Get over cabs? I like uber, but when I'm traveling on business there are some things Uber cannot provide me, things I want.
(1) When I get off a plane in a strange city my phone doesn't always work, and if it does I probably don't get data. The taxi stand outside an airport is convenient, identifiable, and works reliably no matter the state of my phone.
(2) I don't want a ride from someone in their personal car. I want an easily-recognizable vehicle driven by a person licensed by some sort of local authority. I want a visible number or other identifier on the outside of the vehicle.
(3) Professional detachment. Uber rides often take an overly-friendly tone. I like chatting with drivers, but I often don't want to chat. Maybe I'm on the phone with a client, maybe I have a client traveling with me. I don't want to feel bad or be down-rated if I don't act friendly.
(4) Local knowledge. A professional cabbie will, within a few weeks, develop some serious local knowledge about streets, hotels and restaurants. With Uber drivers it is hit and miss.
When it comes to business travel, especially international travel, cabs still provide value uber cannot match.
(1) has never happened to me in a US city, and very rarely in non-US cities. (2) has never bothered me because Uber keeps a log of every ride I take, the rating system gives me a much more confidence in the driver than a random government licensing scheme, and the app tells me the license plate number so the vehicle is easily-recognizable. (3) has never happened to me -- you may be thinking of one of the other ridesharing services where driver and customer are considered peers. (4) presupposes the taxi driver speaks English well enough to communicate their "serious local knowledge" which IME is indeed "hit and miss."
Presumably you mean that because there's government, it's arbitrary and likely fraudulent. I'm not sure how that's worse than Alice showing up with a card swiper, or showing up with Bob's card swiper, but... whatever.
> ridesharing services where driver and customer are considered peers.
The cognitive dissonance here makes my head hurt. What exactly is the person "sharing" their car with you?
The "serious knowledge" is the stuff that lets them get you through recent construction to the recently-renamed hotel where Corporate booked you.
When I land in SF, if I haven't purchased any plan ahead of time, my rate 5$ per MEGAbyte. That is IF my phone actually works, which is probably 90% for outgoing and 50/50 for receiving incoming calls. Canadian ISPs are horrible, but we don't have much choice. Since Uber relies on having a working phone it cannot rise above that horrible bar. Taxis don't require any working technology.
I never said that Uber should go away. I am pointing out that neither are Taxis, that they are two different services for two different markets. Taxis provide things that uber cannot, one cannot totally replace the other.
As for airports not optimizing transport for Canadians, airports should do exactly that. Any city wanting to be a business hub should indeed try to accommodate international travelers. And they all do. If canadians have a rough time at a US airport, I think it safe to assume the Chinese, Japanese, Arab or Indian business traveler will have it worse.
Car rental is not an option for many international travelers. Licensing issues mean most will never bother. BART is great, but it isn't for the uninitiated traveler on a dark night. The routing is not intuitive. And it is really loud, not a pleasant experience after a long flight.
Some comments here mention "AI driving the car" being the end game. I can't help but wonder what happens when a self driving car gets hacked, doors locked (unlocking disabled) and driven off a cliff.
Self driving cars will be magical and transformative but we don't really know what will happen. It may end up requiring a human co-driver to take over in case the algorithm misbehaves. So I do hope that self driving cars will come with regulation that mandates the presence of a licensed driver with ability to take over the manual controls.
Update:
Here is a small sample of articles about "non-hackable" systems getting hacked...
Google prototypes have a big, red stop button that, I assume, takes precedence over hackable software.
Similarly, it's easy to not have door unlocking connected to hackable software.
In general, I find hacking worries unwarranted.
Sure, cars from car manufacturers were hacked because car manufacturers are bad at writing software and are bad at security.
Google is good at software and they are top-notch on security. They have been fighting hacking of their web services from day one, they employ world class cryptographers and security researchers. They are also aware that if their cars were hacked, it would be a very bad PR.
Requiring licensed driver would significantly hamper adoption of self-driving cars not to mention cutting off people who need such service the most (e.g. old people who are no longer fit for driving; disabled people; drunk people etc.)
> Google prototypes have a big, red stop button that,
> I assume, takes precedence over hackable software.
You think so? I would assume not. I doubt the car is just going to screech to a halt via some hardware switch, think about the danger of someone pressing that while in the center lane of a highway.
Instead it's probably synonymous with giving the software a "stop now" command. I.e. it would know to safely pull over to the side of the road, or take the next off-ramp in that situation.
So if someone had hacked the driving software that could be overridden.
I do think idibidiart is being overly alarmist. Self-driving cars don't have to be perfect, and there could certainly be malicious hacking incidents, but they're highly likely to outnumber the cases where people die now due to imperfect human drivers.
I agree there is more benefit than harm, but I doubt any self-driving car will be legal without a manual override... if at least for national security reasons.
People have brought up the "unlock disabled" thing with Uber. Child safety locks are not allowed on most cabs. Drivers are not allowed to lock passengers into the back seats. But Uber drivers can.
I don't think self driving cars will be allowed in a major way unless there are guarantees that humans can take over purely manual control. That is my point, not that self driving cars are a danger in and by themselves.
Also you need a special drivers license [1], that needs to get renewed every 5 years and entails that you are mentally and physically fit (checked by a doctor) and know much about the region you're going to drive in (checked in a test). They also want to see your criminal record and traffic offense register.
I like Uber as a consumer but I simply don't understand why people as smart as even o'reily defend their business despite them knowing the end game.
Their main goal of Uber is to replace all their drivers with automated cars.
As a consumer that means a lot of good things but not for those who was depending on it as an income. There is a dishonesty either to other people or to themselves that I simply don't get here.
As a society we have to either learn to handle not everyone needing to work, or we need to outlaw any progress which puts someone out of a job.
Personally I'd far rather see the dream of automation meaning people are no longer obliged to work. I believe we'd see massive improvements to quiality of life in so many ways, from the person who no longer has to break their back emptying bins to put food on the table, to the improved service in numerous industries where the people working are doing so out of choice. I also believe we could see massive leaps in art and science as people who previously spent their time working jobs they didn't want can dedicate it to something they're passionate about. How many great novels have been sacrificed in order to put food on the table?
No doubt some people in this world will choose to spend the time they would have been working drinking beer and watching TV. That's fine by me, supporting them is a price id I'd be willing to pay for people having the opportunity to do what they really love.
What I am critiquing is the defence of Uber as if its somehow making it easier for drivers to make money. It's instituting competition between the drivers which is great for consumers.
But it's doing so to pay for getting rid of same drivers. Not just sometimes in the future, but actively right now.
No love for traditional taxis but as little love for companies who only take the best from hiring people as freelancers and the best from treating them as employees.
1. You're confusing the author's position with my own. I don't claim (and frankly don't care) whether or not taxi drivers get a better deal than Uber drivers. The reason I don't care is that taxi service is terrible, and I consider each taxi ride I've taken to be just shy of theft ... and this in NYC, Philly, Paris, Rome, Lyon, Atlanta, Le Mans, Berlin, Moscow, Abu Dhabi, Bejing and literally every place in the world where I've had the misfortune of hailing a cab.
2. You're categorically insane if you think taxi drivers will survive the arrival of driverless cars. Until that happens, the author's points may well hold.
1) I am not confusing anything. You said "we're" unless you talk about yourself in plural. I have had my fare share of cabs around the world too. To claim normal taxi in any normal city is terrible is absurd and just an attempt to pump up your position as being more rational than it is.
I don't care who gets a better deal either I just know that both solutions of upsides and downsides thats it. Coming out in defence for one or the other based on what O'reily does is where it goes wrong.
2) Why the strawman? Where did I ever claim such a thing?
No, point 2 is not a strawman. Your argument implied that Uber would be affected by automation, but taxis would not.
If you're willing to admit that both services are affected by automation, then your point about Uber welcoming automation is a red herring.
Moreover, the article is a rebuttal to an argument that says "Uber = bad, because it treats the drivers unfairly". As such, evidence to the contrary invalidates that argument, even if one doesn't particularly care about driver pay.
Uber hire drivers as freelancers but treat them as employers.
- Uber drivers can't hire people to drive for them.
- Uber drivers can't decide which car they want to use.
- Uber drivers can't decide the price they are charging their customers.
- Uber discourages tipping.
- Uber doesn't pay for their healthcare.
Thats not a clear case of anything. Thats the opening of an important debate because it points to some underlying issues with society and technology that needs to be debated much more seriously than simply yelling "Luddite fallacy" and what people otherwise like to brush aside any concern about the speed of technology vs. societies ability to cope with it.
Perhaps you should then say thats why you are in favor and not in plural. Especially since you are claiming that I am confusing your opinion with the authors.
That was already the case for most taxi drivers. Except they also had to pay to rent the medallions to some useless rentier like Evgeny Freidman, while Uber doesn't charge.
They tend to make more money as Uber/Lyft drivers than they do as medallion cab drivers?
I've been taking a fair number of Uber rides lately, and the fares are both much lower for me, and much higher for them, because Uber gives them a considerably higher cut than they would get working for a taxi company. Owner-operators might be a different matter.
Given the future of technology in this field, what other goal can they have ? and does it even matter ? because it will happen with them, or without them.
The author's calculations about how much it costs to make the payments on a car are flawed. Driving for Uber full time, your car won't last as long as the loan. Based on my experience driving for Lyft and Uber last year, you can figure about 5-7K miles per month for a full-time driver.
I use Uber almost every day. I love it. I also like vending machines. I hope that one day my Uber rides will be entirely like interacting with vending machines.
Susan Crawford's argument seems to hinge on taxis being transportation infrastructure, which is well-taken in and of itself, but her conclusions don't follow her premise.
If taxi service is such a vital component of transportation infrastructure, then the solution is to make it public. This would address all her concerns about driver exploitation while also preventing another company from undercutting the established infrastructure.
If you're in favor of private taxi services, it's hard to be against Uber/Lyft.
(1) When I get off a plane in a strange city my phone doesn't always work, and if it does I probably don't get data. The taxi stand outside an airport is convenient, identifiable, and works reliably no matter the state of my phone.
(2) I don't want a ride from someone in their personal car. I want an easily-recognizable vehicle driven by a person licensed by some sort of local authority. I want a visible number or other identifier on the outside of the vehicle.
(3) Professional detachment. Uber rides often take an overly-friendly tone. I like chatting with drivers, but I often don't want to chat. Maybe I'm on the phone with a client, maybe I have a client traveling with me. I don't want to feel bad or be down-rated if I don't act friendly.
(4) Local knowledge. A professional cabbie will, within a few weeks, develop some serious local knowledge about streets, hotels and restaurants. With Uber drivers it is hit and miss.
When it comes to business travel, especially international travel, cabs still provide value uber cannot match.