I don't use taxis a lot. I have had a car and a licence basically since I was 17, but when I have had to use them, they've mostly been fine. Mostly to or from an airport/hotel.

One nearly killed me, but I don't judge all other drivers by his lack of sleep/attention/whatever prescription drugs he relies on to stay awake.

My issue with uber/etc is that they spend more money, campaigning against laws that would require background checks for their drivers, than it would cost for them to actually do the background checks. If that doesn't raise some questions for you, you may as well just look for vans with "free candy" spray painted on the side, I'm sure they'll be great.

"Taxis are terrible" is such a vague blanket statement its almost meaningless.

Uber/Lyft are great for getting between two points in an overcrowded city where you would neither be able to park your own car nor hail a taxi. Taxis are terrible because of the lack of convenience and lack of a rider rating system.

And then you have apps (at least outside the US) for hailing taxis with the same UX for Uber. In some countries the Uber app hails taxis too.

> Uber/Lyft are great for getting between two points in an overcrowded city where you would neither be able to park your own car nor hail a taxi

I've literally never "hailed" a taxi in my life - I've either gotten in one at a rank (i.e. at an airport) or called for one in advance (i.e. at a hotel). Even as someone who uses taxis very rarely, I'm well aware of taxi booking apps both here in Thailand and in Australia.

Your argument is essentially "American taxis are crap, therefore uber is good for breaking the law". Why exactly couldn't Uber have just operated as a better taxi company? Oh right. Because then they'd have to follow the laws, and pay the drivers an actual income.

The main reason for me to use Grab while on holiday in Thailand was the fact that not getting scammed by a taxi driver in Thailand was almost impossible for me. I'm not sure if this is an issue for everyone, but I dare to say that as much as 50% of all taxi drivers in Bangkok just drove away the moment we asked for 'on the meter'. And this is saying something because we have used taxis at least twice a day for 2 weeks.

The second reason was that not 1 of the non-Grab taxi drivers uses anything like Google Maps. So I was never sure if we actually ended up at our hotel or somewhere else. Also because our hotel (Aetas) had (at least) 2 locations in Bangkok it made it all worse. This is assuming that a taxi driver actually knows where to go, we've also encountered multiple times the situation where a taxi driver didn't know where to go.

Grab on the other hand always provided the amount upfront and every driver had Google Maps for navigation.

Edit: I'd rather use the official taxis, but the number of conveniences Grab added with a single app was worth it to me.

I believe you're missing a few things, considering taxi medallions are basically impossible to come by, and that what taxi driving laws here in the US allow are not incredibly unlike what Uber does to its drivers.

> I believe you're missing a few things, considering taxi medallions are basically impossible to come by

You mean none of the existing holders will sell them? $22B. Twenty two billion fucking dollars. That's how much VC money has been pumped into this bullshit company. And you're saying they can't buy some taxi medallions?

Can you please not post acerbic rants to HN?

I think the answer is yes. (Or more accurately, not enough to be competitive.)

Why would they? Medallions are a MLM

If you've never hailed a taxi then I supposed you've never travelled abroad?

Not at all. Try reading what I wrote. Hint: look for the parts where it says:

> I've either gotten in one at a rank (i.e. at an airport) or called for one in advance (i.e. at a hotel)

But even when I have traveled, I generally don't use taxis much. I've only ever been to a few countries where I didn't end up driving - Hong Kong and Singapore, where public transport is beyond amazing, and a wedding (and thus spent the whole time at a resort) in Fiji years ago.

taxis aren't terrible. the distribution of medallions in most cities is the problem.

Taxis are terrible.