My experience with Uber/Taxi in Sweden. Got out of ferry, need to go to the airport, 40 minutes drive. There are a lot of taxies at the ferry terminal, sure, I talked to them, asked how much is to Airport, they all replied "by meter". Well I know you can set any rate to your meter. And all of them drove that route a lot of times, nobody gave me an estimate. So I have ordered Uber. Uber driver asked me how much Uber is going to charge me, and offered that he would cancel the ride, and I will pay him directly. I declined, just because I want to support Uber. I understand, that maybe some rides are not as beneficial as others, but give me a reasonable estimate, and I will agree to it.
But this behavior of taxi drivers that would rather do one drive in 2 hours instead of 2 rides, and they make approximately the same amount of money - that is what created Uber/Lyft. Passengers frustration with the taxis.
And I had bad experiences with Uber/Lyft and with Taxi. Cars can be filthy. But what I need: easy way to order a car, know exactly how much I am going to pay (estimate is fine with adjustment to changing traffic/time), what I don't want - not knowing if they will decide to charge me between 50-300 EUR/USD. That is not an estimate.
"I declined, just because I want to support Uber."
Why? They are not providing anything real service in this case.
As with any gig work, the payout drops down to horrible levels once the company is established and has no real competitors. This may explain why some drivers now want to avoid Uber for longer rides.
> They are not providing anything real service in this case.
They connected the driver to the passenger, and negotiated an acceptable rate between both. They build and maintain the infrastructure necessary to make this happen quickly and reliably at global scale.
If that’s not a valuable service, drivers and passengers wouldn’t rely on it. But they do.
It seems you want to use the service, and just don’t want to pay for it.
Because if we will agree with drivers, in that case Uber is not going to have profit, and Uber will be gone from that city/country. And we will be back to the taxi world.
Because having dealt with taxi drivers around the world, some of them are complete assholes who specialise in taking advantage of people when they know the least (new arrivals in an unfamiliar country).
Taxi drivers and their schemes are half the reason people use Uber, it's certainly the reason I do.
Do you mean meter manipulation? I think that's pretty hard at least in the places I've taken taxis in. What's much more common for taxis (and much harder to prove) is taking a circuitous/slower route on purpose.
>But what I need: easy way to order a car, know exactly how much I am going to pay
Same for me, and Uber has been hit and miss on both lately.
I've both had drivers cancel on me (or even ask me to cancel so they don't take the Whuffie hit) because they don't want to go to some place, and drivers taking detours for which Uber would later charge me (as "unexpected extra time").
Sweden, where the OP said this happened, has a deregulated taxi industry. Taxis are free to set the meter rate however they wish. They do need to inform the client about the rate, but tourists can't really judge whether the quoted price is fair or not.
Somebody replied about the Italy. My experience was exactly that, in Italy. After I sat in the taxi I saw them manually entering the rate. Hotel told me one approximate price, but it ended up way higher. They saw a tourist, they used opportunity.
Drivers have creative ways of getting around rules in most markets. In India when you get a ride assigned the driver will first call you and check where you are going, and cancel the ride (or ask for extra money) if the amount or destination is not to their liking.
This happens here in the US as well. Especially for food delivery apps, the driver shown on the app will rarely be the person who actually does the delivery. This is because people create accounts and sell them to others who don't have legal status, and take a cut of their earnings.
This used to be very common in the US especially around airports where drivers wait for up to an hour to get a fare and want to make sure it's worth the wait. It may still be happening, but I just go straight for the cab to avoid the hassle.
The US airport rideshare model (if you even want to call a largely emergent phenomenon that) must be one of the most wasteful things in transportation ever.
Why do I have to wait for, and find, my specific Uber/Lyft out of a sea of otherwise identical ones that are all in each other's way, all while idling and wasting tons of fuel? (I know that the legal answer is "taxi medallions"; that doesn't make it any less absurd.)
> the driver shown on the app will rarely be the person who actually does the delivery
Some will get around this with fake IDs, or at one point, simply setting their own photo on the driver profile page that doesn't match the drivers license photo.
That last part also happens for rides too. Has happened to me multiple times in Orlando to the point where I’ll just call a Mears taxi instead - ends up being cheaper anyways.
It's not Kenya, it's everywhere. Ubers in the US are increasingly doing a lot of the same things (canceling your booking if they don't like where you're going, e.g.) and becoming indistinguishable from the pre-Uber status quo.
From an economic perspective it's kind of fascinating that lying and cheating drivers appear to be the natural equilibrium state of the taxicab market; Uber temporarily disrupted this dynamic but could not actually eliminate it, and it is now reasserting itself after a period of turbulence.
> and becoming indistinguishable from the pre-Uber status quo
As long as you can (1) tap a button on your phone and have a taxi show up in front of you in minutes and (2) pay by credit card and not have the driver rip you off by taking a longer route, it will continue to be infinitely better than the pre-Uber status quo.
> not have the driver rip you off by taking a longer route
I've had that happen with Uber more than once.
The app now just seems to automatically "recalculate the fare" due to an "unexpectedly longer route or travel time", i.e. it's actively enabling this type of scam!
I think it is natural end of drive to bottom or extractive markets. Uber drops prices until drivers are forced to take steps to earn income. Or market is twisted by something absolutely moronic like overpriced transferable licenses...
Likely only real way to make market mostly workable is setting reasonable cap on rates and controlling amount of cheap to acquire licences, but disallow transfers.
It always amazed me how Uber was able to quickly force itself into the most criminal markets (which in poorer countries is typically anything that has to do with taxis). But in hindsight, after a quick surprise win worldwide, they were eventually forced out. In Russia, weirdly enough, not by criminals but by a quasi-state company, starting back in 2018. In parts of Mexico, by what seems like outright criminals and collusion. In Turkey, sometimes works, but often seems ignored. Wonder how they were able to launch in complicated markets to begin with.
Had 3 Ubers in a row spoofing gps location trying to pickup a ride at Istanbul departures, but then sending increasingly cryptic, once you are here walk 500m here directions one by one.
1 even started the trip without me in the car and said it was an accident.
Uber support didn’t care about that or the GPS spoofing.
Uber engineering does, there is extensive work that goes into the app to ensure drivers aren't GPS spoofing or that an actual ride is occurring. I.E. Check the accelerometer or gyro. That said theres a natural tension between making the app accessible to drivers and locking it down to protect riders. I.E. Disabling the app if your phone is rooted/jailbroken. But again you are limited to privacy, the api's for the devices you have to support and managing how accessible the app is.
It wasn’t Uber but taxis. When I visited Istanbul a while ago, the taxi drivers were creative in how they scammed people. Some purposely took a longer route to the destination to charge more, while others altered the meter so it showed almost double the fare. I discovered this because the same trip cost half using another taxi. Others asked for an upfront price and ignored the meter.
> It always amazed me how Uber was able to quickly force itself into the most criminal markets
We had a horrendous taxi market in Ukraine, before Uber. We knew Uber is coming for about a couple years prior to the first ride, so the market decided to prepare.
Cut to Uber opening in Kiev: they have managed not only to get the worst drivers (drug addicts, drunk people, outright fake accounts, etc), but they have pushed the bar far lower. There weren't a taxi service as bad as Uber ever before.
OTOH, one of the previously worst services decided to preemptively compete with Uber and became one of the best I have ever used. Perfect cars, excellent drivers, top-notch service and support, incredibly, unbelievably good.
In Hungary by the taxi lobby first and then they let them "back", but there is only a single company that serves taxis via Uber so it's only a front end.
I couldn't care less as what my ride is regulated or operated, but I do appreciate the fare being known upfront. (For what it's worth, Uber is quickly eroding this advantage themselves by automatically charging a surcharge in case a driver takes a more circuitous route, just like in good old taxi days.)
This makes no sense,why wouldn't Uber just increase rates and take a cut rather than let the drivers eat their lunch? What incentive do they have to charge less than the market will bear?
Uber's approach to business is to crush any competition with bottom of the barrel rates, funded by investor money or foreign profits. If they can't kill all of the competition, their approach puts them at a loss without a chance to make their money back later.
Higher rates make it easier for competition to set up alternatives and let the free market do its job.
Giving in to collective action by the drivers, of which they are diametrically opposed. If they raise the rates, taking the cut or not, they are allowing the drivers to 'win' in their mind.
So, in this case, Uber receives little blowback and passes it directly on to the riders who are either unaware, uncaring and/or willing to deal w/the drivers negotiating on top of the advertised rates.
Uber still benefits via a bigger cut from higher rates, so long as that's the market rate that people are willing to pay (if they start getting undercut by a competitor that's a different story). In my view, the fact that taxi drivers can charge extra and people are paying it shows that Uber was priced too low.
Whatever rate they ask the driver can undercut them. Driver gets a fraction of the ride. Even if they undercut uber the driver gets more take negotiating directly with the customer. I will do this sometimes when uber is surging if the driver is willing to take cash.
While I think undercutting competition is true, I think there's another aspect - common with food delivery apps.
If Uber (or others) actually charged what it would really cost to perform the service, pay a fair wage, etc - the resulting price would be so high that the average user wouldn't accept it.
The only way they've been able to get any interest at all is by finding every possible way of keeping the price way lower than it should be. Mostly be underpaying drivers.
For this particular market, they are not charging less than the market will bear, they are charging all they can.
They have to keep taking an 'L' specifically because there is extreme efficiency in price information discoverability in a commodity market.
Explaining:
Some background info:
- almost all drivers are signed up with all services [ ie i) Lyft, Uber - which are global & ii) Faras, Bolt which are international but Africa only I think ]
- riders have all apps and will price shop on every single app before booking a trip because it will be the same freaking vehicle and driver (ie literally the same service because of item above)
- ride prices are pretty expensive relative to local earnings: take for example, that first item (Minimum to and from JKIA, which is the main airport in Nairobi). It is 1000kshs which is about $8 - not a big amount in the west but is a bit of coin in Kenya - a day;. If I can get the same ride for $6, it is kind of a big deal because it means I can maybe also get a meal from the ride savings
- estimates say apps takes 30% (20% commission and 10% booking fee) and this is off the top of the payment
So, the rides are a fungible commodity. It is the same ride, all you are choosing is whom to buy it from
Consider Bob looking for a ride to the airport: he looks at all 4 apps ( Uber, Lyft, Faras and Bolt), finds the cheapest one (Alice, on say the app HNewsRides) at Kshs 800 (~$6) and books that (since it is the same freaking car and driver as all drivers all use all the apps! Note that they can also sorta see - based on proximity and time to arrival for pickup - that the same ride with Alice would cost Kshs 900 on AppA, Kshs 1000 on AppB, Kshs 950 on AppD etc )
Even worse, after Bob has taken a couple of rides with Alice, and they know each other a little better, they will establish a relationship and exchange phone numbers so that Bob will just reach out to Alice directly and cut out the middle man ( apps ) because Alice will charge them the app amount less say 25% (because there is no cut for the app now). Bob gets a 10%-20% discount on the ride and Alice (the driver ) gets 20% more for the ride. This means that apps have to cut prices again to compete ad infinatum till every ride is free (or the apps are paying riders to get market share and then jack prices, which they have done )
So, the real problem is extreme information availability and a multitude of players. If there were just one or two apps, price management is easier but with 4+ players, price competition is the name of the game.
About the "it will be the same driver and vehicle" thing: this is a quirk of the Kenyan market. If an ride is showing as less than 5 mins away from you on all apps, it is likely to be a situation where it is just one specific car and driver across all apps. Nairobi has horrendous all day traffic. Really bad. Think your worst nightmare traffic and multiply by two. Two cars separated by as little as 1 mile could have as much as a 10 min difference in estimated arrival times because of traffic. So, if a vehicle says "5 mins away" in 4 different apps, you can relatively safely assume it is the same vehicle listed on across all apps.
The eventual outcome of such race down is the apps realize they are merely matchmakers and they charge a 100% commission, since the price quoted can only be trusted as accurate with regards to the cost of using the 'rideshare' app.
Adding to this, it then makes sense why this isn't a thing in most developed countries as the burden of checking 4 apps seems to not be worth saving a few dollars for most people. In the US, for example, it seem like the two main competitors are Uber and Lyft, with Uber having 3x the sales as Lyft.[0] So it seems like most people will just check Uber and buy that no matter what.
Eh not sure I agree. Lyft has no presence in Kenya and don't think anyone uses Faras. Bolt has had its fair share of issues that have made it a slinkily option as well. Uber's pretty much the only reasonable option which is why the drivers are revolting.
When I was in Kenya last year (around Nairobi & the coast), I was shocked with how cheap the Ubers were. I was wondering how they could even pay for gas with the rates being so low. This answers that question and it's not at all surprising to find Uber yet again corrupting the market and the drivers paying the price.
At that time everything was going through the app like normal, but I did find that most drivers would call you to confirm the pickup or destination spots to be sure. I don't recall many if any cancellations.
I just did a few calcs for here in South Africa, and the prices you mentioned are about 2.1x as much than what it costs to get an UberX/Go trip here. Or the same price as what I'd pay for a "luxury" Uber Black ride.
This is just taxis doing what taxis always eventually do. This whole gimmick of "we can't afford to live at these rates" is just whining because they don't like their earnings at the end of the day. I'm all for a fair price that takes into account all the costs involved and a fair margin ontop so it's a livable and respectful wage. But what Taxis eventually do is not it, they want a certain lifestyle and salary that they've been used to before ride-shares came about, and they'll eventually get violent (like they did here in SA) till they get it. Fun story, I was in an Uber here once and got chased-down by an angry taxi driver when they saw me being picked up by an Uber driver from a "protected" tourist spot.
at a famous JHB spot - it's a no go area for Ubers. so you've to get a taxi and get dropped off at some gas station. then get an uber from there, otherwise taxi fees will be massive.
Readit News
But this behavior of taxi drivers that would rather do one drive in 2 hours instead of 2 rides, and they make approximately the same amount of money - that is what created Uber/Lyft. Passengers frustration with the taxis.
And I had bad experiences with Uber/Lyft and with Taxi. Cars can be filthy. But what I need: easy way to order a car, know exactly how much I am going to pay (estimate is fine with adjustment to changing traffic/time), what I don't want - not knowing if they will decide to charge me between 50-300 EUR/USD. That is not an estimate.
Why? They are not providing anything real service in this case.
As with any gig work, the payout drops down to horrible levels once the company is established and has no real competitors. This may explain why some drivers now want to avoid Uber for longer rides.
They connected the driver to the passenger, and negotiated an acceptable rate between both. They build and maintain the infrastructure necessary to make this happen quickly and reliably at global scale.
If that’s not a valuable service, drivers and passengers wouldn’t rely on it. But they do.
It seems you want to use the service, and just don’t want to pay for it.
Taxi drivers and their schemes are half the reason people use Uber, it's certainly the reason I do.
Do you mean meter manipulation? I think that's pretty hard at least in the places I've taken taxis in. What's much more common for taxis (and much harder to prove) is taking a circuitous/slower route on purpose.
>But what I need: easy way to order a car, know exactly how much I am going to pay
Same for me, and Uber has been hit and miss on both lately.
I've both had drivers cancel on me (or even ask me to cancel so they don't take the Whuffie hit) because they don't want to go to some place, and drivers taking detours for which Uber would later charge me (as "unexpected extra time").
This happens here in the US as well. Especially for food delivery apps, the driver shown on the app will rarely be the person who actually does the delivery. This is because people create accounts and sell them to others who don't have legal status, and take a cut of their earnings.
Why do I have to wait for, and find, my specific Uber/Lyft out of a sea of otherwise identical ones that are all in each other's way, all while idling and wasting tons of fuel? (I know that the legal answer is "taxi medallions"; that doesn't make it any less absurd.)
Some will get around this with fake IDs, or at one point, simply setting their own photo on the driver profile page that doesn't match the drivers license photo.
https://www.wired.com/story/priscila-queen-of-the-rideshare-...
Dead Comment
From an economic perspective it's kind of fascinating that lying and cheating drivers appear to be the natural equilibrium state of the taxicab market; Uber temporarily disrupted this dynamic but could not actually eliminate it, and it is now reasserting itself after a period of turbulence.
As long as you can (1) tap a button on your phone and have a taxi show up in front of you in minutes and (2) pay by credit card and not have the driver rip you off by taking a longer route, it will continue to be infinitely better than the pre-Uber status quo.
I've had that happen with Uber more than once.
The app now just seems to automatically "recalculate the fare" due to an "unexpectedly longer route or travel time", i.e. it's actively enabling this type of scam!
Likely only real way to make market mostly workable is setting reasonable cap on rates and controlling amount of cheap to acquire licences, but disallow transfers.
1 even started the trip without me in the car and said it was an accident.
Uber support didn’t care about that or the GPS spoofing.
That way, the politicians can look down on other governments for the lack of sophistication in their corruption.
corporate would like you to find the difference between these two photos
We had a horrendous taxi market in Ukraine, before Uber. We knew Uber is coming for about a couple years prior to the first ride, so the market decided to prepare.
Cut to Uber opening in Kiev: they have managed not only to get the worst drivers (drug addicts, drunk people, outright fake accounts, etc), but they have pushed the bar far lower. There weren't a taxi service as bad as Uber ever before.
OTOH, one of the previously worst services decided to preemptively compete with Uber and became one of the best I have ever used. Perfect cars, excellent drivers, top-notch service and support, incredibly, unbelievably good.
So there's that.
I couldn't care less as what my ride is regulated or operated, but I do appreciate the fare being known upfront. (For what it's worth, Uber is quickly eroding this advantage themselves by automatically charging a surcharge in case a driver takes a more circuitous route, just like in good old taxi days.)
Higher rates make it easier for competition to set up alternatives and let the free market do its job.
So, in this case, Uber receives little blowback and passes it directly on to the riders who are either unaware, uncaring and/or willing to deal w/the drivers negotiating on top of the advertised rates.
e: corrected spelling of blowback; whoops
Markets aren’t perfectly competitive, participants don’t have perfect information, etc.
If Uber (or others) actually charged what it would really cost to perform the service, pay a fair wage, etc - the resulting price would be so high that the average user wouldn't accept it.
The only way they've been able to get any interest at all is by finding every possible way of keeping the price way lower than it should be. Mostly be underpaying drivers.
They have to keep taking an 'L' specifically because there is extreme efficiency in price information discoverability in a commodity market.
Explaining:
Some background info: - almost all drivers are signed up with all services [ ie i) Lyft, Uber - which are global & ii) Faras, Bolt which are international but Africa only I think ]
- riders have all apps and will price shop on every single app before booking a trip because it will be the same freaking vehicle and driver (ie literally the same service because of item above)
- ride prices are pretty expensive relative to local earnings: take for example, that first item (Minimum to and from JKIA, which is the main airport in Nairobi). It is 1000kshs which is about $8 - not a big amount in the west but is a bit of coin in Kenya - a day;. If I can get the same ride for $6, it is kind of a big deal because it means I can maybe also get a meal from the ride savings - estimates say apps takes 30% (20% commission and 10% booking fee) and this is off the top of the payment
So, the rides are a fungible commodity. It is the same ride, all you are choosing is whom to buy it from
Consider Bob looking for a ride to the airport: he looks at all 4 apps ( Uber, Lyft, Faras and Bolt), finds the cheapest one (Alice, on say the app HNewsRides) at Kshs 800 (~$6) and books that (since it is the same freaking car and driver as all drivers all use all the apps! Note that they can also sorta see - based on proximity and time to arrival for pickup - that the same ride with Alice would cost Kshs 900 on AppA, Kshs 1000 on AppB, Kshs 950 on AppD etc )
Even worse, after Bob has taken a couple of rides with Alice, and they know each other a little better, they will establish a relationship and exchange phone numbers so that Bob will just reach out to Alice directly and cut out the middle man ( apps ) because Alice will charge them the app amount less say 25% (because there is no cut for the app now). Bob gets a 10%-20% discount on the ride and Alice (the driver ) gets 20% more for the ride. This means that apps have to cut prices again to compete ad infinatum till every ride is free (or the apps are paying riders to get market share and then jack prices, which they have done )
So, the real problem is extreme information availability and a multitude of players. If there were just one or two apps, price management is easier but with 4+ players, price competition is the name of the game.
About the "it will be the same driver and vehicle" thing: this is a quirk of the Kenyan market. If an ride is showing as less than 5 mins away from you on all apps, it is likely to be a situation where it is just one specific car and driver across all apps. Nairobi has horrendous all day traffic. Really bad. Think your worst nightmare traffic and multiply by two. Two cars separated by as little as 1 mile could have as much as a 10 min difference in estimated arrival times because of traffic. So, if a vehicle says "5 mins away" in 4 different apps, you can relatively safely assume it is the same vehicle listed on across all apps.
[0] (Bloomberg) https://secondmeasure.com/datapoints/rideshare-industry-over...
Deleted Comment
At that time everything was going through the app like normal, but I did find that most drivers would call you to confirm the pickup or destination spots to be sure. I don't recall many if any cancellations.
A longer 52km ride is about 38 bucks.
It’s cheap by western. Not sure how it fares against other comparable countries.
This is just taxis doing what taxis always eventually do. This whole gimmick of "we can't afford to live at these rates" is just whining because they don't like their earnings at the end of the day. I'm all for a fair price that takes into account all the costs involved and a fair margin ontop so it's a livable and respectful wage. But what Taxis eventually do is not it, they want a certain lifestyle and salary that they've been used to before ride-shares came about, and they'll eventually get violent (like they did here in SA) till they get it. Fun story, I was in an Uber here once and got chased-down by an angry taxi driver when they saw me being picked up by an Uber driver from a "protected" tourist spot.