That said, Taxi drivers have something Uber drivers don't- a union.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Taxi_Workers%27_Alliance
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2024
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I'm not sure if anyone else here has mentioned this... At least up until Uber/Lyft came out, taxis were suuuuper racist. It was really hard for black men to hail taxis.
I'm a brown dude. I have so many stories about bad taxi experiences. From Taxi drivers refusing to pick me up, to them going, "You're lucky to be in my car", to "I'm not driving there. Get out."
Around 2017 and was very upset at Uber, I took a taxi from the airport. The guy refused to drive until we had more people in the car. I said this wasn't a car share, and he told me to go take a bus. When I started getting a Uber, he apologized and took me, but then bitched about it the whole drive that he was losing money.
Uber and Lyft changed it all.
Cleaner cars. No attitudes. Agreed upon destination and fair.
I have no sympathy for taxis.
Thanks for sharing your experience even though I know it can’t feel good typing it all out.
Was looking for this comment. Racism was extremely pervasive in certain areas.
The biggest reason Uber and Lyft took off is cabs sucked for the most part. Uber and Lyft aren’t great either, but people forget how bad Taxis were at that time.
That is true. In the 90s, Michael Moore had a TV show where he did a segment showing the actor Yaphet Kotto trying to get a cab in increasingly ridiculous ways and not getting picked up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-z2uLX0FHk
In every single way Ubers are more convenient than a taxi. It’s amazing to me that taxi companies can’t see all the little improvements that going by Uber brings.
Unless you’re the driver.
100% agreed. I’m not condoning Uber. I’m saying taxi companies should be better at copying the convenience of Uber.
About 10 years a go I missed two flights for work because the taxi I had scheduled in advance never showed, and when I called dispatch they said 'he found a better fair, he's allowed to do that's
When I explained this to my neighbor who drove cabs be was still angry with me for switching to Lyft, but also agreed with the dispatch. Cabs don't want to change, which sucks because I wish there was more competition
I guess it depends where you are. In my city there is a taxi company that started buying lots of smaller ones. They now have an app like Uber so you can order it and see where it is. Because they bought so many firms they’re everywhere and considerably cheaper than Uber. I guess it’s only viable in large cities.
Only took the cab companies ten years to catch on to what they should have done as soon as Uber came on the scene. If cab companies had innovated like this, they would have killed Uber in the cradle.
It’s a lot harder for smaller businesses to invest in that level of development without hedge fund money and trying to corner the market.
If a small taxi company is making £100k profit a year it’s a big ask to invest £20k+ on developer to compete with Uber for what? A small increase in profit.
You need to expand as well as innovate. Hence the one taxi company near me buying out others to have a larger market.
Multiple companies could have pooled resources to fund developing an app that they all used. They have existing inventory, employees, local government connections. They definitely could have outcompeted Uber if they had been able to get their heads out of their asses and even try.
Instead they ignorantly tried to kill Uber by suppressing innovation and service improvements that everyone wanted, which was doomed to fail from the start. They dug their own graves on this one.
That's exactly what banks did for quick money transfer. (not that they're small businesses but) The mayor banks in the US got together made a joint company and created Zelle to compete with cashapp and all he other quick money transfer apps.
And wages? They couldn’t pay the drivers as little as Uber by making them contractors.
Uber wouldn't have been able to keep customers if big name, well-established taxi companies had really tried to compete with them. Middle aged adults (like me) would not have been inclined to jump into a stranger's car no matter how cheap it was, if it was just as easy to get a licensed cab.
Sure, Uber brought competition. But in certain places they got banned and the local taxi authority greatly improved on the service, learning from the gig apps' offerings.
Back in the day Opie and Anthony tested this.
Patrice o Neal with a gold chain vs Anthony cumia in a nazi helmet
Cumia got more cabs.
The fact Ant had a nazi helmet does not surprise me at all.
Oh yeah he was probably thrilled lol.
I still see his senility show pop up in my feed occasionally. Would unsub but not sure I'll find out he's dead otherwise lol
And also super expensive. I've had times where it was half the price to rent a car for the day than to get one taxi from the airport.
I remember one time, in Boston, I (white dude) was downstream of a black guy.
Cabbie went right by the black guy and stopped for me.
Black guy came running up and slashed his tire and then ran off.
I was like "cabby deserved it, but at the same time black guy justified it."
Not really a justified decision if it was the wrong one. The cabbie got his tires slashed by being a dickhead. If he'd have not been a racist, he would've had no problems. This is like the guy in the meme who puts a metal pole in his bike spokes. Cabbie caused his own problems.
Justifying is the wrong word to use but I understood what they meant. But you have to think about it in isolation for it to make sense, and because you have to i don't think it's very helpful to the discourse