I drove for Uber about 3 years ago for a couple of months when getting my consultancy off the ground, which led to my current gig.

If I had a way to tell Uber "Don't give me rides that require me to leave a given geofence--we'll all have a bad time." Then I'd have been much, much happier. Everyone wanted a ride from my suburban town to the metro area that I know nothing about. Every now and then I'd get one where start point and endpoint were both my own town.

I'd have happily taken less fares in order to drive more familiar streets, and the people who rode with me would have enjoyed it more.

1) Many drivers from your town would likely geofence themselves to your town, reducing the supply of drivers that will drive to the metro area, increasing wait times and driving up prices, making riders unhappy.

2) Drivers would use this feature to avoid driving to "bad" parts of town, making transportation discriminatory. (In ways that are illegal for traditional taxi companies, so Uber would eventually run afoul of the same regulations.)

It's a shame because there are reasonable use cases for a geofencing feature (you seem to certainly be one of them), but it can be easily abused and can hurt the rider experience depending on locale. (Not saying the rider experience is inherently more important, but certainly Uber/Lyft would see it that way.)

For #2, sincere problem for which I am not aware of a good solution.

It also may not be the same thing as a market customers understand and feel comfortable participating in. It's true that there's more demand for unblemished produce priced the same as misshapen ones, but I'd be very unlikely to patronize a grocery store that ran an auction for each individual vegetable. So it might be in Uber's interest to not expose a variable-pricing mechanism. (Indeed, customers already seem not thrilled with surge pricing, even though it arguably gets them the service they want more efficiently.)

Unfortunately, you're talking to one of those few people. I'm against government mandating minimum wages or mandatory maternity/paternity leave. If you want those things, you can try to negotiate for it.

> customers already seem not thrilled with surge pricing

This is a true statement, but I wonder about these people. I don't share their view.

Yes, we can expose the reality that most people aren't economically worth enough right now to demand parental leave or living conditions, but what is the benefit of exposing that?

It's not like figuring out the true price of a product is low because it's low quality, so if people stop buying it then the producer will stop making it. The people that aren't worth enough, whether it be because they are lazy, stupid, came across an illness, born into a poor family and never had the opportunity and mentors to teach them, should we just let them rot away?

The benefit would be discouraging people from having kids they can't afford and not forcing employers to pay employees who aren't working.

If you want to get paid for work you're not doing, you should at least have a conversation with your employer about it.

You bring up an interesting point about efficiency, and regarding most other things, I would agree with you, but your employment is one of the most important things in your life, so it's worthwhile to do the work to understand your contract.

Perhaps you haven't noticed, but all the evidence would suggest that that isn't working. You can't just not pay people and they magically stop fucking.

Rather, the framework is broken. When we hyper-individualise everything, we end up with a world people can come to frame thoughts like the one you've expressed.

A world where everyone must own one of everything, and a spare, in order to survive. Where betterment is defined as having more and better things to throw in the garbage heap.

So that future archeologists may dig up our society and find the last of the great cetaceans, beached, with their bellies full of custom gift cards with your face printed on it.

And that is a sad state of affairs.

The more educated people are the fewer children they have. And we continue to price more and more people out of education because they lost the birth lottery.

If you pick up random strangers in "bad" neighborhoods as a private person you are insane. Somehow taxi drivers are bad persons when they don't.

Do these things full time you will sooner or later get in trouble.

Going after drivers is going for the symptoms rather than the cause and quite selfish. If I wouldn't do it myself I don't want anyone else being forced because they have lower income than me.

Just explain to me the game theory plus of a main-street battle, where the bad guy already holds you at gun point- and you have the chance to accelerate towards the bitter end?

"Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was 'used' by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies. ... Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008."cdc see https://www.investors.com/politics/columnists/how-many-lives...

Not to mention personal risk if you consider how dangerous some Uber drivers are.

However if you consider the cost of car maintenance, annual depreciation on a taxi-like vehicle, and petrol the fares are actually very low. I would be willing to bet that a lot of Uber drivers are wavering around breaking even on the long run. Maybe that's why a lot of drivers' cars aren't as well-groomed as they used to be.

Now, I get that "from a consumer perspective" this is irrelevant, but it does mean that a cheaper service is simply not possible without sacrificing something.

Most are doing it as a side hustle for a little extra cash before or after work. Or they're using the money to justify spending more on their dream car.

They don't need to break even, they needed the car anyway, it would depreciate roughly the same amount anyway. Or at least the extra uber usage is going to be negligible compared to the time based depreciation.

Having people who don’t understand how to calculate their costs in the market drives down wages for everyone.

Yup, this was my point! :)

Interesting. Anecdotally, in Sydney it seems almost all Uber drivers I meet are doing it full-time now. A few years ago, it was just a side-gig for most but I think the demographics have shifted quite a lot.

> They don't need to break even, they needed the car anyway, it would depreciate roughly the same amount anyway.

Not if you're driving it 10x more than you normally would. Mileage affects the resale value and increases the likelihood of additional maintenance work (especially if you're doing city driving which is substantially more stressful on cars).

Most of the guys make it to pick up girls. I know some girls that use to go by Uber and many guys would ask for their number.

For example they can't drive a Tesla for this cheap, makes no economic sense, except if it's another tinder for them.

Uberx is much nicer for an extra dollar or two (for standard trips), no more farty taxis.

But using my power of recollection - taxis were a crapshoot before uber came along too. Some were okay, some were disgusting.

I have not had (after a night out at a comedy lounge with my wife) an uber driver chase me into another uber, try and yank open the door yelling "I was first in line! You fuck! You Fuck! Get out!" while my taxi driver speeds away tires squealing.

Since uber came along, the quality of standard taxis here in Perth has increased dramatically. The result is a net positive.

So all in all, I think it's been a net positive for the consumer.

I used to travel to Houston quite a lot. Not sure if this is representative of taxis in general in the US, but the taxi drivers never knew the neighbourhood. I couldn't say "I want to go to Acme Stuff in X district", I had to give a "Cross road" (a very US thing, that) and the driver would use satnav based on that. It did seem that a lot of taxi drivers were recent immigrants (invariably chatty), so that accounts for some, but not all.

At first, this was a surprise, as in my native UK I can literally give a street name within 50 miles of where I am, and the driver cocks their head for a second, gears whir, and yes! They know it!

Even then, many experienced drivers will still use satnav due to changing traffic conditions. Since there are usually several routes that can be taken, using Google Maps or the like will tell the driver what the fastest route is during that particular moment, which might change every 15 minutes.

I remember when Uber was new (black cars only), and the app didn't yet give the ability to enter your destination, the drivers were all very knowledgeable (in SF) and would be able to take me where I wanted to go based on pretty minimal information. Especially in SF, UberX and Lyft Line are full of drivers who don't live in the city, and must rely on satnav to get around. Very occasionally (1 in 100 rides) I'll end up with a driver who has lived in the city for decades and could drive me somewhere in their sleep.

I'm not sure where in the UK you are, but if you pick a street at random (i.e. give all streets within 50 miles equal weight, and pick a name out of the hat), it's far from guaranteed that a taxi driver would know where it is, and how to get there.

- <30 square miles: The area within 6 miles of Charing Cross, within which London taxi drivers must know every single street.

- ~606 square miles: The area of Greater London, within which London taxi drivers must know the main roads.

- ~7800 square miles: The area "within 50 miles of where I am"

EDIT: If it sets a standard then why has that standard not been adopted nationwide? Your argument is dead in the water and I can only assume you’re speaking as a person who has never visited the UK.

The US has no such equivalent.

Conversely in Columbus Ohio all the drivers I’ve had recently are clearly former taxi drivers that migrated to Uber. The cars are old and beat up, the insides are dirty, and the drivers disregard the app’s directions usually taking us to the wrong spot.

In my travels to the US, which almost exclusively meant Houston, the taxis were always very basic, "boxy" cars; not sure about make/model, but they always felt "cheap".

Meanwhile in Europe, a lot of taxis are Mercedes E class saloons, or high-spec saloons from other makers.

In comparison the cost of the car itself isn't as important, so drivers put some effort into it. And they're more professional. I've never once in my life talked to a taxi driver in France besides entering and leaving the car.

Here in Romania, taxis are consistently horrible. The cars are usually old and not well maintained. It's not uncommon to see duck taped airbags. The drivers are far from friendly.

But! They are consistently horrible in my experience. Not once has one ripped me off and they always use the meter. They know every address you throw at them and get you there safely. No matter the hour. They're also dirt cheap. 2.25 RON/km. So that's about $0.55/km.

For the Romanians reading this; Bucharest is an exception and I've had nothing but bad experiences with cabs there. My experiences are based on using cabs weekly in major Transylvanian cities.

The truth is that if you want to pay less for transport then you need to not be taking human-driven taxis.

I agree that when it comes to finding the most efficient routes across town, cab drivers are better (especially during rush hour), but once they get to the right street the experience is so much better with Uber/Lyft/GPS.

"It's the red building in the middle of the next block. No, the next block. No, a bit further. The...it's fine, I'll just get out here."

vs.

"Perfect, thanks!"

Not a bad ride that one, but that guy had all his bases covered...

The price - while higher - feels more aligned with what I would consider to be "good value".

Ranked in order of importance for me are: - A competent + safe driver, preferably someone who knows the area. - A nice, clean, comfortable ride. - A driver who doesn't talk to me.

All 3 of these are markedly improved in both the Select and Black options. Given I don't take Uber that often, I can justify the expense. If it was something I relied upon on a more regular basis I just don't think I could justify using Select/Black.

I wish "Quiet Ride, Please" was an option in the app.

Unless the cricket is on the radio, then all bets are off.

I am dubious. You live in LA and want to be discreet?

You're a snob.

I wish they'd relax their policy on vehicles. I would have no problem riding in 90s shitboxes. I would find it novel. As long as it's been vacuumed that week I don't care what condition it's in.

https://www.wired.com/2017/02/watch-terrifyingly-bad-car-saf...