"These tech companies used lobbies to destroy the enterprise structure of our civilization from taxi cab medallions to hotels to brick-and-mortar businesses."
Taxi cab medallions are a very poor example to cite. I'm empathetic to the story of terrible customer service and share sentiments about the overall erosion of user experience with many tech-adjacent, so-called disruptive services, but the second anyone suggests we were better off with the taxi cab than Uber or Lyft, they lose all credibility in my eyes. I think the biggest benefit that many fail to mention is that you can actually get rides when and where you need to. For example, people have far fewer excuses to drunk drive from bars in my hometown now than they did 15 years ago. I've had my skin saved by several rides that would be impossible without ride-sharing services.
My issue with taxi has always been the scams, not even the long detours.
The local law requires that the taxi must take credit card and/or debit cards. If the machine is broken, they can’t take customers till it’s fixed.
30% of the time they tell me that the machine is broken and they want cash. When I say I don’t have cash they offer to drive to the ATM so I can take out some cash, while still on the meter of course. When I asked them to turn off the meter to take me to the ATM, they say it’s illegal.
I realised that as a socially anxious person who wants to be more confident, an LLM might come useful in summarising the local law to this effect quickly and especially the right steps to take.
There’s an interesting middle ground also. I live in a city where you still need to be a licensed taxi driver to drive for Uber and the cars must be marked (in the UK; it doesn’t seem to be that uncommon here). I don’t in all honesty know how much regulation that actually involves, but certainly more than “some random person with a car”. So there is a least a little bit of accountability.
From idle chit chat with the drivers that used to drive for a traditional firm, many have told me they prefer it. They’re very keen on their ability to vet passengers first via ratings, and that people can’t hop out and run away without paying, which apparently is/was not uncommon on Friday and Saturday nights. As a passenger, I like that I can’t be fobbed off with “he’s just round the corner mate” for 30+ minutes and I don’t have to worry about getting cash.
It can be a mutually beneficial thing, it just can’t be an unregulated free-for-all which it sounds like many implementations are.
It's been a while since I was at JFK but when I frequented it I always took the subway. Same for Heathrow, CDG, etc. I generally have much better experiences with general public transport than I do with any sort of taxi "service" but maybe I'm the odd one out?
And for the record, I've also had comically bad experiences with Lyft and Uber including drivers ranting about other customers in smelly unkempt cars (while on a date!) and my ride being significantly delayed because the driver wanted to stop for gas and also got themselves dinner while they were there. And I still love this crap!
Did you rate those drivers appropriately, and not tip them?
In general I try to avoid giving any less than 5 stars for anything but a safety issue, because a low-4.x rating can get a driver deactivated. But stopping for gas and getting food? Nope, that's gonna get you a low rating.
The ranting about other customers thing is something I'm torn on. Everyone has a bad day sometimes, and that shouldn't affect their livelihood. But still...
Genuinely don't know why you think Uber / Lyft are so much better than taxis? They cost slightly less now (used to be tons left till they needed to turn a profit), but it's still basically the same drivers driving them. They give the same type of service and do the same stuff. Only thing they don't do anymore is drive excessively long routes to run up the meter.
I guess it depends on where you live. Where I live, pre-Uber, I could never get a taxi in the first place. There were never any driving around to hail, and calling a cab company meant waiting 30-60 minutes, and more than half the time the taxi wouldn't show up at all. Drivers can and would take longer routes to run up the meter if they thought you weren't a savvy passenger. They'd also love to claim the credit card reader is broken, even when that was a violation of local law. If you had a complaint about a driver, you could call the taxi company, and they would assure you they care, but nothing would actually happen.
Now I get a car arriving in a predictable amount of time, at a pre-set price, paid outside the flow of the ride. If I have a problem with the driver or car I can report it with a low rating and a comment, and Uber and Lyft are notorious about deactivating drivers with even a rating in the low 4.x range. I can also give a lower or no tip if there's a problem, without feeling socially awkward about it.
Where do you normally take taxis? Hailing them can be hard, they might not want to go where you're going, the credit card reader might be broken, and they might take a worse route.
Taxis are a perfect example— as long as you tar the existing system as the enemy, you can get people to tolerate your bad behavior. “Those guys suck, we’re on your side!” Works for presidents, too.
Taxi cab medallions are a very poor example to cite.
"Things are bad where I am, and therefore it's OK for the tech bros to eviscerate an entire industry all around the planet, no matter what the local conditions were elsewhere."
Your experience is not the only experience. It does not justify what has been done. Your post only provides an yet another random angry anecdote, of which the internet is already flooded.
They got eviscerated specifically because taxi companies were horrible to begin with in a lot of these places. In other countries like Japan or Singapore where taxi drivers are ethical and honest, I’d happily take a taxi any day.
There's nothing wrong with eviscerating entire industries worldwide. That has been the way that disruptive innovations worked since the start of the industrial age. Adapt or perish.
> but the second anyone suggests we were better off with the taxi cab than Uber or Lyft
Uber or Lyft are more convenient for the customer, but the drivers are being abused by Uber or Lyft. Which is less than ideal.
That's the thing about BigTech: nobody says that the product was not more convenient (at least before enshittification), but the problem is that BigTech abuses their dominant position, over and over again.
> Uber or Lyft are more convenient for the customer
Gross understatement!
1) You can find a cab wherever (almost) and whenever (24x7) - you don't have to hail a cab for minutes/hours (even worse was not knowing when/if the cab would even arrive).
2) Much safer. Emergency support + seeing the route on GPS (can see the path on the driver's uber app) + rating system.
3) Better behaviour, enforced by rating system. Yes, it's not perfect, but much much better than cabs. Cab drivers were regularly abusive, knowing there were no repurcussions. Unfortunately, humans only behave when there's consequences.
4) No scamming vulnerable un-informed people. Cabs were known for scamming foreigners or un-informed people.
I can point out a few more things.
Calling it `more convenient` is a massive understatement.
> but the drivers are being abused by Uber or Lyft. Which is less than ideal.
This can be fixed by regulation. Just because a new technology brought a new problem, that doesn't mean we should discard the technology and go to its worse predecessor.
Remember : there is a reason the new technology took over its predecessor.
I think we can have both : the benefits of digital ride-share + good regulation for drivers to ensure they can maintain their livelihood.
PS : that's until driverless waymo/tesla take over everything...
I still don't get this one. You don't have to sign a long-term contract to drive for these companies. They don't own you. If you try it and it sucks more than working somewhere else then stop doing it. Your leverage is your ability to say no. But if it's better than your other alternatives then why isn't the complaint about the alternatives which are somehow even worse?
number of causal inference studies have shown that uber/lyft lead to broad based wage gains for the poorest segment of the working population. the cartel approach is only better for the select few who get to be drivers
A lot of it boils down to a promise that existing systems (and existing ways to handle error and deter wrongdoing) have somehow been replaced by "With An App" that efficiently reimplements what came before... but in reality most of the expensive features have been secretly removed, and you won't find that out until you're the one getting screwed.
Come to think of it, a similar phenomenon applies to cryptocurrencies: Even when they aren't an outright fraud, somebody has just thrown away the hard parts learned over centuries, quietly dropping them or trying to convince you that it's better to be entirely without.
The general pattern is this: You create a system, it has problems, people establish some apparatus to address the problems, the apparatus is a central chokepoint which is then captured by incumbents and abused for oppression, people demand a new system, you create a new system, it has problems, ...
You either need to prevent the apparatus from being captured by incumbents or you need to prevent it from being a central chokepoint that can be abused for oppression.
Definitely sounds like one vector, along with enshittification and other factors.
>*You either need to prevent the apparatus...or..."
That solution set kind of assumes that we must get to this point where those are the viable options. For me that begs the question, "what's underlying all of this that makes it so arriving here is the pattern?"
For example, questioning what we can do about such centralization and entrenched incumbencies in the first place; exploring whether some industries should be not-for-profit or public benefit, etc.
In general, the current system/economy presents a ton of inertia, frequently backed by network effects. I think we'll need to start looking at more creative/disruptive solutions for many of these issues.
The whole "with crypto, you don't need to put your faith in anyone [foremost: the banking system], the ledger is the single source of truth" is depressing.
Remember the word "credit" is Latin for "I believe/trust".
I avoid the whole "sharing economy" as much as possible. I think I've taken an uber or lyft twice when I was in a pinch in a city I wasn't familiar with, and once ordered a truck part to be delivered from a store in town that ended up being through a third party app (I couldn't drive down without the replacement fuel pump).
I really don't get the hope of trusting individuals that are arguably being taken advantage of by a faceless tech business rather than trusting employees or contractors that are at least more invested in customer service for the company.
It makes about as much sense to me as distrusting humans so much that you want to put all your wealth in a glorified git repo coded by humans and run by a small number of people.
Either trust people or don't, its a pretty simple choice. Convincing ourselves that a layer of tech can abstract humans away so much that we don't need to trust anyone is just absurd.
I don't quite follow your point, can you help me out here?
> it sounds like you are less trustful of strangers, not more
Less trustful of strangers compared to what?
> i’m confused why you’re spinning it the opposite
What am I spinning the opposite? My point was that I don't trust the incentives behind the sharing economy and have no reason to expect better service than from the more service-focused businesses they're attempting to replace.
I very much expect that I just didn't explain myself well in the earlier comment. Sorry about that.
He should have taken the car to the local police station to be impounded and started a credit card chargeback the moment Turo started demanding that he return a car that isn't legally drivable. It's still not too late to initiate the charge back.
All of these peer to peer apps have the same fate; it works in the high trust parts of the country, but the moment you scale, the quality of service decreases, fees increase, etc.
That's all businesses. Ever visited an inner city corner market? Items cost more, there's less selection, and quality of service? The employees are behind bulletproof glass.
I've fortunately had nothing but great experiences renting through Turo, but a story like this will definitely give me pause if I am in the position of considering renting through them again.
OP praises Enterprise, but I can't say I've ever had a delightful experience with them, or with any of the big car rental chains. Usually it involves a 20 minute wait in a line at an airport, followed by 10 minutes of someone typing into a computer for who knows what reason, followed by me wandering aimlessly in a parking lot looking for the correct car, which is always a surprise. There was also the time when I paid up front online for a car, and when I got there they wanted to give me an EV. I didn't want one, because I was pretty sure I was driving to a place with little to no charging infrastructure, and they ended up charging me more (surprise!) for an ICE car.
With Turo I always know exactly what I'm going to get, and it's easy to search for a car with specific attributes, like AWD or a roof rack. But yeah, you're also at the mercy of whoever random person owns the car, and it sounds like Turo's customer support is garbage when there's a problem.
National is excellent but you pay a premium. They focus on airports and business travelers, which means their fleet is newer and less beat up (also tend to be driven by individuals rather than families). If you sign up for free Emerald program, theres no waiting. Go to lot, pick any car and drive to gate and check out.
Enterprise owns them but they definitely operate on a different tier of service. If your work has discount codes with them, they're definitely better than all the other rental agencies. (I travel for work and have rented from almost all the major brands)
Problem with Turo is that most credit card damage waivers don't work with Turo.
My experience at rental car companies has in the last couple of years degraded to say the least. Customer service has been pretty hostile similar to the descriptions of turo in this article.
I think part of it is consolidation of the companies. Hertz now seems to be hertz plus dollar plus some other company. Hertz used to be cool (and more expensive, now it’s one of the cheapest).
It feels like it felt as the taxi companies were being killed by uber and later Lyft. Some external factor is causing them to fail and they’re floundering and clawing for every penny they can get.
I never heard of turo but may check it out for my next trip to the USA. But I think the real killer of the rental car companies is rideshare. It’s now usually cheaper for me to do two rides a day on rideshare than to rent a car for a week.
> It’s now usually cheaper for me to do two rides a day on rideshare than to rent a car for a week.
That's a big thing too. Whenever I have to rent a car, I go for the cheapest option, and that usually ends up being no lower than $60/day (plus taxes). If I only need it for a couple rides per day, that could very easily cost less. Plus I don't need to deal with gas, parking, or returning the car, worry about damaging the car, or ensure that I haven't had alcohol to drink before those trips.
There's truth to the main point that "gig economy" companies aren't adequately held responsible for the services they broker or sell (depending on your perspective). They avoid risk in a way that isn't obvious to buyers until something goes wrong, and there are few enough horror stories that they can stay in business.
That's the meat of the story.
It goes off the rails a bit with quotes like these, and mentions "Big Tech," but is really about the gig economy brokers.
> [tech billionaires] not only destroyed the financial system
Not really. Maybe he lumped 2008 bankers in with tech, but Uber was the worst offender, and it disrupted a differently bad taxi medallion monopoly, not the "financial system."
> These corporations don’t pay taxes
Also not true. I'm sure some don't because they're not profitable, but you can't be not profitable forever.
>Also not true. I'm sure some don't because they're not profitable, but you can't be not profitable forever.
They might pay taxes in some jurisdiction, but usually not in the UK.
The profit problem is actually that they can be not profitable for a really long time due to VC money. Long enough to put competitors out of business, for instance
Readit News
Taxi cab medallions are a very poor example to cite. I'm empathetic to the story of terrible customer service and share sentiments about the overall erosion of user experience with many tech-adjacent, so-called disruptive services, but the second anyone suggests we were better off with the taxi cab than Uber or Lyft, they lose all credibility in my eyes. I think the biggest benefit that many fail to mention is that you can actually get rides when and where you need to. For example, people have far fewer excuses to drunk drive from bars in my hometown now than they did 15 years ago. I've had my skin saved by several rides that would be impossible without ride-sharing services.
The local law requires that the taxi must take credit card and/or debit cards. If the machine is broken, they can’t take customers till it’s fixed.
30% of the time they tell me that the machine is broken and they want cash. When I say I don’t have cash they offer to drive to the ATM so I can take out some cash, while still on the meter of course. When I asked them to turn off the meter to take me to the ATM, they say it’s illegal.
i’m a pretty pushy person and they give up but it is draining nonetheless
From idle chit chat with the drivers that used to drive for a traditional firm, many have told me they prefer it. They’re very keen on their ability to vet passengers first via ratings, and that people can’t hop out and run away without paying, which apparently is/was not uncommon on Friday and Saturday nights. As a passenger, I like that I can’t be fobbed off with “he’s just round the corner mate” for 30+ minutes and I don’t have to worry about getting cash.
It can be a mutually beneficial thing, it just can’t be an unregulated free-for-all which it sounds like many implementations are.
there are broad based wage gains and better prices for consumers when anyone is allowed to be a driver
In general I try to avoid giving any less than 5 stars for anything but a safety issue, because a low-4.x rating can get a driver deactivated. But stopping for gas and getting food? Nope, that's gonna get you a low rating.
The ranting about other customers thing is something I'm torn on. Everyone has a bad day sometimes, and that shouldn't affect their livelihood. But still...
Now I get a car arriving in a predictable amount of time, at a pre-set price, paid outside the flow of the ride. If I have a problem with the driver or car I can report it with a low rating and a comment, and Uber and Lyft are notorious about deactivating drivers with even a rating in the low 4.x range. I can also give a lower or no tip if there's a problem, without feeling socially awkward about it.
Uber and Lyft are way better than taxis.
"Things are bad where I am, and therefore it's OK for the tech bros to eviscerate an entire industry all around the planet, no matter what the local conditions were elsewhere."
Your experience is not the only experience. It does not justify what has been done. Your post only provides an yet another random angry anecdote, of which the internet is already flooded.
Uber or Lyft are more convenient for the customer, but the drivers are being abused by Uber or Lyft. Which is less than ideal.
That's the thing about BigTech: nobody says that the product was not more convenient (at least before enshittification), but the problem is that BigTech abuses their dominant position, over and over again.
Gross understatement!
1) You can find a cab wherever (almost) and whenever (24x7) - you don't have to hail a cab for minutes/hours (even worse was not knowing when/if the cab would even arrive).
2) Much safer. Emergency support + seeing the route on GPS (can see the path on the driver's uber app) + rating system.
3) Better behaviour, enforced by rating system. Yes, it's not perfect, but much much better than cabs. Cab drivers were regularly abusive, knowing there were no repurcussions. Unfortunately, humans only behave when there's consequences.
4) No scamming vulnerable un-informed people. Cabs were known for scamming foreigners or un-informed people. I can point out a few more things. Calling it `more convenient` is a massive understatement.
> but the drivers are being abused by Uber or Lyft. Which is less than ideal.
This can be fixed by regulation. Just because a new technology brought a new problem, that doesn't mean we should discard the technology and go to its worse predecessor. Remember : there is a reason the new technology took over its predecessor.
I think we can have both : the benefits of digital ride-share + good regulation for drivers to ensure they can maintain their livelihood.
PS : that's until driverless waymo/tesla take over everything...
I still don't get this one. You don't have to sign a long-term contract to drive for these companies. They don't own you. If you try it and it sucks more than working somewhere else then stop doing it. Your leverage is your ability to say no. But if it's better than your other alternatives then why isn't the complaint about the alternatives which are somehow even worse?
Deleted Comment
build an app that supports/enhances municipal cab systems, i.e. hailing, payment, licensing etc, breaking the monopolies of medallion aggregators etc
vs.
build an entirely different system without legislative safeguards that destroys the livelihoods of existing cabbies
Come to think of it, a similar phenomenon applies to cryptocurrencies: Even when they aren't an outright fraud, somebody has just thrown away the hard parts learned over centuries, quietly dropping them or trying to convince you that it's better to be entirely without.
You either need to prevent the apparatus from being captured by incumbents or you need to prevent it from being a central chokepoint that can be abused for oppression.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/98215-every-great-cause-beg...
Definitely sounds like one vector, along with enshittification and other factors.
>*You either need to prevent the apparatus...or..."
That solution set kind of assumes that we must get to this point where those are the viable options. For me that begs the question, "what's underlying all of this that makes it so arriving here is the pattern?"
For example, questioning what we can do about such centralization and entrenched incumbencies in the first place; exploring whether some industries should be not-for-profit or public benefit, etc.
In general, the current system/economy presents a ton of inertia, frequently backed by network effects. I think we'll need to start looking at more creative/disruptive solutions for many of these issues.
Remember the word "credit" is Latin for "I believe/trust".
I really don't get the hope of trusting individuals that are arguably being taken advantage of by a faceless tech business rather than trusting employees or contractors that are at least more invested in customer service for the company.
It makes about as much sense to me as distrusting humans so much that you want to put all your wealth in a glorified git repo coded by humans and run by a small number of people.
Either trust people or don't, its a pretty simple choice. Convincing ourselves that a layer of tech can abstract humans away so much that we don't need to trust anyone is just absurd.
> it sounds like you are less trustful of strangers, not more
Less trustful of strangers compared to what?
> i’m confused why you’re spinning it the opposite
What am I spinning the opposite? My point was that I don't trust the incentives behind the sharing economy and have no reason to expect better service than from the more service-focused businesses they're attempting to replace.
I very much expect that I just didn't explain myself well in the earlier comment. Sorry about that.
OP praises Enterprise, but I can't say I've ever had a delightful experience with them, or with any of the big car rental chains. Usually it involves a 20 minute wait in a line at an airport, followed by 10 minutes of someone typing into a computer for who knows what reason, followed by me wandering aimlessly in a parking lot looking for the correct car, which is always a surprise. There was also the time when I paid up front online for a car, and when I got there they wanted to give me an EV. I didn't want one, because I was pretty sure I was driving to a place with little to no charging infrastructure, and they ended up charging me more (surprise!) for an ICE car.
With Turo I always know exactly what I'm going to get, and it's easy to search for a car with specific attributes, like AWD or a roof rack. But yeah, you're also at the mercy of whoever random person owns the car, and it sounds like Turo's customer support is garbage when there's a problem.
Enterprise owns them but they definitely operate on a different tier of service. If your work has discount codes with them, they're definitely better than all the other rental agencies. (I travel for work and have rented from almost all the major brands)
Problem with Turo is that most credit card damage waivers don't work with Turo.
I think part of it is consolidation of the companies. Hertz now seems to be hertz plus dollar plus some other company. Hertz used to be cool (and more expensive, now it’s one of the cheapest).
It feels like it felt as the taxi companies were being killed by uber and later Lyft. Some external factor is causing them to fail and they’re floundering and clawing for every penny they can get.
I never heard of turo but may check it out for my next trip to the USA. But I think the real killer of the rental car companies is rideshare. It’s now usually cheaper for me to do two rides a day on rideshare than to rent a car for a week.
That's a big thing too. Whenever I have to rent a car, I go for the cheapest option, and that usually ends up being no lower than $60/day (plus taxes). If I only need it for a couple rides per day, that could very easily cost less. Plus I don't need to deal with gas, parking, or returning the car, worry about damaging the car, or ensure that I haven't had alcohol to drink before those trips.
That's the meat of the story.
It goes off the rails a bit with quotes like these, and mentions "Big Tech," but is really about the gig economy brokers.
> [tech billionaires] not only destroyed the financial system
Not really. Maybe he lumped 2008 bankers in with tech, but Uber was the worst offender, and it disrupted a differently bad taxi medallion monopoly, not the "financial system."
> These corporations don’t pay taxes
Also not true. I'm sure some don't because they're not profitable, but you can't be not profitable forever.
They might pay taxes in some jurisdiction, but usually not in the UK.
The profit problem is actually that they can be not profitable for a really long time due to VC money. Long enough to put competitors out of business, for instance