Transfer to an airport or major train station is the far majority use case. There is almost no way to make money doing anything else, and even that isn’t enough to survive in most places.
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You’re not wrong, but that doesn’t change the fact that if I take the late train, I’m taking an Uber to get home and have some relaxation time, regardless of my approval or disapproval of their business methods.
Although I understand the problems with Uber and understand why lot’s of people hate it, I wouldn’t be rushing judgement on using their services.
I live in a big city in south Brazil, (2 million inhabitants), and taxis here were considered hazardous.
Most taxi drivers don’t own a medallion, they rent the cab for a high prince and proceed to drive as much as possible on that time so they can get enough money to pay the rent and then get some money for their own.
I know women would use them on fear of being attacked, and I have on multiple occasions got a with some crazy drivers who at least seem to be high on something.
Although taxis are highly regulated here, there is zero enforcement so the service is just awful.
There was no background check on drivers, no practical way to remove bad drivers from the system, and so on…
When Uber started operating here, it was a godsend.
It effectually more regulate than taxis, and payed the drivers more then the current system.
If you came to Brazil I would recommend you to try some other apps like Cabify, 99, Easy or Lift, as of today I’ve never seen evidence of wrongdoing on their part.
Just be aware that requesting an Uber can be the moral high-ground if the other options are worst…
How is Uber any safer than an unregulated taxi? They let pretty much anyone drive one. How do you know your Uber driver isn’t a crazy/evil one?
They do some minor checking: for driving offences (the city taxis do this too);
But the quality here is mainlined by removing bad driver from the system.
Lowers scores just get the driver banned, you may get a new and bad driver, but the chances are lower.
You can complain to the city about a cab driver, they just never act on it.
I understand this is highly localized thing, the city system is fucked up, but It is the reality here.
It’s really just a matter of relative quality. Uber still complete garbage. Your alternatives are just somehow even worse. Being the least evil member of a criminal gang doesn’t make you good.
In the US, Uber is anti-union, anti-competitive, and has likely violated several laws. They subsidize their ride prices with VC money.
The service itself is not illegal in Brazil, some cities tried to ban them, but they enjoy federal law protection and have won multiple time in the courts, so no wrong doing there.
I have no reason to believe their behavior would be different from the US (VC money, anti-union, anti-competitive, …).
I was just tying to convey that Uber was not the cheaper taxi when it started operating in Brazil, although sometimes it was cheaper, it was the safer taxi. If you are most of Brazil’s big cities at night I would recommend you call a car from Cabify, Lift, 99, Easy, or even Uber. It will be safer than walk, or any other public transportation system. São Paulo may be a exception to this, they a have a decent metro system and have reduced crime rates a lot on the last 10 years.
I cant stress this enough: this is a feature of Brazil, and in no way shape or form a a merit of Uber.
Uber certainly is not good, and using it doesn’t make you a good person, but sometimes it can be the lesser of two evils.
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Being illegal doesn’t make it immoral, but also it doesn’t matter if it was immoral, because fuck you that’s why. Also the eternal “companies are legally obligated to break the law to make money”.
Sigh, it’s a real shame because… well it reminds me of that xkcd where the quote paraphrased as:
“… in conclusion, on examining the above post by some Jag on Reddit, after carefully working my way through the haze of spelling errors and abuse of capitalization. I’ve demonstrated that beneath it all the work betrays the authors staggering ignorance of the history and the workings of our legal system. While the authors wildly swerving train of thought did at one point flirt with coherence, this brief encounter was more likely a chance even rather than a result of even rudimentary lucidity”
It’s like yeah, alright in some cases the law isn’t what’s moral but you’re kinda missing the boat here. In this case it’s laughably obvious that the law is there for a moral and pragmatic reason. There’s paragraphs to be written on why, but what’s the point? Tech bro’s gonna tech bro. I’m inclined to just throw out a “because fuck you, that’s why”.
It is true. The law is not equal to morality. I also have no problem breaking laws because it would be immoral to follow them. This would be a fine argument if the laws Uber were breaking were unjust, or the things Uber was doing were morally virtuous. Neither of these is the case. Making an app to get rich off the labor of others is not a matter of civil disobedience.
This is too good to be true
The limited medallion system isn’t perfect. It unfairly limits who can drive a taxi. However, it is important to do so because otherwise the supply of taxes will be out of control. Traffic will be out of control. Individual taxi drivers will make less money if supply gets too high. It needs to be limited.
More important is the system of licensing. Taxi drivers have to go through special training. In London especially, actual cab drivers have to have extensive expertise. To drive an uber you don’t need jack shit.
Taxis are also regulated in many other ways we have already discussed. Consistent fair pricing. Meters that aren’t rigged. Requirements to pick up anybody and not deny a ride. Requirements to pick up handicap people. Requirements to take people wherever they want to go. Even if these rules are not enforced perfectly, they still exist, and should exist. Uber and others simply ignore them all.
When Silicon Valley sees an imperfect system, their solution always seem to be just to remove it and replace it with nothing, or replace it with the free market. If something is imperfect, don’t toss it out, just fucking fix it!
Sadly, fixing things is actually hard work, and doesn’t help with get rich quick schemes.
I was watching a documentary sort of a video and it said, Uber is failing in South Asia too. They are failing to keep their standards high. High? They can’t even float with benchmark standards. Careem is outdoing uber in South Asian region.
The company started well, and is not eating dust at most places. Uber will wrap up soon!
I’m 50/50 on that. Sure, it’s struggling at the moment, but there’s more than enough techbro wierdos and Venture capitalist bucks to keep them going. If they’re already only alive and so used because of VC bucks and dedicated fanboys, how is more controversy going to kill them, when they still have both those things?