[dmix]

I’ve used non-Uber taxi apps in cities like Austin and they failed to show up multiple times and about 50% of the time the “finding driver” part takes about 15-20 minutes before I gave up and just used Uber (one time my phone died during this process and I was left with no taxi). It’s obviously treated like a 3rd tier part of their companies.

People want tech companies providing taxi services, they don’t just want the old local taxi service with a half-assed app bolted on + the usual dirty city taxi cars w/ no review process.

[alexcnwy]

Non-Uber taxi apps in Germany are horrible.

The apps are buggy and the service is unreliable.

Uber is far better in my experience.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

In Sweden, I have had the opposite experience. The Uber app is never used, due to how low paid the drivers are. The taxi apps are actually decently good and pretty reliable. They are not as feature rich as the Uber app, and more expensive, but when you need a ride at three in the morning, don't expect the Uber app to get you one.

[HWR_14]

I don't know why the app would need anything more than "I want to be picked up here". Dispatching worked fine when you had to call a phone number. The app could literally be an interface to texting.

[newfriend]

Because no one wants to sit and wait around wondering if a car will show up?

> Dispatching worked fine when you had to call a phone number.

Dispatching absolutely did not work fine when you had to call a number. You were often left twiddling your thumbs wondering if a car will actually show up.

> The app could literally be an interface to texting.

Why not start your own competitor then? I'm sure it will be easy to create such a simple app. Better include some load-balancing, because I'm sure everyone will rush to use your featureless app instead of these other apps with nice interfaces, that show you exactly where the car is, with accurate ETAs, integrated payment, safety features, etc.

Have you ever even used the Uber app?

[HWR_14]

> You were often left twiddling your thumbs wondering if a car will actually show up.

They always showed up for me. And I have no idea what city/country you think it didn't. I feel like this is just Uber PR.

> Why not start your own competitor then?

Because the network effects of drivers and network effects of riders. It would cost a lot of money to compete with that. Also, to deal with a lot of other backend issues that have nothing to do with the app itself - like making sure the driver's cars are in good repair, commercial insurance, etc.

The actual app itself is much easier compared to the business side of things. If someone wants to do the business side, I'll spearhead the app development.

> Have you ever even used the Uber app?

Yes. Also, I never said it was trivial to create a clone of the Uber app. I said things worked fine before there was a complex app and would work okay with a simpler app. Because the complaint I was responding to wasn't feature parity, it was bugginess. But lets go through your points.

>that show you exactly where the car is

Uber actually has admitted that the majority of the cars you see on your screen are simulated to give you a feeling for how many cars are in the area.

Or do you mean once a driver is assigned, in which case I don't know the point of it. I can just look at the ETA.

> with accurate ETAs

Now who never used the Uber app. Their ETAs are wildly inaccurate.

> integrated payment

That you have to check and dispute in case the bill you for drivers cancelling on you, and a variety of other things hooked directly to your card. I'd much rather pay people what I owe them in a one-off transaction.

> safety features

I've never seen them in action, but I'm glad they're building them.

[dannyobrien]

Can we collectively agree that the reason why people are reporting very different experiences with cabs before uber, is because cab-rides in different locations were very different experiences?

In London, the chance that calling a cab (or even the less regulated minicab services) would result in a no-show seemed remote. In San Francisco, it was a regular occurrence. In the rural UK, calling a cab would have been a rare, expensive event, and would require finding an unoccupied local driver among a very small subset.

I'm sure there is even a wider variety of taxi implementations worldwide.

[HWR_14]

> cab-rides in different locations were very different experiences?

Sure. I'll agree with that.

[Philadelphia]

Uber fails to show up for me about half the time. It just goes through driver after driver, moving to another when the previous one doesn’t come well past the estimated time. Has happened in three different cities in the past three months.

[kanbara]

and i’ve used uber in austin and had some of the worst experiences i’ve ever had. personal anecdotes dont really matter— uber is a shitty company and so are taxis, two wrongs dont make a right.