Taxis were notoriously bad. They'd intentionally take slower routes to run up the meter, refuse passengers trying to go to locations the drivers don't want to go (despite this being illegal), etc. Not to mention this is all made more attractive due to our failing decrepit subway system.
The smartphone app innovation you speak of was not inevitable. Taxis indeed had a monopoly, and thus had absolutely zero incentive to developing an app. The competition induced by the ride sharing services destroying them is what incentivized them to finally launch an app, but I don't have it on my phone nor do I know anyone who has, and it's probably inferior to that of its competition.
Their first hailing apps was simply an extension of this, but it used the phone's gps, and you would press a button in the app for "a taxi, now, here", but the underlying systems were at least already there.
After Uber entered the market, they made their apps better, and you can now attach a payment method to pay through the app, and there's gps tracking of the car you're waiting on, same as Uber and similar.
But Stockholm never had a medallion system or other caps, and there's no monopoly, but there is some sort of oligopoly where some companies get better access to major taxi destinations such as airports and train stations. As usual, healthy competition is the key. :)
We're talking about something called livery cars which have existed forever and were also very widely used before Uber as well. You used to arrange for pickup using your phone. You still arrange for pickup using your phone.
The car, the driver, and the laws surrounding both are essentially the same as they were before. What's actually changed is your phone.
This distinction is quite different in cities that aren't New York, where there were taxis and nothing else, and Uber has in fact created a new category of private car transportation service. But here in NYC the non-taxi car service market segment existed already and was vibrant, the parent comment claiming they broke some kind of monopoly is just incorrect.
> the parent comment claiming they broke some kind of monopoly is just incorrect.
Are you saying taxis are not a monopoly? Or are you saying ride sharing apps did not break the taxi monopoly? If taxis were a monopoly, and if we are not using taxis now because of ride sharing apps, then it would seem ride sharing apps broke a monopoly.
Add to that the incentives induced by the rating system and fares determined before you hail the ride, and you also get a far superior riding experience.
So no, the innovation here wasn't just that the hailing is done via an app. This alone would not have spurred the dramatic improvements we've seen.
Decrepit I'll give you, and even a low grade, but failing?
From Wikipedia:
2016 subway ridership: 1.76 billion = 147 million per month
2016 global Uber ridership in October: 40 million
Not the same league.
The subways could improve, but I prefer them (and walking) by far to taxis and cars. I guess I just don't have experience since I take maybe one or two taxi rides a year and have never used car services. You seem to take them much more.
I actively avoid the subways as much as possible, especially in the summer when the stations are uncomfortably hot/humid. I mostly walk, ride Citibike, or take Uber/Lyft. Luckily I'm able to do this because I live reasonably close to my office in Manhattan.
Uber Pool has been a godsend because it's so cheap. I can often Uber to/from the office for about $.50 more than the price of a subway side. Granted traffic in the city is horrible so it's not all sunshine and rainbows - my Uber Pool today from midtown east to west of Penn Station took absurdly long due to standstill traffic, but at $2.03 I'm not complaining, and I'll take any excuse to avoid the subways.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/12/nyregion/subway-complaint...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/05/nyregion/subway-delays.ht...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/nyregion/why-is-subway-se...
https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-challenges-m...
The few times I tried to take those services the service was horrible, horrible.
Now, thankfully, Uber is available and they have much better service and they have a single identifiable reliable brand and they take credit cards.
Uber pool where unrelated riders ride in the same car are going to have less greenhouse gas than riders taking separate cars. This is logical.
I am writing this from Brooklyn, where I have lived for about 20 years.
> Before Uber there was no hailable service.
There still isn't. Street hails are only from medallion cabs, plus the green outer borough cabs which came just a little bit before Uber showed up and are still around.
There wasn't street hailing before and there isn't now. This isn't complicated. You used to use a phone to get car services before and you still do now. The laws and the dynamics of that aspect really didn't change much.
The innovation is that now your phone has a computer in it and GPS so you press a button and use an app instead of talking into the thing to a dispatcher guy in an office. It's a technological change that happened.
> I don't take these services much in the outer boroughs
As mentioned, I live in the outer boroughs, Brooklyn specifically. You should come check it out sometime, there are about three million of us here. We got along pretty well before Uber, we just called Arecibo. They were fine, and still are, I use them to get to the airport now since the drivers are way better.
Pricing is honestly pretty similar now to what it was five years ago, with very short trips being a little cheaper on Uber/Lyft than they were in the old system. Plus all the promos and so on.
It's way better now to just press a button on the phone, and have your payment info stored, and all that. No question about that. But those are technical innovations.
Your argument is that their innovation had to do with changing the dynamics of supply and demand in a restricted market. But that didn't really happen, and to the extent it did it was because smartphones made it possible. Steve Jobs probably has more to do with the declining price of medallions than Travis Kalanick.
> Uber pool reduces greenhouse gases because multiple unrelated parties can ride in the same taxi instead of using two different vehicles. Elementary.
Unless they were previously taking the subway, of course. The world isn't quite so facile.
Things I miss about those pre-Uber days:
- The drivers knew exactly where to go just off of an intersection. If you told them you were going to Tompkins and Hancock, they'd get you there often without needing to ask any clarifying questions. Now drivers have no idea where anything is.
- Music in cars from the driver's collection. Hearing random cumbia or ghazals or hip hop. It made you feel like you were in New York. Now drivers are catering to a generic millennial audience and all I hear is bad top 40.
- Overall just how human the interactions with drivers felt. I once had a driver come up into a house party with us, and ended up having a very weird/memorable night. Now everything is sanitized and rarely do I get a driver from Uber or Lyft that is willing to even have much of a real conversation for fear of getting a bad rating.
I don't miss the need to negotiate price or the need to pay in cash. The apps are also cheaper for the most part. I do miss the gritty New York.
That said, even Manhattan has had phones for black cars. I've routinely called Dial 7, Carmel, and Skyline on different occasions on demand (primarily when it's raining, when it's really hard to get a yellow cab), and had no issues. I still do so when Uber surge pricing is ridiculous for my tastes.
In the LES where yellow cabs can be scarce, you had Allen Car Service and Delancey Car Service (who I'd call for airport runs).
The reliability of these car services was pretty good. They'd call you if they were delayed or were otherwise late. (Drastically different from San Francisco, where the taxis were pretty much a terrible crapshoot experience)
When Uber started to take off in NYC, some of the feedback I heard was "I get to look like a bigwig", when in reality, anyone can get a black car, and if you think it makes you look more important... it doesn't.
My point is, there's a lot of talk of "Uber was revolutionary" and "before Uber there was nothing!", when the sad truth is these folks never bothered to look?
I mean, anyone who's lived in NYC for some time can tell you the numbers for Carmel or Dial 7 in a heartbeat, and some may even be able to recite the jingles from their ads.
Uber was just yet another dispatch car service, but with an app.
I mean, anyone who's lived in NYC for some time can tell you the numbers for Carmel or Dial 7 in a heartbeat, and some may even be able to recite the jingles from their ads.
I do think you're understating the importance of discoverability.
I lived in Morningside for three years. (This is in Manhattan, by Columbia University, for you non-New Yorkers.) I'd never heard of the car services you mentioned. Even though I could easily access yellow cabs, after a few awful cab rides to / from the airport, I would have been pretty eager to try out something different.
My point is, maybe I was ignorant, lazy, should have asked around, whatever. Clearly you are a savvier New Yorker than I was. But Uber/Lyft makes the process of getting a reliable, enjoyable experience way easier as a newb, or tourist, or lazy person who doesn't bother to find a Real New Yorker, or whatever. That would have provided real value to me.
I am so happy to never have to call Arecibo again. And now that Lyft service is good out here, happy not to use Uber either.
And a map confirming your pickup & destination, and a payment system. Yeah, not much different than talking to a dispatcher with your phone /s
Nope. No innovation here... /s
When Uber started in SF, the experience of getting a taxi was very frustrating. There weren't enough cabs, the cab drivers were over the top rude, they refused to take credit cards and were aggressive about tips, if you called a cab they would never show up, and they were (and still are) expensive. It was not necessarily about the app, it was just that it was reliable -- you could get a car when and where you needed it and not having to pay in the car made the experience far superior.
At the very same time, there were all these black cars rolling around the city and picking up passengers somewhat illegally. That experience was not great because you often had to negotiate a high rate, but this was mostly because there were no taxis available. In other words, there was a bunch of supply that could be utilized.
I think those conditions made Uber particularly ripe to work in SF and once it did, that proved that it could work elsewhere as well.
The app was also a huge benefit, but in context, I actually think it could have been just as useful in the beginning if you could have texted your address.
It goes to show that for something to be great, you have to get a lot of things right at once. :-)
In practice, it has replaced lots of Yellow cab journeys too.
Straightforward evidence: the large drop in the value of a medallion in NYC.
But just talk to New Yorkers. Lots of people use Uber instead of Yellow Cabs.
The outer boroughs, and every neighborhood in the city, has had car service options for decades, where you call a phone number (or often walk to a local storefront stand) to get a ride.
This is the exact market segment that Uber has entered. Literally. There wasn't and still isn't a restriction on the number of TLC car service cars on the streets.
This idea that there "were no taxis" in the boroughs and now there are is ridiculous. There weren't many yellow cabs before and there still aren't. There used to be thousands of TLC cars before and there still are. Except now people use an app instead of calling Arecibo or Carmel.
Street hailing was and still is prohibited, both for Uber and for phone style car services.
The massive innovation, of course, is the use of a smartphone app for hailing, which made it technically possible to create the market that we see today. Uber, Lyft, and the other companies that built internet enabled hailing solutions certainly do deserve credit for building out that innovation, but that change was just an obvious outgrowth of the technological change to everyone having a handheld always connected small computer. It was inevitable.
The dynamic you're describing for NYC just doesn't really fit the facts. Nor does the idea that a lot more people taking a lot more rides in cars is reducing greenhouse emissions, but that's another matter.