> I arrived in Lyon recently and figured, hey, this is Europe, why not try the European app again, and used Bolt.
A bit off topic but IMHO your first thought should instead be: "hey, this is Europe, why not try the train?"
In Lyon, the train from the airport to the city takes half an hour, same as a car. My guess is that you'll have a vastly better experience than taking the train in North America, and also a better experience than at least the OP had when taking a Bolt.
In most major European cities I have been in the airport to train connection is pretty subpar unless traveling light.
There is typically no integration of the airport baggage handling with the train baggage handling. So you need to move everything with carts that you can't take on the train.
An international trip to Europe for a longer duration is also a significant trip and not something you want to "one bag". Add in jet lag, multiple young kids, car seats, stroller etc. and it quickly becomes easy to see why the train is cumbersome for the initial airport to lodging connection.
bolt is quite smooth experience anywhere in north europe, not sure why you had such a haunted experience. haven't been in riga airport though, in the city it was fine..
As an American in a relatively large city this sounds pretty normal but instead of Uber and Bolt it's Uber and Lyft. I think the only real difference is that Lyft (at least in my case) doesn't seem prone to charging if I cancel when they're clearly not coming
Sadly I have encountered this on multiple different kinds of European tech platforms. There is some deep cultural disconnect on understanding how/why American tech companies are successful.
Most often they seem to ape most of major US tech platforms functionality but critically somehow miss the "make something people want" and instead make something that:
- Sort of works? Has all the major screens but the whole experience just feels off and not well thought out.
- Is basically a way for locals to prey on tourists. Or is easily abused to scam etc.
Bluntly that is not a viable business model. Additionally tourism as a whole will not build a durable and innovative economy.
There is this distinct disinterest in serving the customer. Making the experience delightful, frictionless, feeling good is oddly foreign. I basically gave up trying to use local things unless I have to because when things go poorly customer support is basically non-existent.
I know Uber, AirBnb etc for better or worse. I don't want to deal with whatever surprising edge case or unexpectedly subpar experience is normed on the local platforms.
So, it seems like there is some kind of national variance here? Bolt works well in Portugal, I've used it in Porto, Lisbon, and even Caldas da Rainha (smallish town an hour north of Lisbon). All told, we've taken more than a dozen trips, I think.
How does Bolt retain customers? Why would they burn customers to get 1-3 x €7 fees? If OP's account is representative then wouldn't all the customers switch to Uber and never look back?
It doesn't make sense to me so it feels like there's relevant information is missing. From a quick search, it has a 4.8 on the Apple and Google store. So I'm leaning towards this being an isolated experience.
I've used Uber 100s of time. One time I had 2 drivers cancel on me back-to-back during a surge in the rain and one of them drive off forcing me to cancel and it was a very bad experience. But it's not a representative experience of my other rides.
In a recent trip to Rome, I tried using FreeNow which I had used many times in the past. My success rate of actually getting a ride was 0 out of 7. By which time I gave up. I was more successful with Uber. I was able to get about 12 rides in.
I think with the Jubilee many drivers just switched to Uber.
I also took rides in official taxis. They all wanted to negotiate the fare, refused to run the meter, and absolutely refused to take credit cards.
Sums up European tech in general. Moving to Germany from the US made me realize how broken basic things are in Europe overall. But I was told Germany has it the worst, and it’s a bit better in other places.
I’ve encountered similar issues before and ended up switching to Uber permanently. Luckily, Uber is available where I live. The same goes for banking apps and brokers here. Half of them have a weird mix of German and English when you try to change the language, and most of the time they just don’t work at all. I guess the cliché that tech has never been Europe’s strong suit has some truth to it.
I think it's a drivers market. When the ridesharing apps cannot afford to fire drivers in fear of losing market share, that allows the drivers to pull of scummy behaviour for maxing profit. I heard uber drivers go out of their way for 5 star reviews in America. Sounds like the balance of power is on the plaforms side over there and in some specific markets in Europe.
Back in 2015ish Uber we liked to emphasize everyone building at the company to never forget about the long tail [distribution].
When your N crosses gets above N per day, even the 0.1% edge cases happen several days times a day. When this has real world implications, even a single instance can matter a lot.
It’s not the Bolt issue. It’s the market-cares-too-much-about-profits-fuck-you issue.
I’ve never had troubles using Bolt. But I had similar to TS’ issues with other services, including Uber.
Business doesn’t care neither about drivers nor about riders. Everyone tries their best to survive. And most people just wouldn’t care to struggle through support bots. Proper support service is a unicorn nowadays.
> I was in Latvia a few weeks ago. Riga’s one of the Europeans cities without a good transit link from the airport into city. Snooping around online, I found that the recommended way to get a ride was the use of an app called Bolt, a European clone of Uber.
Pretty much all public transport here is also covered by Google Maps, both the buses, trams and others (although I think the micro-buses might have a different ticket thing going on, I don't really ride those).
You can pay for the ticket with an app, by scanning a QR code on the inside of the vehicle (or inputting a code), allows paying with Apple Pay and other similar methods for buying tickets. A single ticket costs 1.50 EUR.
On that particular route you have to press the button for them to stop at any given stop, but otherwise it's no different than any other public transport route.
Source: I live here and took that route in the last month.
As for Bolt and Bolt Food, my experiences with both have been fine. Though tbh both the rides and also food deliveries end up being way more expensive than the public transport (around 5-10x, depending on the route and time), as well as either getting meals from the local stores or just cooking yourself.
I'm happy they exist though, can't really speak for what they're like in other EU countries though, sounds like the experience really sucked.
How is this different from e.g. LAX? [1] From the article: "Drivers waited for hours to snare rides — “unicorns,” they called them — that would pay them a decent wage of more than $1.50 per mile."
I encounter this here in my city (in Czechia) too - especially at night, drivers will cancel on you whenever, or you simply wait and watch in the app (be it Uber or Bolt) how driver after driver simply ejects your request.
30 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 59.2 ms ] threadA bit off topic but IMHO your first thought should instead be: "hey, this is Europe, why not try the train?"
In Lyon, the train from the airport to the city takes half an hour, same as a car. My guess is that you'll have a vastly better experience than taking the train in North America, and also a better experience than at least the OP had when taking a Bolt.
There is typically no integration of the airport baggage handling with the train baggage handling. So you need to move everything with carts that you can't take on the train.
An international trip to Europe for a longer duration is also a significant trip and not something you want to "one bag". Add in jet lag, multiple young kids, car seats, stroller etc. and it quickly becomes easy to see why the train is cumbersome for the initial airport to lodging connection.
Most often they seem to ape most of major US tech platforms functionality but critically somehow miss the "make something people want" and instead make something that:
- Sort of works? Has all the major screens but the whole experience just feels off and not well thought out.
- Is basically a way for locals to prey on tourists. Or is easily abused to scam etc.
Bluntly that is not a viable business model. Additionally tourism as a whole will not build a durable and innovative economy.
There is this distinct disinterest in serving the customer. Making the experience delightful, frictionless, feeling good is oddly foreign. I basically gave up trying to use local things unless I have to because when things go poorly customer support is basically non-existent.
I know Uber, AirBnb etc for better or worse. I don't want to deal with whatever surprising edge case or unexpectedly subpar experience is normed on the local platforms.
Trust me, it's not incompetence, the drivers absolutely know what they are doing.
- Someone else says it's good in Portugal https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44640459
- Someone says Malta is good, France is bad: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44640424
- Someone says Northern Europe is fine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44640369
- Another saying Denmark is fine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44640111
Europe is a collection of countries, not a federation of states (yet).
It doesn't make sense to me so it feels like there's relevant information is missing. From a quick search, it has a 4.8 on the Apple and Google store. So I'm leaning towards this being an isolated experience.
I've used Uber 100s of time. One time I had 2 drivers cancel on me back-to-back during a surge in the rain and one of them drive off forcing me to cancel and it was a very bad experience. But it's not a representative experience of my other rides.
I think with the Jubilee many drivers just switched to Uber.
I also took rides in official taxis. They all wanted to negotiate the fare, refused to run the meter, and absolutely refused to take credit cards.
I’ve encountered similar issues before and ended up switching to Uber permanently. Luckily, Uber is available where I live. The same goes for banking apps and brokers here. Half of them have a weird mix of German and English when you try to change the language, and most of the time they just don’t work at all. I guess the cliché that tech has never been Europe’s strong suit has some truth to it.
Switzerland and Sweden for example.
When your N crosses gets above N per day, even the 0.1% edge cases happen several days times a day. When this has real world implications, even a single instance can matter a lot.
I’ve never had troubles using Bolt. But I had similar to TS’ issues with other services, including Uber.
Business doesn’t care neither about drivers nor about riders. Everyone tries their best to survive. And most people just wouldn’t care to struggle through support bots. Proper support service is a unicorn nowadays.
Preach! Was impressed when I called Chewy (USA Amazon for pet stuff) and someone picked up right away and was super knowledgeable and friendly.
It seems so fake to me and so far from the experience I have here in France.
Here's the bus that goes from the airport into the center of the city: https://saraksti.rigassatiksme.lv/index.html#bus/22/a-b/1541...
Pretty much all public transport here is also covered by Google Maps, both the buses, trams and others (although I think the micro-buses might have a different ticket thing going on, I don't really ride those).
You can pay for the ticket with an app, by scanning a QR code on the inside of the vehicle (or inputting a code), allows paying with Apple Pay and other similar methods for buying tickets. A single ticket costs 1.50 EUR.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.flutter.rs...
https://apps.apple.com/lt/app/r%C4%ABgas-satiksmes-koda-bi%C...
Or just buy an e-talons card for any number of rides you need: https://www.rigassatiksme.lv/en/tickets-and-e-ticket/types-o...
On that particular route you have to press the button for them to stop at any given stop, but otherwise it's no different than any other public transport route.
Source: I live here and took that route in the last month.
As for Bolt and Bolt Food, my experiences with both have been fine. Though tbh both the rides and also food deliveries end up being way more expensive than the public transport (around 5-10x, depending on the route and time), as well as either getting meals from the local stores or just cooking yourself.
I'm happy they exist though, can't really speak for what they're like in other EU countries though, sounds like the experience really sucked.
I encounter this here in my city (in Czechia) too - especially at night, drivers will cancel on you whenever, or you simply wait and watch in the app (be it Uber or Bolt) how driver after driver simply ejects your request.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44022305