Went to vegas.
ride to hotel: nice guy, talked to much. he complained about “gypsy cabs”. i was like, isn’t uber just a gypsy cab with an App. he didn’t think so.
ride back to airport: car wreaked of urine, driver appeared to have mental health issues.
I’ve heard that Uber takes much longer nowadays. For example, my parents live in Los Angeles. When they used to call for an Uber a couple of years ago, one would arrive within a couple of minutes, Now it takes a half hour. Anybody have experiences?
I’ve heard that. Also, services like Uber and Airbnb are getting more expensive as these companies are reducing the subsidies that made them really great deals for consumers. The New York Times ran an article on this, and included one person’s tweet about how his Uber ride from midtown Manhattan to JFK Airport cost $248, almost as much as his airfare.
If the NY Times article mentioned that (a) the NYC area has a hard cap on Uber drivers, meaning (b) the pricing model Uber uses… where surge funds go to the driver to incentivize us to work… is now distorted because of the original market distortion, then you may have received the full picture.
If not, here goes:
That’s the thing riders do not understand about surges. The doesn't go to Uber, the goes to the drivers - and I have compared enough fares to state this with utter confidence. And when the drivers are limited, people call Ubers, cancel them when they see a 30 minute wait, then they call another Uber… and both those calls go into the demand side, so the surges increase even further.
So: NYC limited the # of Uber drivers. During the pandemic, this didn’t matter as much. But now, the Uber pricing system is going to hit NYC passengers with surges, but the surges themselves are not having their intended effect - by law, new drivers just can’t come online to meet the increased demand.
So NYC Uber passengers get screwed, not by Uber, but by the City, all because of taxi company whining. But since he has to pay Uber, he thinks Uber is at fault. No, the laws of supply and demand are to blame and the City of New York is purposely limiting the supply of Uber drivers.
It is unreasonable to get an Uber ride for under a half mile in lousy weather. My wife and I go to a lot concerts (well, not in the last but we hope to restart in the fall). There is a Metro stop about a half mile from our apartment and the concert hall is attached to another stop. In nice weather we can walk it, but if it is snowing (or worse, if the ground is icy) we will not. I thought of Uber but I wondered how a driver would feel about that.
Well, damn. I had what I thought was a genius idea for the next time I go to NYC for a long weekend: instead of flying from DC to LaGuardia and taking a taxi to my preferred Upper West Side hotel, I figured I’d drive to my aunt’s house in North Jersey (16 miles from the hotel), leave my car at her place, and take an Uber into the city/back a few days later. I was already wondering how hard it might be to get someone to take me over the bridge…seems like I might be better off arranging for a taxi. The soonest I’d be going there again is in September, so at least I have some time to plan.
I did that last year when I went to a convention in New Orleans: my hotel was 0.5 mile from the convention location, and typically I walked there and back each day. However, one day it was pouring rain, and I got an Uber. I apologized for the ridiculously short ride, and the driver kind of laughed and said he didn’t mind at all. I wonder if he was lying…? I’m interested in John T’s thoughts. 
(Sorry for the double post – I didn’t notice yours while I was composing!)
There was an article in the Boston Globe (may be paywalled) about a significant driver shortage nationwide:
The number of US-based drivers logging into Uber during the first three months of 2021 was down 37.5 percent year over year, according to data from Apptopia, a Boston-based market intelligence service. Lyft saw a 42.3 percent drop over the same period.
and
Much of their driver base filed for unemployment when the country shut down last spring. And in a dilemma that mirrors that of the restaurant industry, many drivers realized that their unemployment checks eclipsed what they often earned driving, especially after deducting car expenses and gas prices, which are currently at a seven-year high.
The shortage is especially bad in Boston, because MA passed a law in 2016 banning surge pricing during a declared state of emergency. This was in response to a snowstorm in 2015 where people were paying crazy prices for an Uber home after the MBTA shut down. But Covid has been a 16 month long SOE, so a lot of drivers don’t bother to go out if they can’t get the surge pricing.
And yet, I would understand having to pay a premium (even a large one) to get an Uber home in a snowstorm that stops the trains.
I got an Uber for a 1/2 mile ride once. I had gone for a walk with my young son, and on the way back he decided he was too tired to walk any further.
Taxis in NYC, Philly, & other cities are regulated, this includes limited supply via purchase of a medallion which cost $6 or even $7-figures at their peak. Then gypsy cabs with an app Uber comes in & decimates that. People have gone bankrupt & even committed suicide over the loss in value of their life savings (medallions). Whether cabs should be a regulated industry is debateible but requiring part of an industry to be regulated & allowing other parts of it to be unregulated is unconscionable.
Limiting the # of Uber drivers was a weak attempt by the city to not decimate the taxi industry even further instead of either deregulating cabs or regulating Uber to make it a level playing field.
It wasn’t just the medallion owners who were at fault, at least not in New York; bankers and businesspeople drove up the price of medallions while simultaneously convincing drivers (some of whom were not native English speakers and didn’t understand the contracts) that they were a good investment.
My recent experience in the Washington DC area was that there was no difference. I needed an Uber to get to Dulles International Aiport from my house, which isn’t very far from the airport, and it arrived within minutes, which is what I would expect. In fact, I made sure I was ready to leave for the airport (and I still forgot something) before calling for an Uber because I could see plenty in the area. The cost was also the same as usual.
I am sure it varies from location and destination, so this is just one point of data.
//i\\
Uber algorithms can’t determine when an Uber is canceled? They don’t lower the count of requested cars and adjust rates accordingly?
To be fair, I can only deduce from what I see on my end and not being a programmer I’m sure many of my deductions are wrong. The one thing I do know that Uber can’t control is whether any specific driver is going to be working. The driver doesn’t even have to accept any one request- if I see your request to pick you up at the Spurs game I’m going to lol and not accept (or cancel) that shit. (Picking up at stadiums and airports just isn’t worth it, no matter the surge.)
And so it is hard to build an algorithm which takes into account the drivers behavior - your ride could be more expensive not just because of demand, but because drivers keep refusing it. That’s the point I was trying to get across.
Anyway, I wrote a book review in the form of one of my Uber ride stories. 1,700 words, 4 hours from initial conception to writing to posting, I don’t know if it is the best thing I ever wrote but, as you will see in the follow-up comments, it was met with great favor from the lovely lady referenced in the story…
You bumped a 6-month old thread for more self-promotion? Both in this thread, and in the “Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading”[not “whatcha writing”] thread? WTH?
Yeah, why not? Check out my follow-up in the reading thread. It was a very lovely evening, one which I was not expecting. I’m still riding the glow, let me enjoy it.
Sorry, not playing. I much enjoy your Uber stories, and really appreciate your Medicare info, and many other things you post, but your constant self-promotion of your own writing, now in in threads about “what books have you recently read”, really crosses boundaries.
My reaction was “It’s been a tough day, my brain is fried, but maybe I’ll click on… whoa, 1,700 words? Can’t someone take mercy on us and edit themselves? Too bad, I like JohnT’s stuff and would like to read it. So I bookmarked it and I’ll carve out some Long-Form Reading Time when life slows down. Maybe after the holidays or when I’m in a coma…”
Not an Uber driver here but: if the area is generally busy enough, he’ll likely pick up another fare in the same area quickly, as opposed to waiting around for the next fare. Tip well, relative to the cost, and I suspect he’ll be happy.
Haven’t done Lyft or Uber since the shutdown, I think - but I always got a kick out of asking if they had any interesting tales. One that sticks to my mind is the driver who was asked to drive to NEW YORK (we’re DC metro). It was a snowy day, which disinclined him from going that far… in fact, the rider needed a Lyft because the TRAINS HAD QUIT RUNNING.
The driver declined the trip.
Not a bad idea, in concept, but DC to NY: why not take the train or one of the numerous buses, which will drop you off right in the middle of Manhattan? Yes, you’d have to take transit (or a cab) up to the hotel itself, but either method will take about as much time as driving to NJ, then finding your way into the city.
Your aunt likely knows about local transit options to get into the city, that would be cheaper than a cab / Uber, if not quite as convenient.
FWIW, we frequently do the DC-to-NYC trip (or, we used to). Always took either the bus (several stop within a couple miles of our house), or the train (more comfy, but a lot more hassle as that requires a trip into DC).