The day the industry unionized, that pushed me over the edge. I'm now 100% using Uber to get around and my only regret is that I didn't try it sooner - it's awesome.
I know you think taxis are the devil, but Uber's behavior as a parent company has been downright heinous.
Personally, I avoid supporting them, whenever possible, and go with better-acting players in the market like Lyft and Sidecar.
While they weren't looking, the internet ate their lunch.
Now on to the next assignment ... how can Uber and Lyft encourage new regulation to put up barriers to new entrants?
Some cab drivers were nice, but they simply aren't part of a functioning transport system in sf.
There are clean air standards for taxis? I'm not sure how well they work, since about half of the taxis I have taken recently (worldwide) have had the engine light on, indicating a likely emissions problem. Since taxis drive so much, an emissions issue on a taxi for a month is probably equivalent to a year on many private vehicles.
That said, even private vehicles have clean-air standards in any state (like mine) with emissions inspection requirements.
http://www.sfenvironment.org/news/press-release/san-francisc...
2/8/12
"Today 92 percent of the taxi fleet is comprised of hybrid or CNG vehicles. There are 1,318 alternative fuel vehicles out of a total of 1,432 eligible vehicles. CNG vehicles account for 89 of those and the hybrids account for 1,229."
Is that true? I thought the engine light could be for many things and only a few of them emissions related? (true for the European cars I've owned, anyway)
edit: actually, I guess, many of the faults are probably directly, or indirectly, likely to result in an emissions change.
So it took some healthy competition from startups to get the Taxi industry to actually improve their product? Next, I'd like startups to tackle banks, insurance, hospitals, airlines, and nearly every other established industry.
Nobody will be disrupting JP Morgan this century. That's by dictate of the US Government that will never let go of its direct control over the financial industry. Try and you won't be tangling with some annoying city board.
Airlines won't get disrupted until new technology comes on line to make it drastically less expensive, or something like Hyperloop is built. The problem there is not lack of competition. Not to mention, software is already sucking the best profits out of that industry: Priceline & Co. The airlines are the commodity box makers to Priceline's Windows.
If they were truly in dire straits, they'd be turning in their medallions and the city would be struggling to find new buyers.
That's certainly a negative effect, but why would it result from the rise of ridesharing services? If taxi companies need to scale back the number of cars in their fleet, shouldn't they only take from the cars that aren't accessible?
Traditional taxi companies are forced by regulators to provide less profitable accessible transport in exchange for being given a monopoly on taxi services. Part of the way that Uber is undercutting the taxi companies is by not providing services to the disabled (or at least not without added cost).
no clean-air standards
Require drivers to be as ADA-compliant as taxi services.
When you request a ride with a taxi-service, it's up to the discretion of the service which car to send. You need something for a wheelchair? Fine, they send you what's available from their fleet.
When you request a ride from Uber or Lyft, those two are just middlemen who put you in touch with one of a thousand little companies. Potentially, each one is available.
So, here's the evil bit: require each ride-providing service (a taxi company or an Uber contractor or a Lyft contractor) to provide a minimum of one or two ADA-compliant vehicles.
The independent contractors for Uber and Lyft immediately go away, except for the one or two that are so wealthy as to be able to afford a ramp-van or other compliant vehicle.
The English language has apparently moved on.
Doesn't mean the rest of us should encourage this misuse.
The word devastate much better suits the intent here, which would leave decimate to continue meaning something quite specific (and useful).
To be fair though, Uber's app is (now) better than the existing taxi company apps, with its integrated payments and map where you can see how far away your car is, so there's some value there.
So here's an upvote. I'd forgotten and/or downplayed these issues and your post made me reconsider and start using Lyft for the first time (been lazy thus far), so thanks for your post. :)
Glad to provide the perspective! Thanks for the upvote.
I think we can all agree that cabs in the Bay Area are terrible. Uber and its kin have certainly changed the market.
Uber however, seem to be resorting to immoral and rather ruthless tactics to serve themselves.
I find it much more convenient, and useful, to have a word that means the current modern definition of decimate. Perhaps decimate is a poor choice to represent that, but honestly not every word has to sound or have roots that directly relate to the definition of the word. It is more important words are used, rather than languish or die in history books.
> Honestly I have never really found a situation where I wanted to exactly (or even slightly) mean reduce by 10%. It is too specific of a definition to be truly useful.
I hope you realise that your use cases for words isn't the same as every other English-speaker's.
> I find it much more convenient, and useful, to have a word that means the current modern definition of decimate.
The word you're looking for, as mentioned, is devastate. Perhaps ruin, destroy, wreck, ravage, desolate, demolish, raze, etc. If you're happy with a phrase rather than a single word there's plenty more to choose from to convey your desired meaning.
> Perhaps decimate is a poor choice to represent that, but honestly not every word has to sound or have roots that directly relate to the definition of the word.
Agreed, but where words have a specific use (even if not to you) it's frustrating to have their meaning modified to a concept that is more than adequately conveyed by dozens of other, existing, commonly used words.
That's my point.
> It is more important words are used, rather than languish or die in history books.
I'm not even sure what to make of that claim.