[jksflkjl3jk3]

> Not where I live

I never understand why people make comments like this and leave it to the reader to guess where they live. Your profile has your email and linkedin, so it's not like you're trying to stay anonymous.

And to your point, local taxis being less expensive is unusual in my travels from 50+ countries. Uber/Grab/Bolt/Gojeck/Maxim are almost always significantly cheaper and more reliable in my experience, especially for foreigners who aren't familiar with typical fares.

[CuriouslyC]

Uber is more expensive than a cab in almost all Asian countries, often by a lot. Grab is a bit better, the margin tends to be pretty slim. The main benefit of Uber to me in Asia is that you don't get a taxi driver who tries to skip the meter and extort you, which is a surprisingly common phenomenon.

[jksflkjl3jk3]

Uber doesn't even operate in most Asian countries. They made deals with Grab 7-8 years ago to not compete in the same markets.

In which country is Uber more expensive?

[CuriouslyC]

Taiwan and Hong Kong

[anonzzzies]

Not GP but I didn't mention either; Netherlands.

[yurishimo]

Last time I took an Uber from Eindhoven out 30km to a neighbouring village, the driver showed up and gave me shit for not calling the taxi company. See, he was a taxi driver as well and used the same car for both services. He said that Uber didn't pay enough and that it was unfair I was _only_ paying €50 for the trip. I told him that I was just paying for a service I ordered and wished him luck. If the driver wants to make more money, he should stop accepting Uber offers because he's certainly not winning over hearts and minds by complaining to the clientele he is supposedly trying to convince to pay 50% more for the exact same ride.

[fivestones]

Uber seems to be more expensive in Dubai too.

[jlokier]

> I never understand why people make comments like this

It's intentional, because the location has nothing to do with the actual point. Stating it invites people to focus on the location too much instead of the actual point, or to say things like "oh that's just your country / town, we can assume that's anomalous".

Which would be missing the point entirely.

If you're interested in the location you can find out. It's no secret, though I would advise against trusting people's locations on LinkedIn, they are often not where the person currently works or lives.

But I'm not interested in stating it. For the point I was making, the specific location, or even the country, detracts from that.

You've traveled in 50+ countries. Just from that, you're an extreme economic and social outlier. You are almost certainly taking journeys that are systematically different from those taken by the majority of people, and the price brackets and journey routes you're comparing between services are different than those used by other people. It may well be that the comparison works out differently as a result.

Not to disregard your experience. You've plenty. But you are very unusual, and it's impossible to travel that much without taking journeys that other people never or very rarely take.

I would not be surprised if the "obvious foreigner" premium is there for taxis, even if you're experienced. I'd find it unlikely that you became so intimately familiar with all 50+ countries as to get the true "favour for a friend" fare in all 50+ including those where that's more common, and that you took the same journeys as locals do in all of them.

On the other side (and on the original topic), Uber has reason to optimise for traveller cohorts. If Uber wanted to seem cheaper than local taxis to people in your cohort, to a greater extent than for other people, they could probably do that, and it would make economic sense if their algorithm statistically optimises for that. Profit-maximising algorithms with "personalised" pricing default-optimise for trade with wealthier customers who use their services more often, for journeys associated with other spending, such as to/from travel hubs and hotels, and for separating out cohorts in subtle ways that maximise the inability of cohort members to detect the separation.