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by timr
1775 days ago
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Uber is already dramatically more expensive in NYC. It's to the point where, most of the time, it is smarter/faster/better to take a taxi, if you're paying attention. Most people still look at Uber first (if only because of muscle memory), but multiple times in the last few months I've watched someone do it and recoil from the sticker shock. Just this weekend, someone I knew was quoted $130 to get from Cobble Hill to the UES. Even if you're almost completely price-insensitive, that's a trip that can be made in 45 minutes (~about the same as driving) for $3 in subway fare. I don't know what's going on with Uber in the rest of the world, but here, there can't possibly be any more margin to consume. |
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In SF, Uber (and Lyft), despite the higher prices, is still much better than the alternatives for most trips. I suspect the same is true for many other places, especially for trips in/out/adjacent to a dense city.
I'm thinking of things like when I visit my sister in Maryland. I fly into Dulles, get an Uber/Lyft, and I'm there in 25-30 minutes at a cost of around $35-40. I could take the new silver metro line into DC (pre-pandemic it wasn't finished, so you'd have to take a bus from Dulles to the nearest completed station), and then the red line back out, but then the trip is around 90 minutes (plus getting my sister to drive me 8 minutes from the nearest metro station). Much cheaper, certainly, but orders of magnitude less convenient.