[Brendinooo]

I called a Lyft the other day and saw that there was an option for priority pickup, which flags a driver who's close to you but going to pick up someone else and has him pick you up instead.

In the moment it was nice: I was running late and that got me on track. But it seems really really bad for the ecosystem in general. I'm not sure I can rely on being picked up at a reasonable time again without paying for it. And once everyone realizes that and starts paying more, then we're back to where we were before.

If Uber isn't doing that, maybe it's time to give them a try.

[mustacheemperor]

Priority Pickup has done a lot to turn me off from Lyft. It seems like most of the time I try to use it, it takes so long to identify a driver that I didn't save any time off the original wait time. The UI is a total dark pattern to make it feel like you're getting a driver faster, too, which I really resent.

- App offers a 7 minute pickup time or a 3 minute "priority"

- Select priority, app pops up a "searching for drivers" screen with a loading bar

- as the loading bar gets closer to the end, it gets slower. The loading bar does not actually represent progress to completion in any meaningful way.

- the app begins throwing out bs "reticulating splines" explanations like "tidying up a few last minute details!" I hate that kind of teehee-cute fake message, there are no details to tidy up, you are just waiting for a driver close by enough to agree to my ride

- after a minute+ of this, tap "cancel" to call an uber instead, and get a popup pleading to wait just a few more seconds since this will happen any moment now

- after another minute or two, finally get a driver 3-5 minutes away.

Total elapsed time until lyft arrives: 6-7 minutes, for $5-10 more.

It's not just the unreliable functionality, but the way the energy invested into this part of the product appears to have gone into fooling you into thinking it is useful, not actually being useful. I'd rather just call an Uber that will actually arrive at the time the app predicts it will show up before I call it.

[BowBun]

I landed in JFK a couple of nights ago after a vacation with my GF. I get Lyft priority for free because of some credit card thing. We both called Lyft cars at the same time. She got one faster than I did, and it arrived earlier, whereas I had to wait 5 minutes to find a driver and 5 more for them to arrive. It 100% had to have been because of our destinations - mine is less lucrative for a driver to hang around in (less activity).

[riceart]

This sounds like something designed by someone with exactly one semester of college or high school Econ under their belt.

[grandmczeb]

> which flags a driver who's close to you but going to pick up someone else and has him pick you up instead.

This sounds incorrect based on my experience on the driver’s side - I’m pretty sure it just puts your request at the front of the queue and doesn’t reassign drivers already en route to a pickup. Where did you see that’s how priority pickup works?

[Brendinooo]

That's what the driver said - he was on his way to a spot near me to pick up someone else, then was rerouted.

He said he'd only recently learned of the feature himself when a similar thing happened a couple of days prior. He was supposed to pick up person A, then was redirected to person B, but B was at the same place as A so he got an earful from her, because she thought he canceled on her.

[grandmczeb]

Lyft changes assigned drivers for reasons that have nothing to do with priority pickup. Absent a confirmation from Lyft, I’m skeptical that was the reason.

[Brendinooo]

What would be a reason that correlates almost exactly with me requesting a priority pickup? This was a Sunday morning, about 30 minutes from Pittsburgh and 20-25 from the airport, so not exactly a time and place with a lot of activity.

[grandmczeb]

The rider could have changed their destination in the app. Or Lyft could have swapped drivers and then the other driver canceled. Or the driver’s phone could have gone offline without him noticing due to bad cell reception. Or about a million other reasons - I don’t know the specific circumstances so it’s hard to say.

Driver switching has been happening for years though, way before I saw priority pickup as a rider.

[keehun]

I forgot to mention in my original story, but I did have priority pickup for all three requests!