ridesharing apps that have cropped up have not filled the void.

This isn't deliberate. Austin has experimented with a number of public transportation options. But whenever any plans are put up for a vote, it gets shot down as too expensive.

Also, the city isn't that dense (yet) for most common forms of effective public transportation, like subways. This might change in the future, but currently growth is not focused on Austin city proper (Travis County) but also many of the suburbs around it.

[chiph]

To be fair - the $1 billion bond that was up for a vote the other year was filled with pork. Only about 2/3 of it was transportation-related, and a fair amount of that was for studies, not actual construction (if they don't know where the congestion is, they should monitor Waze to find out)

[enraged_camel]

>>> Taxi drivers aren't from here. So I get this is racist, but at least with Uber / Lyft we knew it was our neighbors. They spoke like we did. There were no communication issues around where you wanted to go.

Thank you for pointing out the REAL reason why Uber/Lyft are popular. It has nothing to do with convenience (a lot of taxi companies also have similar apps) and everything to do with the fact that people want to interact with those in the same socioeconomic class as them.

[aianus]

No, it's not, the real reason is that Uber is half the price of a cab and will actually show up when called.

[enraged_camel]

Have there actually been studies that prove Uber is significantly cheaper than cab?

Anecdotally speaking, I've taken Uber quite often in Austin, as well as various cabs, and they always seemed comparable to me. In fact, if you take into account Uber's surge pricing (which cabs don't have, afaik), Uber came out more expensive on average.

[aianus]

> Have there actually been studies that prove Uber is significantly cheaper than cab?

Where I'm from (Toronto) the taxi rates are fixed by law and the Uber rates are publicly available on their website.

Taxi rates: $3.25 + $1.74 per km + $0.50 per minute

UberX rates: $2.50 + $0.80 per km + $0.18 per minute

It's not even close.

[dbg31415]

My house in Circle C to the Airport via Uber... $20-25. Consistently. 20-25 minutes.

My house to the airport via taxi... $45-65. 30-40 minutes.

I fly 2-3x per week, thinking about putting together some expense reports to back this up... but for now you'll have to take my word. (=

[newacct23]

In Atlanta a taxi to the airport can be 40 dollars. An uber is less than 30.

[icebraining]

In Lisbon, it's mixed, since the price per minute is lower (0.10€ vs 0.25€) but the price per km is higher (0.65€ vs 0.47€). Taxis have an higher base fare (3.25€ vs 1€) but on the other hand the first 2 km are free.

[aioprisan]

Downtown Boston to Logan airport taxi: $30-40. Uber: $20.

[EdHominem]

You're comparing Uber's surge price to a Taxi's regular price when what really happens is that the taxi just doesn't come.

That comparison is only helpful if you note how long it took for both to show up.

[jacalata]

It varies by city.

[newacct23]

>a lot of taxi companies also have similar apps

First of all that's not the reason Uber and lyft are popular. Secondly, most taxi company apps suck.

[icebraining]

Maybe in the US. Around here, it's very rare to get someone other than a white male driving a taxi, while I've encountered much more diverse drivers in Uber. The reason I've exclusively switched to it is because they actually treat me like a person - like replying when I greet them.

[dbg31415]

>> Thank you for pointing out the REAL reason why Uber/Lyft are popular. It has nothing to do with convenience (a lot of taxi companies also have similar apps) and everything to do with the fact that people want to interact with those in the same socioeconomic class as them.

Yeah... thinking it through, you're right. That's spot on. I don't think that's bad, the Taxi drivers don't treat me like a human or like their neighbor, and that's more the issue. There's just a polite way that Americans are to one another, especially Texans. Taxi Drivers are extremely transparent that they are just out to make as much money from me as they can. I don't mean it as racist, but it's very jarring to be treated rudely in Texas; people are on the whole very friendly and sociable here. It's very apparent when someone isn't from here, or hasn't lived here long enough to adapt to the local customs.