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by funkaster 2687 days ago
> The taxi experience in cities other than NYC, Chicago, and SF got a million times better.

It wouldn't be fair to NYC and Chicago to compare them to SF. In my mind, the completely horrible broken experience of the SF taxi system was what created Uber & friends. I've been living in SF pre-Uber and having moved from a big city, the taxi system just drove me nuts, I could not understand why it was that fucked up. If it were as good as it is/was in NYC, prob we would've never seen Uber.

2 comments

The part I really disliked about the NYC cabs is that you never knew how much it going to cost you. And similarly the driver never knew where they would have to go. With Uber, both parties have this information ahead of time.

Huge improvement.

I went to NYC for the first time about 20 years ago. I was looking for a cab from JFK to midtown. A limo driver said he'd take me for $30 (more or less -- I don't exactly remember). I had no idea really if that was a good price, but I remember thinking, "at least I know what the price will be," and I took his offer.
I was under the impression that Uber does not reveal the destination of the customer until they have picked them up. Is that not correct?
For trips over a certain length (maybe 45min) they get more information about that kind of length
> The part I really disliked about the NYC cabs is that you never knew how much it going to cost you.

For black cab service, yes, you did. For medallion (yellow) cabs, it's always metered (except for the airport flat rate).

How much did you take Chicago cabs? It wasn’t great. Broken seat belts. Cabby talking on speakphone entire trip. Skip stop lights. A few extra turns to add some distance.