[abirch]

I'm old enough to remember calling a taxi company the day before a flight to arrange a pickup at my place for 5:30. Then calling them again 5:00 the day of the flight and them telling me that the one guy didn't come in so now they couldn't pick me up until 7 -- My flight departure time! Then me frantically calling other taxi companies. I had to skip my shower.

They seemed to hate their customers

[dahdum]

I had the same issues with airport trips and taxis, frequently having to build in an extra 1-2 hours on top of the typical airport buffer to make sure I'd get there. So many no-shows, empty promises, and lies by dispatch. So many scams, fare spiking, outright hostility, and shenanigans from drivers.

I signed up for Uber after a panicked morning in Denver with 2 no-showing taxis. Never looked back after that, though I use Lyft 90% of the time now.

I have no tears at all for anyone involved in the taxi industry.

[ptspts]

Once I needed to catch an early flight, and no Uber drivers were available in my vicinity. But most of the time Uber and Lyft worked for me.

If there is a train to the airport, I usually prefer it, because it avoids (unpredictable) traffic jams.

[BoorishBears]

This is a funny thread because Uber at least has started doing both these things.

Uber will show a message saying you won't see the fare until there's a ride. Their FAQ claims it can happen if you hail faster than they can calculate a price, but it happens awfully often to me.

I've also noticed their scheduled rides are really unreliable. They seem to start searching way too late, and I've almost missed a flight over them not finding an available car in Miami of all cities...

[admax88qqq]

The scheduled rides feature is buggy in the app, there's two different entry points that behave differently.

But FWIW I scheduled a 5am flight to the airport in mexico city with Uber and it was great

[mulmen]

Uber did exactly this to a friend of mine just a couple months ago. Except they didn't even offer the 7am pickup. They just cancelled the ride 15 minutes before the pickup.

[bradgessler]

It happened to me. The Uber app assured me that a driver was on the way, then it was late, then it canceled, and not a single driver was available within the area.

This was at 6a to catch an 8a flight in a Bay Area town that’s 35 min from SFO.

Uber and Lyft are now exactly like cab companies, the only difference being that their “credit card machine works”

Private car services work remarkably well if you’re done with Uber, Lyft, or taxis not showing up.

[agumonkey]

Uber, once the taxi killer, soon the exact swap-in replacement :)

[gryn]

just like online streaming promised to replace the tv, now more and more a drop-in replace for it in a (not so) different distribution technology.

[agumonkey]

Yeah, it removed the linear time constraints but it's just a TV.

[autoexec]

They want the time constraints back too. So many streaming services these days still have shows that air episodes at regular times rather than a while season at once. They also drop content regularly, offer to steam content for limited times, or only provide recent episodes.

They can't wait to back to the point where they can dictate people's schedules and induce FOMO in their customers. They just have to condition us slowly into accepting it after netflix spoiled us.

[gruez]

Well the main thing with taxis is that getting any ride to show up on demand is a shitshow, whereas with ubers you just have to wait 5-10 minutes (at least in my area).

[mulmen]

Except when you reserve an Uber and it never shows up, as I literally just described.