If there is one thing people love to be paid in, it is a collectible whose value widely varies daily based on when its larger holders game the system or when online drug markets get shutdown.
Just a guess— because it's easier for LibreTaxi to implement as a free open-source project, without needing to deal with IRS, banking, & other financial bureaucracy.
How does cash vary in value? If you have a $50 bill, you can expect to buy a very predictable amount of food (for example) next week, regardless of what happens. Not so much if you have 0.0521 BTC.
That's true, but most vary fluctuate wildly with respect to the USD, not in their purchasing power within their country of origin, even less so in the span of weeks or days.
For example, if I was paid the equivalent of a 50 USD ride in Bitcoin in Jan 4, and were to go to buy food today, I could only buy 40 dollars worth of food.
Which currency does that? Sure there may be a few examples in case of extreme inflation, etc, but it's not the norm at all.
Cash is liquid whereas Bitcoin is a collectible that can't be used to pay all debts. My last two points about Bitcoin's instability do not apply to cash. Cash doesn't have a few slow gatekeepers that also game the system in their favor when you go to convert your cash into a more liquid form.
That's great, as long as they do it in a way that allows both me and the driver not to have to wait an hour before the transaction gets confirmed. So either someone needs to shoulder that risk or those micropayment platforms on top of Bitcoin need to start making some headway.
I came here to say just that. This probably will be the biggest challenge for this app. I see that it promises future bitcoin integration, which will be a challenge by itself to be accepted by drivers and users both. I guess app could partner with an instant bitcoin to fiat processor.
Anyway, both a cool idea and a challenging one. Best wishes!
I wouldn't want to deal with cash. That's always a pain and also insecure for both the driver and for the passenger. it should leverage some online payment (even sg. like Bitcoin)
Stripe doesn't really cost that much; you could support card payments and pass the stripe fees along to both parties (50/50 to the passenger and driver)
This is a really good idea if it can take off, but I think cash only is a non-starter, though I understand the restriction initially
Unfortunately this isn't possible for a service like this. If money passes through the hands of the app-creator than they have to hire an accountant, take on risk, and file tax returns. Not possible with a non-comercial service.
I've seen people with little portable credit card readers that connect with cellphone...surely that is something a driver could get themselves. Or could use paypal. Anyway, I think LibreTaxi should emphasise that they don't prohibit other forms of payment, provided that both the driver and passenger agree when accepting the ride. LibeTaxi simply doesn't "support" other payment options.
Interesting idea but not as convenient for someone who travels and doesn’t want to organize a cash withdrawal to leave the airport. With Uber I can just get going.
You're right, Uber has introduced a type of convenience that you can't ignore.
I launched RideConnect on PH yesterday, and it's a different, private take on Uber and Libretaxi.
The big difference is that anyone can create their own rideshare for their community, customers or whatever group it is that needs a ride.
We will be introducing a billing system in a few months at which time it can be used by Uber drivers to setup their own customer communities and give them rides directly.
As for privacy, we put control in the hands of the riders to demand background checks, screening and additional validations from drivers. It's basic at the moment but we have a deal going that I'm expecting will make this totally awesome.
You're not the first to mention this, but this is completely foreign to me. I'd love to get off of cash, but there are just so many places in Europe that are cash-only. The Netherlands is bad, but Germany is even worse. Lots of bakeries, fries stores, stands, etc. are cash-only; in restaurants big groups split and settle the bill with cash; and settling stuff between friends is often cash as well (though this is more and more bank transfer / wire transfer / whatever it's called to IBAN within SEPA).
You're serious that "organizing a cash withdrawal" is 1) something you need to do in the first place and 2) it's a hassle or something? I also read about having a separate PIN for cash withdrawals (I had no idea a card could have two PINs).
My concern with this is the problem of ensuring the safety of the person driving the cab and the real identity of the rider.
Lots of drivers will be reluctant because they can be stiffed on the bill. Lots of passengers will be reluctant to use it due to the inherent risk of riding with what is essentially a stranger.
Considering the number of drivers/riders these services have, and the number of rides completed, I'd say that's an impressively small list of -- in many cases alleged -- incidents.
There's no way you could reasonably expect a rideshare service to eliminate all such incidents.
He didn't say he uses traditional taxi's, maybe he has the same concerns for drivers in this situation. Also, I imagine a taxi company has some forms of insurance against people not paying, etc.
We need a "CryptoCab" app. Secure, signed verification of driver id. And the app will even pick a random location near your intended destination to disguise your true destination.
You can do that second one already. Nothing requires that where you have a hire car drop you off be where you are actually going. Just, you know, tell the driver another place. (And don't let the app use background location data.)
Cryptography can be used to maintain trust, not establish it. If there's no party checking who the driver is (in real life), having a cryptographic certificate isn't much of a guarantee apart from "it's the same guy it was yesterday".
And if these certificates can be created ad-hoc, then you can always create a new one if you get a zero star review.
Certainly a valid concern but I will say that the willingness of both rider and driver to share a ride with a stranger varies from country to country.
I spent quite a lot of time in Russia before Uber took hold there and taking random rides from strangers, negotiating a price up front, was extremely common. Even as a tourist, I did it hundreds of times and it was generally accepted as safe by the populous. Sure, incidents occurred but I would bet if analyzed they were no more frequent than taxis or Uber.
I see what you're implying but there are lots of places in the world where it's common to hail a ride from a complete stranger and men and women alike do so.
There's always a risk of being a victim of a crime when hailing a ride from a stranger and while Uber/Lyft somewhat mitigate the risk, it's not completely safe either.
True — which is why I said "works less well" and not "doesn't work". And you're absolutely right that safety is relative ;)
Author was also implying that they were visiting Russia. It's much harder to assess safety when you're not a resident, especially when you don't speak the language. And the fact that because many people in a culture engage in some behavior says little about its safety — e.g. riding scooters in Saigon, or smoking!
> Author was also implying that they were visiting Russia.
Yes, Russia especially is one of those places where every car on the road is a potential taxi and a lot of people use them.
I haven't visited personally but friends of mine who have did tell about their experiences on hailing rides from strangers without knowing the language. Don't take my anecdote as a safety recommendation or evidence of it.
It's a matter of cultural differences.
Uber/Lyft provides you with a sense of safety, but if you end up being a victim of a crime in an Uber in Russia, I'm not sure how much they can or will help you afterwards.
Once a taxi service gets enough drivers in the city here in Russia, it becomes highly preferable than random on-the-road vehicle. It automatically means that you get more precise (or even fixed) billing, pretty clean and decent cars, and drivers are motivated to not bother you in any way, because taxis usually have quality feedback that makes driver 'priority'. Going directly to the road is a last resort, even if you're already outside. It is not much for a physical safety, but service.
Yes, you'd be surprised. I had many friends, all vulnerable-looking 23 year old girls in towering heels and they used this "ride from a stranger" concept every single day for years. Believe me, I was shocked and apprehensive and my Mom was convinced I'd be murdered but it was shockingly safe and accepted. I do speak halfway decent Russian, and would certainly have been harder without it. Which is why I like the idea of this app, as it solves one of the problems. (Edit: I guess it doesn't really solve the language barrier, as it appears to be a Telegram app that likely involves some chatting to negotiate.)
That said, on my last visit, I used Uber many times, as it's incredibly cheap and requires no negotiation. But don't be in a hurry. The horrible traffic and very wide, divided streets of Moscow make it particularly challenging to navigate to a passenger's precise location, so it can be an extremely long wait even when free a vehicle is very close geographically. Perhaps LibreTaxi would help solve that by lowering the barrier to entry and drastically improving the number of cars available.
You link your identity to the public ledger, and when people rate you positively, you build up your overall repuation score which anyone can verify on the public ledger.
Web of trust doesn't have a centralized determinator. You assign trust to people you've interacted with, and they assign trust to people they have interacted with, etc.
Putting it on a blockchain doesn't make that more effective.
If you look at the reviews of strangers, you have to figure out which ones are real and which ones are fake... it works exactly the same with or without blockchain.
putting it on the blockchain provides a mathematical proof that entity X got score Y. That itself doesn't solve the problem of proving that entity X corresponds to person P. Although person P could tie something such as driver's license number to entity X. Of course that could be done with a centralized trust system as well. But with the centralized trust too, but also requires trusting the centralized trust, and makes everyone subservient to that centralized trust.
You can use the exact same semi-trusting and crowd-trusting methods you would use on a blockchain. It's basically the same data, just without an extra layer of complexity thrown on.
BlaBlaCar [0] operates/ed only with community reviews (for drivers and passengers) and is doing just fine in EU... It is in fact so successful, that govs and press always talk about "services like blablacar and uber" (they're classified as basically the same kind of service)
As far as I understand, BlaBlaCar has some centralized controls on your identity since payments go through them and changing your payment info is not quite as easy as making up a new nickname.
That's a big difference to an anonymous-by-default cash-only network.
You used to be able not to use any of their payment services. Also identity verification processes that they offer/ed are/were not obligatory.
So in many cases references were all people used to trust someone.
Their business model is to first expand to a territory by providing a simple connection between passengers and drivers. Then, when their user base is large enough, they introduce the payment system.
However, when I was using the service it was quite common to get the drivers number and contact them directly for the "next" time.
What? It doesn't make sense... Then why would any driver want to provide services via the app?
Also, I'm not talking about the specifics of the payment or reward systems, I'm just pointing out that they're both considered to be "on the same level" and in the same "difficult to tax" tech service (carpooling, ride-sharing, etc)... just google "blablacar uber" and see the results...
At least here in Finland, you are only allowed to share the expenses and not profit from it (unless you're a registered taxi driver and have the permit). There is a small incentive for the driver if he/she is heading the same direction anyway but otherwise you're right, it doesn't make any sense for the driver. So it's quite different from Uber in that sense.
Because the cost of fuel in the EU is quite high, and a lot of people commute long(er) distances on a regular basis instead of flying.
It is considered an entirely acceptable system because the "cost reimbursement" will fully cover the cost of wear + tear + fuel, meaning that a drive across the country can be rendered effectively free for the driver.
Also, "without any income for the driver" isn't necessarily correct - if you have a full car you will make a tidy profit.
Edit: the cost of a blablacar trip to a passenger would be on the order of 13-16 euros for an hour's drive. Comparable or cheaper than a train, with more flexibility.
Wouldn't being uninsured for liability be equally bad whether the driver makes a profit or not? If you injure someone and are at fault or get sued, that's a major civil liability, regardless of whether the person you injured was paying you or not.
because if you make a profit you need a professional insurance and or a taxi license.
blablacar is a carpool service where the driver is not professional. You use it to recoup fuel costs and tolls.
Other justifications are: having company, decreasing your carbon footprint.
Because BlaBlaCar is NOT a taxi service. They can't operate in Europe as a Taxi service, as it will be illegal to have a Taxi service without the proper permissions, paying proper taxes, etc. So they are doing REAL car sharing. Some one helps you to pay for the cost of the trip, and that's it. It's the old car pooling but more teachy.
It's used for longer distances, city to city, country to country. I wouldn't see it as the same market as Uber is in. Plus it's ride sharing, not "taxi" (as in driver rides only because you told him to).
Used it in Europe, sometimes cheaper than busses. Sometimes useful for unusual routes. It truely was "ride sharing", chipping in for fuel costs rather than a new job.
it's really popular in some European countries. For passengers it's an alternative to trains or bus coaches. It's used for intercity travel, not a taxi replacement. Also it's ride sharing, drivers are not professionals and are not allowed to profit from it. Drivers are only allowed to recoup fuel and toll costs on journey they intended to make anyway.
How is Uber or whatever that different? You can call the police, which are already someones "in the local government you can contact".
And neither the police nor a taxi commission are capable of doing much to protect anyone before a crime is committed (except by the usual channels, e.g. credibly committing to punishing criminals).
I suspect this may be adopted in a lot of places by regular taxi drivers. Uruguay, for example, has something very similar called EasyTaxi (though I don't believe that App is open source) that allows you to call a taxi via an App and see when it arrives. You then pay the driver in outside the app via cash like you would any other taxi.
Shouldn't be an obstacle. This is already exactly how normal, hailable, regulated taxis work (at least in much of the USA, and certainly in NYC -- I can't speak for elsewhere). That's why taxi driver is (at least in the US) a statistically more dangerous occupation than police officer.
From the point of view of a driver, this scheme is less dangerous than the status quo, at least there is potentially a little more paper trail to prove a rider rode.
From the point of view of a rider, there is the advantage in regulated taxis that the driver is licensed and identified, but in countries where it's feasible, I don't see why LibreTaxi couldn't have an option to "request licensed driver only" or something
Getting in a taxi with a $250K medallion and the city of New York behind it is much different than getting in someone's car...
Without someone vetting these drivers and taking a risk and responsibility for people's safety, this seems like a terribly dangerous way for anyone to get around.
Medallion has nothing to do with it, any TLC licensed driver can rent a medallion cab. To get a TLC license you pass a BS exam that anyone can pass and a background check, and get an ID.
I don't see why LibreTaxi, in areas that have a individual driver licensing scheme, couldn't require that. You just look at the driver's license when you get in, or they post it on the back seat. The license information is recorded in LibreTaxi so everyone knows there's a paper trail if anything happens.
This would be identical in safety for everyone to medallion hailable cabs, or am I missing something?
Medallion has nothing to do with it, any TLC licensed driver can rent a medallion cab. To get a TLC license you pass a BS exam that anyone can pass and a background check, and get an ID.
If I was going to do nefarious things, I wouldn't bother with any of that. I'd instead just carjack a taxi and have at it.
And have the taxi company report it immediately to the cops when you weren't the proper operator of the vehicle on the radio. The cops and the company would then use the vehicle's GPS system to track you down and find you in record time - as I've seen and heard happen in NYC.
passing an exam, obtaining a license and passing a background check sound like a much more thorough vetting process than the "1-minute hiring" on this app
As far as I understand it the "1-minute hiring" is not something the people behind libretaxi are actually doing, it's something people running a libretaxi instance would do.
Or hopefully they would rather not, at least if they are serious about it and are not just running on a short-lived inspiration to play pretend-Kalanick.
Actually, no - every medallion cab in NYC is required to have the driver's name, license number, and picture posted where the passenger can see it. I can, in theory, check any cabbie's license before I set foot in the taxi.
Criminals aren't liable to want to leave an electronic trail driving a taxi just to rob someone. It's likely to be nearly as safe as riding Uber or Taxis in general, which is to say extremely safe.
What's more likely is the driver will get robbed, but even then that's not going to happen very often.
I don't know if this feature is still around, but in India the calls to drivers/passengers were made via pressing the button in the app, which launched the dialer and connected the two calls via a third ephemeral phone number provided by a cloud telephony API.
>This is already exactly how normal, hailable, regulated taxis work
It's funny, isn't it? Every pro-Uber article around here talks about the over-regulated, controlled taxi environment and how damaging it is. Then a service appears that goes the other way: peer-to-peer, no middle-man. Now people complain that it could be dangerous, and they need regulation and control?
Which is it? And what makes anyone believe Uber (or themselves) know what that "proper level" is?
My personal opinion is that the proper level is whatever ensures there's safety and control over both T&LC drivers and their vehicles - including limiting the number of said vehicles on the road at any one time. On the more personal level, requiring a percentage of the fleet to be ADA-compliant vehicles (i.e. wheelchair accessible), as well as a clear identification of the driver's identity and license number, are absolute necessities. If we could put speed and range limiters on the cars, I'd be even happier.
"at least in much of the USA, and certainly in NYC"
Here in Kenya, and much of the developing world, things are quite different. Traditionally, people would save known and trusted drivers in their phonebook, and call them when needing a taxi. If you're somewhere far from your drivers, you might call a friend who lives there and ask them.
That's how we got started on our own app (http://maramoja.co.ke): we let people favourite drivers, and let them choose the driver for their ride. We show them who's their favourite, who's their friend's (e.g. from Facebook, phonebook, referrals) favourite etc.
Although other apps have now made an inroad here (Nairobi), particularly Uber, whose marketing budget we of course cannot match, there's still quite a number of people who won't use their "just any driver" approach.
>Shouldn't be an obstacle. This is already exactly how normal, hailable, regulated taxis work
Except normal hail-able taxis are driven by professional drivers with background checks and large insurance policies. There's no guarantee the person who picks you up with this app will even be a licensed driver. A lot of the value in Uber is that they take care of these things, not just the app side of things.
But do I care as a passenger? I see little or no reason to personally. Perhaps some might be more concerned about their safety, heck, I might be if I was to consider someone other than myself - but me personally? I'm more concerned about cost and privacy.
Keeping those things in check would have me using the service far more, even if it was slightly more risky - I don't believe the risk would be substantial enough for me to care.
I have to disagree that this is "exactly how normal taxis work". Notable differences (many apply to Uber/Lyft also):
1) There's no check to ensure that the vehicle is ensured for commercial rides before they start taking hails.
2) Likewise, no background check.
3) No regulatory body to investigate cases of e.g. scamming passengers out of money or refusal to comply with agreed-upon rates and dropoff. [1]
4) The local PD doesn't stand ready to treat assault on a driver like assault on a police officer, in terms of marshalling resources.
5) No central registry, or even private registry of cars/drivers in operation.
6) Drivers aren't trained in the relevant anti-robbery countermeasures.
7) In NYC, the barrier to prevent the most obvious kinds of robbery.
That makes a big difference in safety of paying cash to a roving operator!
Sadly, I think the "big corp middleman" does add a lot of value that a free app can't replicate without similar investment, scale, and "walled garden"-ness.
[1] I know commenters here like to roll their eyes about the clumsiness and lackadaisical enforcement -- I'm one of them! But it's at least something, which prevents a major scale-up of this behavior.
All those points would not be an obstacle to an open source solution that is not trying to build a grand unified global Uber drop-in for random rideshare drivers to sign up with, but instead only ("only") tries to be an installable turn-key solution for existing operators (or regional federations thereof) to add the smartphone hailing user experience to their existing offering, without much investment.
I did not find a clear answer on the site wether this project is aiming at independent ridesharing or at being a turn-key solution for more conventional taxi dispatch organisations. There is the idea of "hack and tune it for your city", which is clearly not the global approach, but then they also advertise "1-minute hiring", which is definitely not what I would be looking for if I were to customize it for my hypothetical preexisting organisation.
Something like wordpress or the myriad open source online shop systems, but for taxi dispatch and with a unified smartphone client (or client protocol, actually) that can work with all installations. That might be the best way to avoid a single gobally dominant private network that can set their "tax" on all rides at will. The app/clients might be supported for discovery by a global registry of regional installations and some trust management, but it might actually be not only easier but also more reliable to just leave that to plain old web, with something like libretaxi:-URIs to connect the app to a regional network discovered by your search engine of choice.
Taxi drivers, at least herearound, have mandatory rest periods, which are very strictly enforced. I know that for a fact, since my girlfriend used to drive a cab. Even if you adhere to your rest period (and can prove it), but don't have the paperwork straight this can lead to hefty fines.
There's nothing stopping your friendly Uber driver to drive you around after two back breaking shifts at the factory.
He may even quaff a couple beers, or three, before starting his "Uber shift". Something which is an absolute No!No! for a licensed cabbie. They have very stringent zero tolerance rules when it comes to booze. Your Uber driver does not.
I can't speak for the rest of the world, but imagine that this situation is quite comparable to a lot of places.
Last night, my Uber driver told me the reason he does it is that it's safe - way safer than taxi driving. He says there is no cash, the users are all tracked, and they already have their trip sorted.
He was never a taxi driver - he's a retired teacher.
One way to manage this issue is by requiring ID verification for drivers ,another solution would be to implement a decentralized ledge (blockchain-like) ledger for who rides with whom .
I appreciate the concerns of the libre community when it comes to the world we're building: where you have to strongly identify yourself to do almost anything (hail a taxi, buy bread, use public transport, etc.), but taxis are a place where strong identification is good for both parties.
If you absolutely refuse to use any products built by C-suite execs that advise and/or support Trump, then go live as a hermit in the wilderness.
edit: Uber/lyft are built by smart and motivated technologists who spend everyday making the most sophisticated ridesharing platforms out there. To use an unvetted and unsafe knockoff is inane.
FOR SALE: One-room cabin, rural Montana. Lovely vistas, no neighbors. One previous owner. Great fixer-upper! Manual typewriter provided; must supply own explosives, packaging, target list, and postage.
No neighbors? “The honest truth is that I am not really politically oriented. I would have really rather just be living out in the woods. If nobody had started cutting roads through there and cutting the trees down and come buzzing around in helicopters and snowmobiles I would still just be living there and the rest of the world could just take care of itself. I got involved in political issues because I was driven to it, so to speak. I’m not really inclined in that direction.” - https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/theresa-kintz-interv...
Asks a man, who, according to his own website, sells product endorsements. Who here is insane? The person tellign the truth or the one who is smiling?
Edit: Yeah, I'm fine. Are you? I just took offense at the suggestion that a person could simply "escape" capitalism by moving out to the woods and living like a caveman. It is totally untrue.
I've been looking for something like this. Not because of Trump but because I strongly oppose the "sharing economy" that is explotative of workers, circumventing legitimate market regulation and reaping profits in a centralized manner.
It is absolutely that as well. But if this is the direction we are headed in, lets at least make sure as much of the money goes to the workers as possible.
Completely disregarding the rest of the page/service/post I kinda dislike that Telegram is being touted as the most secure messenger out there. That's not even close to true. By default all that Telegram offers is transport security and afaik unaudited end-to-end encryption with their own protocol if two users choose to use it (and lock themselves into the platform they start that conversation on).
The main reason secret chats are opt-in is that there is no key management built in so secret chats are not synchronized across devices. Also secret chats are not supported in the desktop yet.
That may or may not be true, but unfortunately many people think Telegram uses end-to-end encryption by default. This is why I keep posting the link to the FAQ ;).
It's just a Telegram bot, it's not "based on" Telegram's source code (which is what I assumed when reading your comment before opening the page). That's like saying Facebook is based on PHP and saying "that's a major red flag!"
Yes? That would be a major red flag if it was being touted as a feature. Especially if you add in a claim of "the most secure and fast programming language".
If you're in Los Angeles, I strongly recommend googling LAPD Bandit Cab Enforcement before using this app to give rides. Also, other cities may have similar enforcement operations.
Paying cash is a non-starter. I haven't been to a bank ATM in over 10 years. I don't even know what my card's secret PIN is to make a cash withdrawal. Being virtually cashless by using credit-cards for everything is very common in professional circles.
A credit-card is simpler and the exact line-item amount showing up on my monthly statement helps me keep track of travel expenses. (Also, many credit cards transactions will download to the Quicken ledger for people that use that personal finance software.)
Paying by credit also helps keep drivers accountable and reduces fraud.
That is a first world problem. Majority of the the world does not have a credit card or real access to a card. Majority of world pays with cash. A statement like this is similar to when I see American abroad and shocked that places don't take Amex for purchases. It's a very first world thing to even own an Amex let alone use it for a small purchases below $50.
But owning a smartphone with a touch screen (instead of tin cans connected by a string) and having the luxury of choosing between Uber vs LibreTaxi (instead of waving your arms on the street to hail a taxi) is also a 1st world problem. If we're discussing percentage of world market, 51%+ do not have combined attributes of (1) smartphone ownership[1] + (2) Uber availability + (3) preference for paying cash.
For customers, one of the key attractions to Uber is that drivers can't play the game of "oh sorry my credit card reader is broken, you'll have to pay cash". In other words, many customers deliberately choose Uber as way of not having to pay cash. (This point is more relevant in Uber-USA and not Uber-India that allows cash payment.)
The developer name I see on the LibreTaxi page is "Roman Pushkin, San Francisco, California" and since he's based in a 1st-world location, it seems like the Uber-vs-LibreTaxi has relevance to cashless people like me. If he intends for the service to be used mostly by 3rd-world countries where cash is king, I misunderstood the point of the Uber vs LibreTaxi comparison.
Conclusion: LibreTaxi isn't really a competitor to Uber -- it's more of an alternative to remote villages having no ride sharing at all and therefore cash payments makes perfect sense for that market.
Errrh, i live in the Philippines, it has 80 million people on very low incomes, and yet it has one of the highest penetrations of android smartphones per head than most all other countries. You can get a quadcore 16GB android smartphone here for $30-40US, and they have a fantastic prepay system here where peopl can send credit to each other via the phone, such that it has become a virtual currency in its own right.
https://www.globe.com.ph/help/share-a-loadhttps://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prAP41533516
Since that article prices for smartphones have tumbled again. I bought a smartphone, quadcore, 4GB, built in TV, Built in radio for P1,700 (about $34) Its a cheap phone, but it works fine.
http://ph.priceprice.com/MyPhone-my81-DTV-17896/
As an example: India has 700 million mobile phone users, of which around 300 million are estimated to be smartphone users. Number of credit card users are around 20 million. the vast majority of "non-cash" payments would be done at some shop that will take cash and perform a digital payment or transfer for you.
Not all systems in developing countries develop at the same speed. Some systems lag due to regulations, culture, etc. Other systems manage to leap-frog a generation.
I've been in Qatar for business. Coming from the US, it is shocking. Some systems have leapfrogged -- e.g., ease of banking, 2FA, mobile phone plans, messaging, ride-hailing apps, etc.
Other systems lag -- the most egregious example being the lack of a national address system. Correct -- i have no home address. Half the country does not -- people send GPS coordinates and WhatsApp location pindrops for ride-hailing and food delivery.
That certainly depends on the country. Good luck living cashless in Europe, especially in Germany where virtually no small store, food vendor etc. has a CC reader.
Really? That's pretty surprising - I live in Barcelona, and I use cards 99% of the time, and in the UK it was even easier. Even taxis here have card machines, and every small shop definitely does. The only holdouts are the occasional tiny old wine bar here and there, but even most of them have moved with the times.
Unfortunately I didn't find more actual stats, but there is a report from Deutsche Bundesbank (German Federal Bank) from 2014 which states that in 2014 the share of cash payments in Germany was 79.1% and only 1.3% credit card transactions.[0, page 27] If I remember correctly, there is no other European country with such a low percentage of credit card transactions.
The relevant page is 31 (pdf-page 33), containing a figure "Share of payment instruments broken down into various transaction amount categories in 2014, 2011 and 2008". In particular, 96% of transactions below 5€ were in cash, and 90% for transactions between 5 and 20€.
A breakdown by age group is on page 33. Unsurprisingly, young people pay by card more often than older people.
Various other figure breaking down card/cash usage along different lines are on the subsequent pages. Poorer people use cash for a larger percentage of their transactions than richer people.
Page 63 breaks down usage by occasion/purpose of payment (gas/restaurant/retail/...).
Lastly, 97% of Germans have a girocard (debit card), but only 1 in 3 have a credit card.
In Scandinavia you can pay with credit card almost everywhere, starting from a food truck at a festival. They'll have a tablet and a credit card reader connected. Some places don't take cash at all.
Depends on rural vs urban, and I suspect it would be the same in Germany. In London I can live cashless easily. When I went to the west highlands I had to start carrying cash.
Are we talking about the same Germany? There are extremely few toll roads (as in: most Germans will never use one in their life) and uniformly across the country, small shops (such as bakeries and food stalls) operate on cash only. Basically mostly national chains take cards, for the rest it's hit and miss.
In other European countries things look different: On the other extreme is Sweden which I visit regularly. I couldn't even tell you how their cash looks like because I haven't used any for a long time.
And relevant to the actual topic: Even in big cities like Hamburg or Berlin it is not guaranteed that you can pay by card in a taxi. So I ask every time I enter one whether they accept credit cards or not. I would say 80% of my cab rides are paid in cash.
Varies wildly: come a few km northwards to Denmark and you'll easily go on for months without seeing a single banknote while living here. Hell in the past couple years I've withdrawn euros many more times than I did dkk because of trips to Germany: I need it far more often there than anywhere else in western and southern Europe. It's incredibly annoying.
Just was in an uber here in Bogota, drive says (hearsay but heard it before from Uber users) that majority are women, and safety is #1 concern. 1. Drivers of Cabs suck in the city. They drive like race car drivers and always get into accidents. 2. Harassment. Colombia being a very male dominate country women are harassed daily and cabbies are some of worst. 3. Crime. Some cabbies not all will over charge you, literally hold you hostage if you don't pay whatever fee they say (Cartagena doesn't even have meters..it's what ever the gringo price they want to charge at times). I've spent lots of time SEA, SA and some in Africa.. it's not as easy to hail a cab if your female or a foreigner, uber and rideshare systems do alleviate lots of that pain.
I suppose it's because it takes time to implement credit card transactions securely and properly, and it could increase fare as well. Here in Southeast Asia Malaysian startup Grab have cash only first then added cards years later and just recently.
It's not particularly hard to interface with an external payment processor like PayPal, Stripe, etc.
The situation in most Asian countries is a bit different from markets like the US or Australia. Here in Australia, I use cash maybe once every two weeks, it's very rare for me to have more than $30-40 in my wallet - I often have no cash at all.
I suspect the real reason here is that credit cards aren't anonymous and are contrary to the ethos of the author here.
+1 To add to this, part of the draw of Uber for me is its ubiquity (& Lyft, but it's less widespread). My consumer experience is maintained in different international & US markets.
I don't have to worry about securing local currency before I can get around -- it just uses my card (which doesn't charge a fee to convert).
I don't have to worry about not being able to explain where I'm trying to go across language barriers or various levels of familiarity with a locale -- the built-in map app works the same way in Paris, London, Prague as it does in San Francisco or Durham. The GPS features keep drivers honest as to routes and adds a (small) sense of security as you know your journey is being tracked in case something goes sideways.
All that said, LibreTaxi looks really promising & I really like the premise behind it. Maybe, some day, I'll not want the tracking features, for example. I hope it takes off!
A non-starter for you. Lots of other people like cash. Absent the need to make a profit, the app may gain traction by serving them. I don't find cash that convenient but I like using it, because I value privacy as much as I value convenience.
I use cash as often as possible at small and local businesses, because then they don't have to pay the 3-5% fee to the debit/credit card processing company.
You can still pay by credit card, provided that both the driver and passenger agree. There are portable credit card readers that interface with smartphones.
>> "I haven't been to a bank ATM in over 10 years."
I'm curious how this is possible or if you're exaggerating. I live in London, so a pretty well connected city, and although I can use card/contactless almost everywhere I still need cash about once a week as some small places won't accept card. 10 years ago I'm sure cash was much more necessary.
In America, my only need for cash is to leave tips for the hotel maid. But those amounts are $1 bills and the ATM machine only spits out $20. So every 2 or 3 months, I write a check for $100 (payee is "cash"), give it to the teller and she gives me back a stack of one-dollar bills. If I stay at a corporate apartment, I don't even need the $1 bills.
That bank interaction is obviously too cumbersome to withdraw $80+ every week to pay cash for taxis. If all taxis refused to take credit card then yes, I'd have to use the ATM on a regular basis.
You're right that cashless was only possible recently.
Even though credit-cards had been around for 50+ years, most people couldn't go 100% cashless because many places like McDonald's fast food only took cash. Those restaurants avoided credit transactions because having customers wait for the charge receipt and then sign their name clogged up the queue with impatient people. However, a recent revolution in payment processing allowed "no signature" transactions for small amounts under a threshold (say $20). The "no signature" includes not having to electronically sign the touch pad -- it isn't just avoiding paper and pen. With that change, McDonald's started accepting credit cards in 2002. People also might notice that when they pay by credit card at Starbucks, they don't have to sign anything. Credit transactions are now so fast, the situation is reversed: cashiers take longer to count out exact change for cash transactions than let customers pay by credit card!
The "no sign" revolution helped make lots of the "cash only" places disappear so now it's very easy to be credit-card only.
Interesting, thanks for explaining. The bit I find most curious is writing the cheque. To me that seems more antiquated than using cash as I've never even owned a cheque book (although I understand it's still common in America to use them).
... and on the existing mechanisms to ensure that the driver has insurance, does not cut prices in a race to the bottom that harms everybody, and does not cheat on taxes.
About the trust and reputation issue, I think blockchain technologies could play an important role for decentralized services like this.
I would like to see a multipurpose reputation / trust system based on the blockchain, exposing all the needed features as a simple library and / or HTTP API, ready to be implemented by apps and websites.
I think we are still in a period where a lot of products are built either in a centralized way, or all on the blockchain and decentralized technologies (like IPFS). It makes sense as we are still in the experimentation phase, but it could change in the near future. People could start using the blockchain where it is the most efficient today, as a brick part of a product (e.g. to build a solid decentralized reputation system), instead of being the foundation layer of the product.
I think most of this "blockchain talk" is just nonsense. Uber/lyft similar are very complex services, which are pretty pain in the ass to maintain and develop. What would be the incentive to develop such an app in decentralized fashion? What if there are problems between rider and driver, who will act as a middleman to resolve issues? What about basic support etc?
> What would be the incentive to develop such an app in decentralized fashion? What if there are problems between rider and driver, who will act as a middleman to resolve issues? What about basic support etc?
Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough, but I am precisely talking about this: using the blockchain for what it is good at today, instead of trying to put everything on a decentralized system (which is really hard or just impossible for now).
Uber / Lyft and others have a reputation system in place, opaque and developed specifically for their product. It’s an important part, but it is just a brick in the complexity of the services they are building.
I am talking about replacing this brick by an open, blockchain-based reputation service (that doesn’t exist AFAIK). That way, any app developer could benefit from the transparency and guaranteed properties from the blockchain. It could even be easier to use than to implement it as a private system.
In this context, you can see the blockchain as a database, always available, and containing entries (transactions in blocks) that you can not delete. It’s very simplified, see the Wikipedia article [1] for more details about blockchain systems.
The specific features that I find interesting to build an “open trust system” built on top of it, compared to a traditional database, are:
- Transparency: anyone can explore this database, and verify that the software is using it in a transparent way. It might sound not important for something like Uber, but if you build an open trust system that could be used by different services, it becomes very important for authors (Uber, Lyft, etc.) to trust this system.
- Reliability: because a blockchain is distributed, it is always running and available.
- Trust: transactions are immutable and a transaction can not be falsified once confirmed (validated).
There is a problem: cryptographic solutions (like blockchain) cannot help build trust, only to maintain it. If a driver loses trust, they can just create a new private key and now they're up and running without any bad reviews again.
Simply an "identity" block chain would be an amazing advancement for peer to peer services. I'd love to know if the craigslist person I was going to meet was identifiable independently.
Martti Malmi aka "Sirius" was working exactly on this [0] right after he left the Bitcoin space... I have been also interested in decentralised reputation via Ethereum, which you can implement w/o a dedicated blockchain via smart contracts (eg. [1]). IMO distributed rep would fit perfectly in a project like LibreTaxi where you don't have (or don't want to have) a centralised system...
Why do we need a dedicated app for everything? Is it not time to build one app that can be used for everything, including ride sharing, food delivery and item listing?
399 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 329 ms ] threadI know what you mean, but the Bitcoin integration is going to be really exciting!!!
For example, if I was paid the equivalent of a 50 USD ride in Bitcoin in Jan 4, and were to go to buy food today, I could only buy 40 dollars worth of food.
Which currency does that? Sure there may be a few examples in case of extreme inflation, etc, but it's not the norm at all.
I won't be paying any bills with Bitcoin any time soon.
Anyway, both a cool idea and a challenging one. Best wishes!
Stripe doesn't really cost that much; you could support card payments and pass the stripe fees along to both parties (50/50 to the passenger and driver)
This is a really good idea if it can take off, but I think cash only is a non-starter, though I understand the restriction initially
I launched RideConnect on PH yesterday, and it's a different, private take on Uber and Libretaxi.
The big difference is that anyone can create their own rideshare for their community, customers or whatever group it is that needs a ride.
We will be introducing a billing system in a few months at which time it can be used by Uber drivers to setup their own customer communities and give them rides directly.
As for privacy, we put control in the hands of the riders to demand background checks, screening and additional validations from drivers. It's basic at the moment but we have a deal going that I'm expecting will make this totally awesome.
Check it out on PH - https://www.producthunt.com/posts/rideconnect
You're not the first to mention this, but this is completely foreign to me. I'd love to get off of cash, but there are just so many places in Europe that are cash-only. The Netherlands is bad, but Germany is even worse. Lots of bakeries, fries stores, stands, etc. are cash-only; in restaurants big groups split and settle the bill with cash; and settling stuff between friends is often cash as well (though this is more and more bank transfer / wire transfer / whatever it's called to IBAN within SEPA).
You're serious that "organizing a cash withdrawal" is 1) something you need to do in the first place and 2) it's a hassle or something? I also read about having a separate PIN for cash withdrawals (I had no idea a card could have two PINs).
Lots of drivers will be reluctant because they can be stiffed on the bill. Lots of passengers will be reluctant to use it due to the inherent risk of riding with what is essentially a stranger.
http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/rideshare-incidents
There's no way you could reasonably expect a rideshare service to eliminate all such incidents.
let the trailblazers get axed and eventually the trust ratings will build up on the non-murderers.
then they can use it.
http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2016/08/accused_citr...
And if these certificates can be created ad-hoc, then you can always create a new one if you get a zero star review.
I spent quite a lot of time in Russia before Uber took hold there and taking random rides from strangers, negotiating a price up front, was extremely common. Even as a tourist, I did it hundreds of times and it was generally accepted as safe by the populous. Sure, incidents occurred but I would bet if analyzed they were no more frequent than taxis or Uber.
There's always a risk of being a victim of a crime when hailing a ride from a stranger and while Uber/Lyft somewhat mitigate the risk, it's not completely safe either.
Author was also implying that they were visiting Russia. It's much harder to assess safety when you're not a resident, especially when you don't speak the language. And the fact that because many people in a culture engage in some behavior says little about its safety — e.g. riding scooters in Saigon, or smoking!
Yes, Russia especially is one of those places where every car on the road is a potential taxi and a lot of people use them.
I haven't visited personally but friends of mine who have did tell about their experiences on hailing rides from strangers without knowing the language. Don't take my anecdote as a safety recommendation or evidence of it.
It's a matter of cultural differences.
Uber/Lyft provides you with a sense of safety, but if you end up being a victim of a crime in an Uber in Russia, I'm not sure how much they can or will help you afterwards.
That said, on my last visit, I used Uber many times, as it's incredibly cheap and requires no negotiation. But don't be in a hurry. The horrible traffic and very wide, divided streets of Moscow make it particularly challenging to navigate to a passenger's precise location, so it can be an extremely long wait even when free a vehicle is very close geographically. Perhaps LibreTaxi would help solve that by lowering the barrier to entry and drastically improving the number of cars available.
http://www.victimsweek.gc.ca/res/r512.html
Men are overwhelmingly the majority of victims of stranger violence and robberies.
But... evolution dictates that we care more for women than for men.
A blockchain-based rating system could be the killer app here.
If it was proof-of-work, why would anyone trust that spending CPU time correlates with saying the truth?
If it was proof-of-stake, how can you guarantee that bad actors won't simply create a new public key?
And regardless, who would switch to an app that drains their battery?
Putting it on a blockchain doesn't make that more effective.
If you look at the reviews of strangers, you have to figure out which ones are real and which ones are fake... it works exactly the same with or without blockchain.
[0] https://www.blablacar.com/
That's a big difference to an anonymous-by-default cash-only network.
(I have been using the service for years)
However, when I was using the service it was quite common to get the drivers number and contact them directly for the "next" time.
I haven't used it recently but in 2013-2014-2015 it was as an anonymous-by-default cash-only network. (edited original post to reflect it)
Overall I had zero problems, very nice experience, and I met interesting people
For example the price you're allowed to ask is calculated to ensure it's only a cost sharing without any income for the driver.
What? It doesn't make sense... Then why would any driver want to provide services via the app?
Also, I'm not talking about the specifics of the payment or reward systems, I'm just pointing out that they're both considered to be "on the same level" and in the same "difficult to tax" tech service (carpooling, ride-sharing, etc)... just google "blablacar uber" and see the results...
The incentive of the driver is sharing the cost of the gasoline/roads with the rider. Cost of gasoline in EU is higher than in US.
It is considered an entirely acceptable system because the "cost reimbursement" will fully cover the cost of wear + tear + fuel, meaning that a drive across the country can be rendered effectively free for the driver.
Also, "without any income for the driver" isn't necessarily correct - if you have a full car you will make a tidy profit.
Edit: the cost of a blablacar trip to a passenger would be on the order of 13-16 euros for an hour's drive. Comparable or cheaper than a train, with more flexibility.
Other justifications are: having company, decreasing your carbon footprint.
Spain (I know this from a Friend): Pretty harsh regulations, no Uber at all.
[FRANCE] http://www.capital.fr/bourse/actualites/blablacar-uber-sont-...
[SPAIN] http://www.elmundo.es/comunidad-valenciana/2016/04/14/570f66...
[UK] http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/60586...
[NETHERLANDS] http://www.nu.nl/internet/4268012/autodeeldienst-blablacar-w...
etc...
Everyone I know (not exaggerating) knows about or has used services from BlaBlaCar.
Students use it regularly. Services like https://www.fromatob.de/ include it in the fare calculation.
Uber and Lyft are basically non-existent here.
And neither the police nor a taxi commission are capable of doing much to protect anyone before a crime is committed (except by the usual channels, e.g. credibly committing to punishing criminals).
A one-way check is better than nothing though.
But you cannot deny that some kind of check is better than no checks at all.
FTFY.
From the point of view of a driver, this scheme is less dangerous than the status quo, at least there is potentially a little more paper trail to prove a rider rode.
From the point of view of a rider, there is the advantage in regulated taxis that the driver is licensed and identified, but in countries where it's feasible, I don't see why LibreTaxi couldn't have an option to "request licensed driver only" or something
Without someone vetting these drivers and taking a risk and responsibility for people's safety, this seems like a terribly dangerous way for anyone to get around.
I don't see why LibreTaxi, in areas that have a individual driver licensing scheme, couldn't require that. You just look at the driver's license when you get in, or they post it on the back seat. The license information is recorded in LibreTaxi so everyone knows there's a paper trail if anything happens.
This would be identical in safety for everyone to medallion hailable cabs, or am I missing something?
If I was going to do nefarious things, I wouldn't bother with any of that. I'd instead just carjack a taxi and have at it.
Or hopefully they would rather not, at least if they are serious about it and are not just running on a short-lived inspiration to play pretend-Kalanick.
Criminals aren't liable to want to leave an electronic trail driving a taxi just to rob someone. It's likely to be nearly as safe as riding Uber or Taxis in general, which is to say extremely safe.
What's more likely is the driver will get robbed, but even then that's not going to happen very often.
It's funny, isn't it? Every pro-Uber article around here talks about the over-regulated, controlled taxi environment and how damaging it is. Then a service appears that goes the other way: peer-to-peer, no middle-man. Now people complain that it could be dangerous, and they need regulation and control?
Which is it? And what makes anyone believe Uber (or themselves) know what that "proper level" is?
Here in Kenya, and much of the developing world, things are quite different. Traditionally, people would save known and trusted drivers in their phonebook, and call them when needing a taxi. If you're somewhere far from your drivers, you might call a friend who lives there and ask them.
That's how we got started on our own app (http://maramoja.co.ke): we let people favourite drivers, and let them choose the driver for their ride. We show them who's their favourite, who's their friend's (e.g. from Facebook, phonebook, referrals) favourite etc.
Although other apps have now made an inroad here (Nairobi), particularly Uber, whose marketing budget we of course cannot match, there's still quite a number of people who won't use their "just any driver" approach.
Except normal hail-able taxis are driven by professional drivers with background checks and large insurance policies. There's no guarantee the person who picks you up with this app will even be a licensed driver. A lot of the value in Uber is that they take care of these things, not just the app side of things.
Keeping those things in check would have me using the service far more, even if it was slightly more risky - I don't believe the risk would be substantial enough for me to care.
1) There's no check to ensure that the vehicle is ensured for commercial rides before they start taking hails.
2) Likewise, no background check.
3) No regulatory body to investigate cases of e.g. scamming passengers out of money or refusal to comply with agreed-upon rates and dropoff. [1]
4) The local PD doesn't stand ready to treat assault on a driver like assault on a police officer, in terms of marshalling resources.
5) No central registry, or even private registry of cars/drivers in operation.
6) Drivers aren't trained in the relevant anti-robbery countermeasures.
7) In NYC, the barrier to prevent the most obvious kinds of robbery.
That makes a big difference in safety of paying cash to a roving operator!
Sadly, I think the "big corp middleman" does add a lot of value that a free app can't replicate without similar investment, scale, and "walled garden"-ness.
[1] I know commenters here like to roll their eyes about the clumsiness and lackadaisical enforcement -- I'm one of them! But it's at least something, which prevents a major scale-up of this behavior.
I did not find a clear answer on the site wether this project is aiming at independent ridesharing or at being a turn-key solution for more conventional taxi dispatch organisations. There is the idea of "hack and tune it for your city", which is clearly not the global approach, but then they also advertise "1-minute hiring", which is definitely not what I would be looking for if I were to customize it for my hypothetical preexisting organisation.
Something like wordpress or the myriad open source online shop systems, but for taxi dispatch and with a unified smartphone client (or client protocol, actually) that can work with all installations. That might be the best way to avoid a single gobally dominant private network that can set their "tax" on all rides at will. The app/clients might be supported for discovery by a global registry of regional installations and some trust management, but it might actually be not only easier but also more reliable to just leave that to plain old web, with something like libretaxi:-URIs to connect the app to a regional network discovered by your search engine of choice.
Taxi drivers, at least herearound, have mandatory rest periods, which are very strictly enforced. I know that for a fact, since my girlfriend used to drive a cab. Even if you adhere to your rest period (and can prove it), but don't have the paperwork straight this can lead to hefty fines.
There's nothing stopping your friendly Uber driver to drive you around after two back breaking shifts at the factory.
He may even quaff a couple beers, or three, before starting his "Uber shift". Something which is an absolute No!No! for a licensed cabbie. They have very stringent zero tolerance rules when it comes to booze. Your Uber driver does not.
I can't speak for the rest of the world, but imagine that this situation is quite comparable to a lot of places.
He was never a taxi driver - he's a retired teacher.
Maybe one of the creators of the system knows someone or runs a car himself and he can initially start providing these initial "ok's" to the system.
No requirement for insurance either. I can see a big lawsuit approaching
If you absolutely refuse to use any products built by C-suite execs that advise and/or support Trump, then go live as a hermit in the wilderness.
edit: Uber/lyft are built by smart and motivated technologists who spend everyday making the most sophisticated ridesharing platforms out there. To use an unvetted and unsafe knockoff is inane.
Edit: Unfortunately, its kinda hard to afford land out in the wilderness, given that you god damn capitalists have destroyed nature.
Edit: Yeah, I'm fine. Are you? I just took offense at the suggestion that a person could simply "escape" capitalism by moving out to the woods and living like a caveman. It is totally untrue.
Red flag right there.
That's indeed a very dubious claim, only the opt-in "Secret Chats" use end-to-end encryption. [0]
[0] https://telegram.org/faq#q-so-how-do-you-encrypt-data
What they need to do is get together to release a high-quality app that works all over the world by relying on the local taxi call center partner.
[1] http://drivr.com/
- no payment friction
- easy gps integration
- safety
Things missing from this service:
- see above
Paying cash is a non-starter. I haven't been to a bank ATM in over 10 years. I don't even know what my card's secret PIN is to make a cash withdrawal. Being virtually cashless by using credit-cards for everything is very common in professional circles.
A credit-card is simpler and the exact line-item amount showing up on my monthly statement helps me keep track of travel expenses. (Also, many credit cards transactions will download to the Quicken ledger for people that use that personal finance software.)
Paying by credit also helps keep drivers accountable and reduces fraud.
https://byteball.org/
But owning a smartphone with a touch screen (instead of tin cans connected by a string) and having the luxury of choosing between Uber vs LibreTaxi (instead of waving your arms on the street to hail a taxi) is also a 1st world problem. If we're discussing percentage of world market, 51%+ do not have combined attributes of (1) smartphone ownership[1] + (2) Uber availability + (3) preference for paying cash.
For customers, one of the key attractions to Uber is that drivers can't play the game of "oh sorry my credit card reader is broken, you'll have to pay cash". In other words, many customers deliberately choose Uber as way of not having to pay cash. (This point is more relevant in Uber-USA and not Uber-India that allows cash payment.)
The developer name I see on the LibreTaxi page is "Roman Pushkin, San Francisco, California" and since he's based in a 1st-world location, it seems like the Uber-vs-LibreTaxi has relevance to cashless people like me. If he intends for the service to be used mostly by 3rd-world countries where cash is king, I misunderstood the point of the Uber vs LibreTaxi comparison.
EDIT ADD 40-minutes later: I found author's comment on the intended market of customers: "Just started http://libretaxi.org - uber alternative for communities and remote regions." : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13328052
also see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13530355: "Uber, a company evaluated at $60B, will unlikely go to remote Siberian region where I was born."
Conclusion: LibreTaxi isn't really a competitor to Uber -- it's more of an alternative to remote villages having no ride sharing at all and therefore cash payments makes perfect sense for that market.
[1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/203734/global-smartphone...
Since that article prices for smartphones have tumbled again. I bought a smartphone, quadcore, 4GB, built in TV, Built in radio for P1,700 (about $34) Its a cheap phone, but it works fine. http://ph.priceprice.com/MyPhone-my81-DTV-17896/
In Vietnam it's the norm to have a smartphone but it's seriously difficult to get hold of a normal debit/credit card.
I've been in Qatar for business. Coming from the US, it is shocking. Some systems have leapfrogged -- e.g., ease of banking, 2FA, mobile phone plans, messaging, ride-hailing apps, etc.
Other systems lag -- the most egregious example being the lack of a national address system. Correct -- i have no home address. Half the country does not -- people send GPS coordinates and WhatsApp location pindrops for ride-hailing and food delivery.
s/cash/peer-to-peer/
That certainly depends on the country. Good luck living cashless in Europe, especially in Germany where virtually no small store, food vendor etc. has a CC reader.
[0] https://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/EN/Downloads/Publication... [PDF]
A breakdown by age group is on page 33. Unsurprisingly, young people pay by card more often than older people.
Various other figure breaking down card/cash usage along different lines are on the subsequent pages. Poorer people use cash for a larger percentage of their transactions than richer people.
Page 63 breaks down usage by occasion/purpose of payment (gas/restaurant/retail/...).
Lastly, 97% of Germans have a girocard (debit card), but only 1 in 3 have a credit card.
Singapore, Netherlands, France and Sweden are way ahead (~60%). I'm a bit surprised that the US is only 45% cashless.
In Scandinavia you can pay with credit card almost everywhere, starting from a food truck at a festival. They'll have a tablet and a credit card reader connected. Some places don't take cash at all.
In other European countries things look different: On the other extreme is Sweden which I visit regularly. I couldn't even tell you how their cash looks like because I haven't used any for a long time.
And relevant to the actual topic: Even in big cities like Hamburg or Berlin it is not guaranteed that you can pay by card in a taxi. So I ask every time I enter one whether they accept credit cards or not. I would say 80% of my cab rides are paid in cash.
The situation in most Asian countries is a bit different from markets like the US or Australia. Here in Australia, I use cash maybe once every two weeks, it's very rare for me to have more than $30-40 in my wallet - I often have no cash at all.
I suspect the real reason here is that credit cards aren't anonymous and are contrary to the ethos of the author here.
I don't have to worry about securing local currency before I can get around -- it just uses my card (which doesn't charge a fee to convert).
I don't have to worry about not being able to explain where I'm trying to go across language barriers or various levels of familiarity with a locale -- the built-in map app works the same way in Paris, London, Prague as it does in San Francisco or Durham. The GPS features keep drivers honest as to routes and adds a (small) sense of security as you know your journey is being tracked in case something goes sideways.
All that said, LibreTaxi looks really promising & I really like the premise behind it. Maybe, some day, I'll not want the tracking features, for example. I hope it takes off!
I'm curious how this is possible or if you're exaggerating. I live in London, so a pretty well connected city, and although I can use card/contactless almost everywhere I still need cash about once a week as some small places won't accept card. 10 years ago I'm sure cash was much more necessary.
That bank interaction is obviously too cumbersome to withdraw $80+ every week to pay cash for taxis. If all taxis refused to take credit card then yes, I'd have to use the ATM on a regular basis.
You're right that cashless was only possible recently. Even though credit-cards had been around for 50+ years, most people couldn't go 100% cashless because many places like McDonald's fast food only took cash. Those restaurants avoided credit transactions because having customers wait for the charge receipt and then sign their name clogged up the queue with impatient people. However, a recent revolution in payment processing allowed "no signature" transactions for small amounts under a threshold (say $20). The "no signature" includes not having to electronically sign the touch pad -- it isn't just avoiding paper and pen. With that change, McDonald's started accepting credit cards in 2002. People also might notice that when they pay by credit card at Starbucks, they don't have to sign anything. Credit transactions are now so fast, the situation is reversed: cashiers take longer to count out exact change for cash transactions than let customers pay by credit card!
The "no sign" revolution helped make lots of the "cash only" places disappear so now it's very easy to be credit-card only.
Except that it bootstraps its security on the existing vetting process for taxi companies.
I would like to see a multipurpose reputation / trust system based on the blockchain, exposing all the needed features as a simple library and / or HTTP API, ready to be implemented by apps and websites.
I think we are still in a period where a lot of products are built either in a centralized way, or all on the blockchain and decentralized technologies (like IPFS). It makes sense as we are still in the experimentation phase, but it could change in the near future. People could start using the blockchain where it is the most efficient today, as a brick part of a product (e.g. to build a solid decentralized reputation system), instead of being the foundation layer of the product.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough, but I am precisely talking about this: using the blockchain for what it is good at today, instead of trying to put everything on a decentralized system (which is really hard or just impossible for now).
Uber / Lyft and others have a reputation system in place, opaque and developed specifically for their product. It’s an important part, but it is just a brick in the complexity of the services they are building.
I am talking about replacing this brick by an open, blockchain-based reputation service (that doesn’t exist AFAIK). That way, any app developer could benefit from the transparency and guaranteed properties from the blockchain. It could even be easier to use than to implement it as a private system.
The specific features that I find interesting to build an “open trust system” built on top of it, compared to a traditional database, are:
- Transparency: anyone can explore this database, and verify that the software is using it in a transparent way. It might sound not important for something like Uber, but if you build an open trust system that could be used by different services, it becomes very important for authors (Uber, Lyft, etc.) to trust this system.
- Reliability: because a blockchain is distributed, it is always running and available.
- Trust: transactions are immutable and a transaction can not be falsified once confirmed (validated).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain_(database)
[0] https://github.com/identifi/identifi
[1] https://medium.com/@alexberegszaszi/building-decentralized-r...
This is a _great_ idea, but it is really early on and needs a safety and open-source-friendly CC integration before being advertised in my opinion.
All face chicken and egg problem but would be nice to explore uber alternatives