[ForHackernews]

This is such a non-feature for 99% of users.

The fact that Uber devotes engineering resources to serving the tiny 1% slice of users who care about having an app that works seamlessly across dozens of countries, at the expense of the much larger number of users with limited space on their outdated devices, is really emblematic of the Valley's out-of-whack priorities.

[manigandham]

It's much more complicated than just countries. If you read the linked comment then you'll learn that it's includes many regional customizations, even down to specific cities and airports.

An app for travel should absolutely prioritize UX and ease of use as you travel, however far away your destination is.

[NikolaNovak]

Interesting assumption/perspective - The only people in my circle of friends and co-workers who use Uber, are travelers. And nobody I know has a clue of their phone storage or has hit it due to apps (as opposed to videos/photos).

For some, Taxi works well enough and is (perceived as) licensed/trusted/reliable so they don't have a need to use Uber. Others are bit of Luddites, or mistrustful. But I guess friction of Taxi / benefits of Uber just aren't high enough :-/

(Personally, I've only ever used Uber on specific travels; for 99% of my transactions, Taxi has been easier/more reliable. Don't get me wrong, I think Taxi licensing/medalion model is outdated, the drivers have worked incentives, and cars aren't as maintained as well as they could be. But I still normally don't find a benefit in Ubering).

Finally, FWIW, even traveling within country, I've noticed significantly different screens/features/options in, say, Ottawa or Toronto airports and vicinity. So I think overall a lot more people benefit from this monolithic model than may be immediately apparent.

[ghaff]

I'm in the same boat. To a first approximation, I never use Uber in my local metro area. To a second approximation, I don't use it much traveling either. I'll often grab a cab if it's convenient rather than waiting for an Uber/Lyft to show up. Or if there's a good public transit option to my hotel I'll use that. In spite of (normally) 100+ days of travel per year I maybe use Uber a dozen times a year. (I do use a private car service to take me to the airport, but again Uber wouldn't be very good for that purpose.)

[MattGaiser]

> This is such a non-feature for 99% of users.

I would imagine that travellers are an outsized percentage of high spenders, even if they are a small portion of users.

[ljf]

Totally this. It isn't uncommon for a whales (usually 1 to 2 percent of an apps users) to account for 30 to 50 percent of their profit. So it is very worth thinking of those customers first.

Not all customers are equal. And if you build your app or site without knowing that you may well chase the wrong features.

[ChrisKingWebDev]

I would agree with this. At home I walk, ride my bike, get on transit, rent a carshare etc. When I'm travelling, I'm walking or calling an Uber/Lyft. I'll take a train or bus only if it's super easy to navigate.

[rsj_hn]

Same here. In my local area I understand the transit. I have a transit card. But when I am in a foreign city that speaks a different language these are not realistic options unless I spend effort on figuring that out and deal with local municipal transit authorities, which is not the vacation experience I am looking for.

[MattGaiser]

I spent a lot of 2018/2019 travelling around North America. It was wonderful to never have to consider a taxi.

[StreamBright]

As a frequent traveller, I would be much more inclined to either pick the airports that are going to be relevant to me ever or pick the destination airport when I am at the source airport which Uber can easily detect. I am visiting ~10-15 airports most of the time. I would be happy to spend some time to set this up on my phone so i not need to waste a huge amount of space and bandwidth every time that I update Uber. For Uber it would be a win too, reducing the size of the app significantly. Maybe it is only me.

[Bjartr]

A willingness to put in some time up front to tailor a technology experience to yourself is one thing that separates the average HN user from the population at large.

For a significant majority of users, if it doesn't work well out of the gate, it's broken.

[MattGaiser]

Even as an avid Hacker News user, I wouldn't tailor an app download to save bandwidth/space. Both of those are abundant.

[bobbylarrybobby]

Don’t app updates only push deltas anyway? It’s only the initial install that’s large.

[minhazm]

It's not even just per country. If you fly to certain airports in certain states they have different rules that affect what the Uber app can do. Do they maintain a separate app for Washington and for New York? It gets pretty messy pretty quickly. Not only do you have to maintain these different edge cases, but you also need to maintain separate applications and all of the problems associated with that like keeping libraries and API's in sync between them.

[corin_]

I'm probably missing something obvious as I'm tired, but why does the Uber app need stuff like specific airport rules stored in it rather than pulled from their servers when needed?

Map apps let you look at any city in the world without needing all of that data inside the core app, and if you have enough data to use the Uber app wouldn't you almost certainly also be fine to have it download in the background the required info (coordinates of where pickup is or isn't allowed, specific instructions message to display, etc.) the same as it receives information about local pricing, location of available cars nearby and so on?

[TheDong]

The iOS app store prohibits downloading code at runtime, excluding some very specific circumstances.

As long as the airport rules can be stored as data, not code, then iOS would be fine with pulling them.. but at that point you have a data blob saying effectively "in country X, you can use payment Y", and you still need code that knows "payment Y means enable this section of the app and use this library"... and you can't download that library at runtime on iOS.

So my guess is that the code implementing regional rules have to be bundled with the app due to apple's restrictions, and the associated data that could be dynamically downloaded is to small to not just bundle it too.

[ameen]

Connectivity at airports is not the best - if you’re on an expensive data plan those extra MBs cost a pretty penny which might put off the customer.

You need to think about the larger picture.

[corin_]

Wouldn't it be significantly less than a MB for all the info about "how does Uber work at this airport" info to come in json or whatever? It could surely survive without downloading special airport-specific media like logos, do the airport rules require complicated heavy code on the phone?

Thinking of my experience with Uber at airports, it's generally stuff like "pickups from this terminal are only available at the west exit" (show on map - so needs coordinates and message text), or "There is a £10 airport pickup fee for all private hire vehicles here which will be added to your bill", or whatever along those lines.

But perhaps your point still stands even if it's KBs rather than MBs.

[bhupy]

It’s also the airport layout information, including doors. From most US airports, you specify your pickup point by door (Arrival E6, for example), and I think some of that information lives in the app, along with the snap points that are rendered on the map (or even just the logic). There’s usually also a specific UX when requesting the ride where it asks you to select your airline to guess which terminal and egress to set as the pick up point.

[corin_]

Why would airport layout data not be handled the same way as city layouts? Maybe effectively automatically caching airports to make up for potential bandwidth issues?

And for the specific UX, sure but isn't that just a single feature for airports in general, and the app can pull the up to date airlines/terminals data for the specific airport when needed?

[manigandham]

True, the rules data is small, which is why there's no point in not bundling it in the first place. Better to have an instant and smooth experience rather than try to save a few MBs by introducing a blocking network call before you can even interact with the app.

[viraptor]

Give the streaming of location data for cars in the area, I don't think they care much about those extra MBs. If they did, you'd get a "N cars within X km of you", not a live-ish map.

A quick summary like "extra fee for airport pickup: X, pickup location restricted to: Y, etc." should be pretty comparable.

[plorkyeran]

A live map of cars near you takes an incredibly small amount of data. Once you have the map data that'd be easily doable over a dialup connection.

[viraptor]

Yes, it's pretty small, same as description of airport rules would be.

[ssdspoimdsjvv]

I don't have any numbers, but I would guess that a good part of Uber's user base consists of people that travel often. Not having to download a new app or update every time you go to a different country is a huge advantage.

[ryanlol]

There’s me, a frequent traveller who uses UberLUX 4+ times a day, spending more than 5000GBP/mo.

Then there are 100 guys with outdated devices who use UberX once or twice a month to get back home from the pub, probably splitting the ride with their friends.

I bring in more money than the latter group of people.

[Marsymars]

I’m a bit surprised you have the time for UberLUX. When I find myself with an expense account for Uber I always go for the lowest ETA, which is rarely Uber Premium. You must be hanging out in richer places than me.

[ryanlol]

In central London it’s never much further away than the cheaper options, the cars are actually nice (S-class 90% of the time) unlike in the US.

[Cederfjard]

Why are you assuming that splitting it into multiple apps would require less engineering resources than keeping just one?

[spoonjim]

That 1% of users represents a lot more than 1% of profit, and engineering an application that is that robust across scenarios has benefits to the stationary users transiting through multiple scenarios as well (surge pricing to normal, credit card to Apple Pay, car ride to scooter ride, etc).

[offtop5]

Au contraire, people with outdated phones are less likely to be able to afford to Ubers. Much of Uber's profit comes from people booking Ubers from airports, I've used Uber all over the world and it's absolutely amazing.

[diebeforei485]

All sorts of people use UberX and Uber Pool, actually.

Uber Pool is no longer available due to covid; but hopefully it will come back as vaccination rates go up.