[alasano]

I don't know if this reflects poorly on Uber or current taxi legislation.

Living in Québec I've never had a bad experience with taxi drivers the way people seem to have in NYC, etc. Uber was still far better, if anything just for how proud some drivers were of being part of it. The lower barrier of entry seemed like a positive thing overall.

A nice woman drove me once, offered me starburst candy and a bottle of water, both of which were in a basket in the back seat. Made my day extra nice.

[pixel_fcker]

Don't know where in Quebec you lived but my experience with taxis in Montreal was horrible (took a taxi every day for a few months) - old, poorly maintained cars with rude drivers who often drive like complete maniacs. Uber was on another level in terms of service before we even begin talking about the convenience of the app itself.

Trust Quebec to do everything they can to legislate innovation and improved quality out of existence in favour of preserving the status quo (and their tax dollars).

[jclulow]

As far as I can tell, the drive to pamper riders comes from the fear of being cut off from driving for receiving too many sub-five star ratings. I would feel differently about it if Uber were handing out a "water bottle" stipend.

[rdlecler1]

Oh, you mean like any regular job? Where you need to exceed everyone's expectations?

This is what a free market looks like. Don't like that? Take a look at Venezuela, and tell me you'd prefer to be dumpster diving for your next meal. Capitalism and Democracy are aweful aweful systems, but everything else is worse.

[TeMPOraL]

The difference is probably the level of expectations. In "any regular job" you don't get fired for having your ratings fall below 4.3 / 5 because a customer of yours had a bad day or fat-fingered 1 in a hurry.

The jobs with high turnover rates are usually known as "shitty jobs".

[yummyfajitas]

Do you really think that a highly competent organization that's hired hundreds of data scientists can't estimate/discount the base rate of fat fingered/random bad ratings?

(Fun fact: I don't know about Uber, but I know Ola does exactly this. They use "how would you handle this exact problem" as a warmup question on their interviews.)

[TeMPOraL]

They could, but do they have incentive to?

It's good for them to keep drivers who committed (e.g. those who took Uber's help in getting a new car) on edge. It's not that they have shortage of candidates, or that they actually care about them.

[yummyfajitas]

Lets think about their incentives.

Uber, Ola and others are desperately in need of more good drivers. They are growing rapidly, and literally will pay their competitors in order to attempt to recruit their drivers.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2014/05/30/how-uber-an...

http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/26/6067663/this-is-ubers-play...

"Uber has been aggressively poaching Lyft drivers for months, offering them huge bonuses just to do a few rides on Uber. This week, Lyft started fighting back with similar bonuses..."

There are two ways to have an extra driver next week. One is expensive recruiting methods. The other is not kicking them off the service. Remember, growth = new acquisitions - churn.

Lets think now about the costs. Handling the base rate of bad ratings would cost a data scientist a month or two of time - approx $20-60k. Assuming those huge bonuses are $500/driver, you'd need to retain 120 drivers for that python script to be worthwhile.

So if Uber has no incentive to solve this problem, it's only because it's a tiny problem (affecting < 0.1% of their workforce).

Are you really claiming that Uber hires hundreds of data scientists, but doesn't actually have them answer questions like "which drivers should be fired"? What do you think they do with them?

[hiharryhere]

Quoting extremes at either end of the political spectrum is just silly.

The alternative to an unregulated workforce who's livelihoods are subject to the whims of an opaque organisation is not dumpster diving in Venezuela.

Sensible regulation with sensible market forces at a happy equilibrium is best.

It's never going to be perfect but arguments like yours make finding a reasonable compromise possible.

[bdcravens]

That's a common Uber thing; I've been offered a bottle of water in multiple Ubers in multiple cities.

However, maybe it's encouraging taxi drivers to step it up a bit. In my ride to the airport in Chicago yesterday, the driver offered me a bottle of water, which I think was the first time I've experienced that in a taxi.