[asah]

NYer here: you should read how the taxi companies exploited their workers. And NYC was at least regulated.

Moreover, the cabs were filthy, they often refused passengers due to race, disability or other illegal prejudice, refused certain destinations, spoke little English, didn't know the city, would drive inefficiently to drive up costs and on and on.

Oh, and cellphones arrived and they did NOTHING until Uber pushed them to accept mobile payments. You STILL can't see your ETA or share the ride, and there's no ratings/reputation system.

So between the demons, I'll take the ride-sharing companies.

[AllanHoustonSt]

Also good luck getting reasonable (or any) cab service outside of Manhattan and NW Brooklyn. It was even worse pre rideshare days. Those are the areas that would need something like rideshare more since they're both less dense with less expansive public transit.

I don't know if private transport is ultimately unsustainable. That's something people much smarter than me will have to figure out how to measure. But I do know rideshare is objectively a better product for consumers across the board than the services it replaced.

[MisterTea]

Not really. I had a very dumpy car service by my home in south queens. You had these retired neighborhood riff raff drivers, some who I knew were coke heads because they did it right off the toilet tank in the local dive bar. They're all dead now. Wonder why. The best was when we got a car to run down to brooklyn one night and "frankie" pulls up all coked up and I got to enjoy him snorting his spit while I'm sitting next to him. As fucked up as they were, they got you to your destination. Green cabs didn't exist and yellow cabs were only found in people's driveways and because JFK is nearby.

Now with Lyft I can get a car in just a few minutes, hop in, get driven to my destination, and get out. No worrying about cash or tipping. Just go. A lot nicer.

[kingkawn]

There were black car services that covered the entire city. The further out you got the cheaper most of this services would become.

[AllanHoustonSt]

I still think having a network of drivers all around you and being able to track the status of your ride both pre-arrival and during the ride itself makes rideshare a better product. Depending where you are those dispatched drivers can take a while to get to you.

Of course you can just have a bunch of black car services in your phonebook that are dispersed around the city but.. at that point why not just use rideshare?