As a consumer, Uber was superior to taxis in a number of ways: clearer pricing, competitive pricing, ride sharing, transparent routing, digital history and receipts, integrating with other apps, etc. What damage do you think was done to transportation?

Yeah, the app was nice, no argument there. The problem is two-fold - one, it harmed economic actors who were not using a PE subsidized model. That means actual businesses were lost in exchange for one that basically cannot be profitable without a monopoly on pricing.

Second, their below-cost pricing also enticed municipalities to replace public transportation services with ride shares paid for by the muni. Now that the rates are jacked up, those calculations make no sense (which of course, they never did without subsidy). If your city already sold the busses and laid off transit employees, you are SOL. Not a problem in NY or SF, but definitely an issue in towns and small cities.

A free bonus one would be the audacity that Uber and Lyft demonstrated in forcing through a California proposition to create a special labor classification in order to keep enabling their less-than-profitable businesses.

> it harmed economic actors who were not using a PE subsidized model

The only impact on the "economic actors" I noticed was that traditional cabs are now less likely to rip me off knowing I can always call an Uber

> Second, their below-cost pricing also enticed municipalities to replace public transportation services with ride shares paid for by the muni

The point of public transportation is to help people, not the other way around. Public transportation isn't a good in its own right. Let's be clear that public transportation failed the least well off. Trains and buses run less frequently in poorer neighborhoods and on off peak hours. Uber was a god-send for these people. If a private solution can do a better job than public transportation, be more accountable, be sustainable in terms of profit without the need for public funding, then I say private solution should win

> The only impact on the I noticed

That's probably more about what you pay attention to than the actual impacts.

> If a private solution can do a better job than public transportation

I just explained why it didn't - the price point was completely based on private subsidy. I live in an urban area of a major city, and there are times and areas where it takes 30+ minutes to get a ride, including a few months ago when I was maybe 10 minutes from the international airport at a reasonable hour (~10PM). Busses and trains have schedules which are fairly reliable. They run late sometimes, but there is a pretty reasonable guarantee that they will show up. They won't cancel after 10 minutes, the muni is ADA complaint, and will only cost you $2.50 to get within a few blocks of your destination. Yes, buses have a coverage problem in the suburbs, but my suburban relatives (who love ridesharing) have also been complaining about the price and availability the last 12 months, so it doesn't seem like Uber/Lyft are able to fill the last-mile niche reliably at this point anyways.

Public transportation is also heavily based on subsidies. The ticket price only covers a fraction of the cost.

Public transportation is a service, not a business meant to run a profit. I don’t mind subsidies when the public pays for its own stuff.

There's research out there showing Uber has increased congestion on public roads, and I think also driven up carbon footprint per passenger. In part this is because it's cheaper than it should be. Incentivising less people per vehicle (taxis versus e.g. busses) is bad for society at large.

Is there a research on how many DUI deaths and accidents Uber has prevented? How about people who didn’t buy cars because Ubering is much easier?

6% or ~500 lives per year according to this article (though it notes an increase in vehicle related deaths, so some of that may be cancelled by the additional road traffic) - https://qz.com/2038153/drunk-driving-deaths-dropped-as-more-...

Not a bad result, but probably not worth the problems that their current business model entails. There's clearly opportunities for better transportation options, they just need to make economic sense.

There's a lot of research and much of it is conflicting, here's two examples with vastly different conclusions

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/278...

https://www.nber.org/papers/w29071

Both researches show benefits but the nber one somehow twists it into a different narrative. I understand why hackernews users hate uber, but shouldn’t professional economists try to be unbiased?

The point of the nber study is that there's a ton of varying answers out there. If it's biased towards anything it's "good science."

> What damage do you think was done to transportation?

Uber/Lyft drivers destroyed traffic etiquette. I don't even drive and I saw it. For a few years there anytime you saw a driver doing something weird and/or dangerous it was Uber or Lyft.

> As a consumer, Uber was superior to taxis in a number of ways

I'd say that likely depends where you are.