Re:End of the line for Uber?
by subsubzero on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @05:03PM
(#28134481)
Because taxi's don't have a bloated 'backend' corporate office where thousands of engineers are making $300-500k a a year, and a bevy of extremely elaborate offices in the most expensive parts of the world, London, SF, NY etc. They have the dispatch company which runs on a shoestring budget and the cabbies who are either owner operators or work for a cab company, they also don't have the tech that powers Uber/Lyft which allows anyone to hail a ride from their smartphone. [tradeoffs]
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Re:End of the line for Uber?
by ProblemFactory on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @05:40PM
(#28134999)
> they also don't have the tech that powers Uber/Lyft which allows anyone to hail a ride from their smartphone
Sure they do, as long as they just get an app built by a contractor and don't employ 5000 engineers building cool open-source infrastructure projects and unnecessary "growth" features.
Multiple taxi companies with ~200 cars in my city each have their own smartphone apps with all the features you actually need: ordering or scheduling a ride, GPS tracking, payment with credit card or business invoice.
Looks like these apps were last updated in mid & late 2020, but if it works you don't need a permanent tech team to keep the taxi business going.