Uber Is Another Reason You Have Screwed Yourself

As far as I can tell, most of the Uber drivers, here in Sydney anyway are hire cars, with hire care (HC) plates.

So all thats really happened is a loss of income from taxi regulation to the goverment. Replaced by a certain % of profits going to an overseas company to run pseudo taxis in my/ your city.

For a service that is at best 20% cheaper, at worst with surge pricing more expensive in peak.

Explain to me how this is better? You cant hail an uber just off the street, hailing a cab is now more expensive since they upped the price to compensate.

How the fuck is this better?

By tbe same logic we screw ourselves with the likes of Amazon as well

 

Uber's great when you're fucked up.

 

As you might have guessed, i took my first Uber tbis morning with a friend (fucked if i'm ever joining up) same route Ive taken many times in a taxi, Bondi Junction to Central.

Usually $14/$15 in a taxi

The Uber was $17 for same route, although admittedly in peak, taxis usually off peak.

Still, got out of the car, thinking, wtf Was that? Whats the difference? Just some dude driving you in a car.

Could have stuck my hand out hailed a cab, without having to fuck around with the app.....for the same price

 

I have never used an uber.

But! I have dranken an über.

 

In London they are cheaper than hailing a cab. Ive used them a couple of times for longer journeys as cabs wouldn't do that. Wouldnt get one fpr short journeys though. Ill get the bus or tube.

 

I used to work as a Rickshaw driver in London, Black cabs used to literally try to run me off the road. I struggle to have sympathy for them sometimes.

That said, If TFL just got off their arses and made an app (like the black cab drivers have been arguing for) or the govt.decided to tax Ubers as taxis (they currently get off on the technicality that an app that functions in exactly the same way as a taxi meter is not technically a taxi meter) then they could probably not lose their jobs. Which would be nice (I suppose :/ )

 

Thats true. An app would change a lot for them.. even though they are terrifying to everyone else on the road. Taxis and motorcycles are the worst in London.

 

Is it true that the rikshaw drivers charge a crazy amount??

 

Where I live they are significantly cheaper than a cab. For example from my house to the local airport a taxi costs about $100, but if you take an Uber it is about $33. I don't have the Uber app but I've used it with friends.

Although I did get dumped out in a bad neighborhood in NYC in the middle of the night by an Uber driver once. My friends and I started walking to the nearest fast food joint so that we could figure out where we were. Some shady looking black guy walked by us and said: "you bitches get lost?" and then started laughing and shaking his head. It was actually pretty funny.

 

Oh yeah, definitely.

The thing is, we only take people short distances through central london/the west end- it's one of the most heavily public transport(ed?) areas in the world, there are plenty of more efficient and cheap options, they are paying for the novelty of being on a rickshaw, so they can't expect to pay taxi prices.

(also, some tourists are fat, and we do it under our own steam, so I think we're entitled to charge more if we're paying the price for all their big macs.)

And yeah, there are a lot of tricks of the trade to get your money's worth. For example, pretending to be more tired than you are to get a big tip and always overcharging men with their girlfriends (they never want to argue about money in front of partners, especially on an early date)

You carry cash on you, and most of your trade is late at night in soho ferrying severely drunk/high people around, so it's not the safest job to have. I was a scrawny kid at the time, so I had to learn to keep my wits about me.

I started doing it at 17, it was quite the education

 

i have. i assume uber wouldn't be happy to know it though.

 

paved urban streets wide enough to drive automobiles upon are another ("reason humans on planet earth have largely screwed themselves").
(ok, its not a direct quote, but it does clarify that i'm refering to the title of this thread)
i have zero personal experience with uber of course.
i ride public transportation, or walk, or generally seldom find myself any place a can't walk to from where i can get to on public transportation.
(though when i was younger, i more frequently walked greater distances then i have since, though there was also more and better public transportation)
i have heard about "uber" though, and about another taxi cab alternative called "lyft" (of which i also have no personal experience)
i have heard that uber is run by someone who has, i forget what it was, something possibly wrong with his head.
about lyft i know even less.
only that these are some sort of something like cab companies, structured somehow in some way to not look like companies,
and in the case of uber, possibly to get away with things companies are supposedly not supposed to get away with.
something to do with not keeping its commitments to its supposedly non-employees.
mmm, but that's really as much as i can say with any degree of confidence.

 

Uber is such a manipulative company. You are not an employee you are a contractor. Therefore all expenses are your own problem. Uber invests nothing besides the app and they get cuts of all your hard work without any obligation to you. They lead people to believe it's a smart part time maybe full time job. You would make more money and put considerably less wear on a car working a fast food job. Cars are expensive to repair when you use them too. It's not worth it. That's why they work so hard to recruit people. Good jobs don't have to do that.

 

another of my vague half memories, is that some court somewhere decided that the uber of uber,
was responsible for something anyway, whether they wanted to be or not.

sorry i don't remember any more of the details about it.

i don't use 'smartphone' 'apps'

i'd love to have a computer i could carry around in my pocket,
but NOT one that charged me for connecting to something every time i wanted to play with it.