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Are we the baddies?

(geohot.github.io)
692 points AndrewSwift | 9 comments | 06 Jul 25 05:36 UTC | HN request time: 0.21s | source | bottom
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ggm ◴[06 Jul 25 06:09 UTC] No.44478235[source]▶
For some people, paying the premium to jump the queue is the point. What they didn't forsee is what happens when everyone has wound up paying the premium, and the queue is now with you again. This is mostly Australian frequent flyers, when it was a high barrier to entry it conferred advantages and now Fly in Fly out work has commoditised club status, there is next to no boarding advantage, and no points flight availability.

So yes. Status seeking, and differential price seeking probably is a-social as a pattern when it's weaponised against the consumer.

That said, I hated Uber, they actually offered to underwrite people breaking the law to get foot in the door (how that didn't get them excluded as a corporate scofflaw is beyond me) and they continue to export all the profits offshore, but taxi services had become shit and now we have got used to Uber and I just don't worry about surge pricing. I got boiled slowly.

My fellow Australians all feel a bit shit about the introduction of tipping in paywave and food service. That's unaustralian. We have legally enforced minimum wages and penalty rates. Turn that feature off.

The European push to mandate included luggage in flight is seeing a fair bit of trolling. So there are still true believers who think needing clean underwear is weak.

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cainxinth ◴[06 Jul 25 13:03 UTC] No.44480476[source]▶
Uber and Lyft are expensive but anyone who says they are worse than what they replaced doesn’t remember well the heydays of taxis. Sure, people in big towns like NYC could always get one fairly easily, but everyone else was stuck dealing with whatever potentially shady operation they could dig out of a phonebook, and even then getting a car wasn’t guaranteed.

Now, anyone anywhere can get a ride, often quickly. I’m not trying to excuse any predatory commercial practices directed at drivers or passengers, which are serious problems deserving of more strict regulation, but I absolutely do not want to go back to the old way.

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specproc ◴[06 Jul 25 13:14 UTC] No.44480543[source]▶
I'm really not sure old school taxis are actually that bad.

I had two incidents in the UK recently where my app of choice failed me and I was quickly bailed out cheaper by googling "taxi $TOWN" and having a one minute conversation with an operator.

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jen20 ◴[06 Jul 25 13:38 UTC] No.44480714[source]▶
They are better than they used to be because of the competition. I remember a time not that long ago where getting a minicab was nigh on impossible, and one miraculously did show up, it would be primary so the driver could try to scam you.
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1. jordanb ◴[06 Jul 25 14:22 UTC] No.44481059[source]▶
Not my experience using taxi call services in Chicago. Whenever I called them (before Uber) the taxi was prompt and courteous.

The apps did three things that the call services did not do:

1) subsidize drivers with vc money for many years making drivers plentiful and fares cheap

2) use unlicensed cabs so they could saturate areas like Manhattan that had previously limited the amount of cabs that could operate

3) Deprive drivers of info they might use to reject fares they don't want (like destination).

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2. robertlagrant ◴[06 Jul 25 16:23 UTC] No.44482037[source]▶
> 2) use unlicensed cabs so they could saturate areas like Manhattan that had previously limited the amount of cabs that could operate

This is mostly a problem with the people you pay taxes to who would invent systems to restrict the driver numbers.

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3. const_cast ◴[06 Jul 25 19:15 UTC] No.44483212[source]▶
No, restricting the amount of cabs is good, actually. It's very annoying if your city is overrun with cabs. The restriction needs to be reasonable but dense cities like NYC would just trend towards 100% cabs if you let them. And then nobody can drive anywhere.
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4. robertlagrant ◴[06 Jul 25 19:19 UTC] No.44483237{3}[source]▶
Well no, because that's not what happened with Uber. You get more cab drivers, but there's a population limit on cabs based on various factors, including the fact that people don't always want to take a cab.
5. tptacek ◴[07 Jul 25 02:14 UTC] No.44486099[source]▶
Cabs in Chicago prior to Uber were unbelievably bad unless you were picking them up in the Loop and taking them to a destination within the city limits (reference period: 1995-2010). It could take 45 minutes to get a cab to show up in Lakeview, and it was a crap shoot whether they actually would.
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6. jordanb ◴[07 Jul 25 03:36 UTC] No.44486518[source]▶
When I lived in Uptown I could typically get one just by standing on Broadway for a little while. When I lived in Logan Square I'd call and they'd be there in 20 minutes. This is well before either Uptown or Logan Square were particularly gentrified.

I can believe if you were going to/from the suburbs it may have been harder. The cabbies could know your destination and could just ignore the dispatcher if they didn't want to run the trip.

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7. tptacek ◴[07 Jul 25 03:59 UTC] No.44486623{3}[source]▶
I lived in Lakeview (several spots) and just south of Uptown (on Montrose and Broadway, near the Jewel). I had never had a good cab experience. In particular, as I said, I'd often have to call, wait, and then call again when the cab didn't show up. The idea of getting a cab by waiting on Broadway --- I mean, maybe there was some time of day you could do that at? But at 8:30PM? Forget it.
8. kasey_junk ◴[07 Jul 25 09:56 UTC] No.44488553{3}[source]▶
You could not get one in Hyde Park full stop.
9. phil21 ◴[07 Jul 25 18:18 UTC] No.44493195[source]▶
> Not my experience using taxi call services in Chicago. Whenever I called them (before Uber) the taxi was prompt and courteous.

Not remotely my experience in Chicago, and I lived in a relatively primary service area (Wicker Park). Calling them was basically pointless, you needed to walk to a cab stand and hope there was a cab standing by if you needed to go to the airport at a weird off-peak time.

And my friends all had similar experiences to mine as well. It was a trope that you'd call dispatch and schedule a ride, and then maybe it would show up within 90 minutes of the actual time assigned. You could even listen to the dispatch radio and realize how much of a shitshow it was with cabbies assigned to a pickup ditching it for a street fare randomly. And how little dispatch cared about it all.

Uber was a night and day overnight change for the better.

The only "good" cab experiences were flag pulls from the street within short city trips. Usually the loop to back home during peak after-work or bar traffic times. Anything else was frustrating to outright unusable.