For the past 25 years there has constantly been at least one tech company which is perceived in techie forums as so bad that it's incredible anyone would voluntarily use their products.

Those companies have been Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon.

Financially you could have done amazingly well in the stock market simply by buying whatever big stock techies hate at the moment.

(Not saying Uber will necessarily continue this pattern. Even though they have the brand, I don't see how they intend to fix the enormous losses. That's very different from the optimized zero profit Amazon was making for years.)

Sorry for being the hn stereotype, but that's pure survivor bias. That "buy the hated" strategy would have left you with lots of worthless Unisys shares for example, they are down >> 90% from back when the GIF patent was putting them in the spotlight of unpopularity.

> For the past 25 years there has constantly been at least one tech company which is perceived in techie forums as so bad that it's incredible anyone would voluntarily use their products.

> Those companies have been Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon.

That's a great point. I'd add IBM to that list and the time frame would reach back to 35 years.

Frankly they're basically interchangeable. I'm not sure what you mean by a company "so blatantly bad" -- most of the drivers in SF at least drive for both Uber and Lyft. You can use either app and end up with the same driver, in the same car, offering the same exact experience at a practically indistinguishable price point. Uber at least seems to know people are mad at them and offer excellent customer service.

Now, that doesn't mean they're a good business of course -- they're probably a terrible business -- but that's a reason to use them, not to avoid them.

With that in mind, unit economics at both Uber and Lyft seem to be about the same, and both equally dreadful. Lyft never made some of the even worse investments (like trying to compete in mainland China without government support). Those days appear long behind Uber, though, for better or worse.

By bad I meant doing bad things uber has done.

https://www.google.com/search?q=bad+things+uber+has+done

That's a pretty hilarious google search string :) I wasn't sure if you were complaining about them as a service or the way they run their business. The latter certainly has plenty of fodder.

Switched for same reason but now Lyft is being a bit shady. Changed my home address and credit cards won’t work. Gabe then PayPal, insists on “verifying” my home address with another credit card. Why do you need it? I thought PayPal was the middle man so I don’t have to tell you these details I find privileged information.

Also had trouble getting support- no way to contact them.

unfoetunate because t works great when I had it.

Is it shady for not accepting your money because of overly stringent security reasons?

I guess that’s one way to look at it. Another would be “metrics” or whatever companies sell nowadays to make money. Isn’t a credit card with an address not enough?

Same here. Switched to Lyft a year ago and never look back.