I know this may sound hyperbolic, but I hope that others join me in finally getting around to installing the Lyft app today.
Before now I'd considered them too small to be worth bothering with, but hey, if Uber is worried then maybe I should give it a try. After this, and Uber's attempts at doing the same with GoTaxi a few months ago, I'll be very happy to take my business elsewhere.
I'd also be interested to know if the VCs that invested in Uber were aware of these tactics. It's especially sad to think of good startup investment money being used to defraud a competing company rather than invest in good customer service.
My sympathies - it was exactly issues like that which drove me away from Windows Phone (7) back to Android. I hear it's a lot better these days, but all it takes is one missing app...
I switched back from WP8 to android a couple of months ago, and I must say the better app selection has been huge.
Where I felt the app shortage hurt the most wasn't at the top - there are a few glaring omissions, and some of the apps took a long time to show up, but WP8 for the most part has apps for top services (facebook, twitter, instagram, spotify, uber, etc).
But then there's this second tier of apps where WP8's coverage is absolutely terrible.
I was talking with a coworker today about how his bank (small, local bank) just released an app allowing mobile check deposit - on android and iOS.
Your favorite pizza chain or sub shop has an app for ordering delivery or takeout? Android and iOS only.
Target has an app that allows you to search an item, and then see what aisle it's in in the store - android and iOS only.
There's this huge class of convenient but not necessary apps that you don't get on windows phone right now, and having spent a couple of months with them, I don't think I could go back. It's too bad really, I feel like Microsoft got a lot of things right with WP8. I definitely preferred the UI compared to android.
I got my second Windows Phone (in spite of developing exclusively on iOS myself), and I don't miss most apps. It's amazing how many good third-party apps work with the cloud-backed apps I use on my iPad. Instapaper, Trello, Simplenote, etc.
In line with Microsoft's info-not-apps philosophy, I'd love for them to work with, say, Lyft, to integrate the APIs behind the app into Cortana - so I can have a similar experience as the Lyft Android Wear app. Extrapolate to all the apps that are UI layers for a web service.
No doubt. I've found that Lyft is the one major missing piece for me, but because Uber has an app (and has previously had a full-functioned mobile site) that it wasn't a deal breaker. I'm probably simpler than most around here in my wants from my smartphone though.
I was in San Francisco for a few days in mid June.
Having never used a ride-sharing service before, I hesistantly installed Lyft and handed over my payment information.
After the first ride, I didn't look back. I used their services maybe 10 times in 3 days in order to get around the city. Waits were never very long (we got rides at many different times of day, morning, mid-day, late night) and all of the drivers I had were friendly.
My experiences were all pleasant and the fares were reasonable. I can't speak to the quality of the Uber experience, but it seems many of the Lyft drivers were not too keen on the company.
Having used both, the one thing that keeps me from exclusively using lyft is coverage. Around Atlanta suburbs they don't seem to have much coverage, not something that can be fixed easily I guess.
On at least two occasions in San Francisco I've seen someone with the Uber U on their windshield and a pink mustache on the dashboard, ready to swap out. Don't know how widespread it is, but it seems pretty easy for drivers to work both networks.
I was in SF a few weeks ago (for YC Hacks, actually) and virtually every one of my Lyft drivers (~4) was a driver for both Lyft and Uber.
All of them said they vastly prefer Lyft — they said Uber's policies for firing otherwise excellent drivers as soon as they dip below 4.6/5.0 stars makes them very worried.
As a user, I found the actual driving experience of Lyft better, but the Uber app is vastly superior to Lyft's – not being able to split rides being a major annoyance.
The drivers' experience carries far more weight than any policy on paper, though.
Actual implementation of policies can be completely different (imagine a ratings drop triggering an automated email saying "turn in your kit before 6pm today or a security detail will come get it" vs. triggering a non-confrontational call from someone trained to help you improve your ratings). Even the tone with which a policy is generally enforced (even if the end result is exactly the same) matters.
I don't have direct experience with either Lyft or Uber, but I wouldn't discredit drivers' impressions.
This is what I imagine drivers doing. In NYC, if you're in the outskirts of the boroughs you're probably better off as a driver being part of both networks.
I'd love to take my business elsewhere. Particularly to Lyft however when I tried to sign up the other day to try it out I got a message that my account was banned and I had to contact support. I believe it said I had a duplicate account. I've never used Lyft.
I wonder if action they took against my account was a result of them trying to mitigate these attacks from Uber. If so the damage is much worse than just the canceled rides.
You honestly think Uber would risk their customer's credentials to shut out a competitor they are already trouncing by most accounts? I would consider the risks of using customer's credentials in such a careless and ridiculous way many magnitudes higher than the potential rewards. It's much safer to buy burner phones and assume fake identities. Sorry, it just doesn't make sense without some evidence to back up it up.
Credentials? They would just need a username, unless I'm mistaken?
> the risks of using customer's credentials in such a careless and ridiculous way many magnitudes higher than the potential rewards
Are you sure? What are the risks of parking a username? I doubt it's illegal and I bet they could obfuscate the traffic well enough to make it very difficult to prove to a court that they were the ones doing it. The only downside seems to be a bit of slightly negative PR (i.e. the assumptions of those who jump to conclusions) when Lyft detects the widespread parking.
Meanwhile, the upside is the expected value of their most profitable customers times the probability that they will switch to Uber+Lyft or 100%Lyft.
Low risk, large upside... I don't think this is as bad a business proposition as you make it sound like.
Nope, it's pure speculation based on multiple reports of seemingly baseless shadowbans from Lyft. But given uber's recent behavior Lyft might want to look into this just in case. I have no idea what the relevant laws are but parking a username seems less much risky than making fake calls, yet it could easily have similar upside for uber.
Same, pretty sure I've been shadow-banned by Lyft for the past year or two since it never shows any available cars in the middle of the day despite living in downtown SF (and plenty when my roommate opens the app next to me). I'm very cordial in any rideshare service I take, and have a very high Uber rating over hundreds of trips (though that large quantity is a direct result of not being able to use Lyft). I've always joked I was caught up in the counter-Uber net, because I see no other reason why I wouldn't be able to use the service.
I also use Lyft and Uber in Seattle, and I much prefer Lyft.
It's interesting, there are two totally different cultures when it comes to Lyft and Uber drivers. Lyft drivers are always happy to talk and love it when you sit in the front seat. Uber drivers are always pretty friendly but often encourage sitting in the back like a taxi. There are drivers that are both on Uber and Lyft and they are always great and seem to be more like a typical Lyft driver than an Uber driver.
Maybe I'm different (hey, it's possible), but I like UberX for the inverse reason. When I do one of the "ridesharing" things, I'm usually half awake, coming off of a shift at work, and I just want to go home or wherever else I'm going. I wish there was a socially acceptable way to say "I'm grumpy and don't want to talk, please just hush." Since Lyft has a reputation for being more open and friendly, I stick with Uber/UberX because they're usually quiet drivers.
If you the type of person who closes a bar, though, I would strongly suggest additionally adding a photograph, since it will make you easy to identify in the crowds of the bar rush.
Oh, great news. that's what kept me from signing up in the first place. They replied to my comment saying they were "inherently social" as if you can't be social without Facebook.
You don't say it directly, but I'm inferring that you're suggesting Lyft because you disapprove of Uber's tactics as described in the story.
I'd be interested to know what, specifically, you disapprove of. The article sounds to me like one company trying very hard to recruit another's drivers.
What is the alternative? One or both companies refrain from recruiting each others' drivers? Google and Apple (and others) recently got in trouble for doing that sort of thing.
Not being the GP I don't know, but I'd wager it has something to do with the whole planning to disrupt their usual business part of it. It's not just recruiting, it's running interference.
Huh, that's interesting. I assumed it was far more common for people to have both. Whenever a price drop is announced, I switch, and it's been a pretty good heuristic so far. Also lyft predated uberX, so I would've thought that many people would have it from back when it was essentially a different service.
I would hope that uber has bigger fish to fry by subverting the taxi industry, but strategically I can see why they are as scared of Lyft as they seem to be. Still seems distasteful to sabotage a fellow startup.
I think it's just the idea of "punching up" vs. "punching down". When a scrappy startup takes on a larger competitor they need to pull out all the stops to combat the advantages of their competitor being an established company.
At this point Uber essentially is the #1 established company of car services, so them resorting to dirty tactics to fight Lyft leaves a very sour taste in the mouth.
Any established player that doesn't defend its position will be quickly unseated. I'm not saying this is an appropriate way to defend itself, but it's certainly one way.
Maybe, but I kind of feel like the difference between making your competitor's employees a better offer and deliberately exploiting a monopoly to destroy any technology you don't control is more than just a matter of scale.
it's not really that necessary... Lyft could figure out a way to immunize itself against these sorts of real-world attacks, and by and large they have using a comibination of analytics and creating a more reasonable cancellation policy.
Its unfortunate but I am surprised here, aren't there any laws to punish this kind of systematic sabotage.
Would the VCs like Google Ventures and other VCs self-police and influence Uber from this tactics. Uber already has first entrant advantage, this is not childish, this is sinister. Some driver somewhere burned lot of gas and rubber only to be disappointed that there is no fare there.
I will not use Uber until they make mends, I know I am a small hummingbird but anything with in my means to discourage this practice.
That seems like a needless exaggeration. Traveling to a non-existent fare does not result in the driver doing anything they wouldn't have been doing otherwise.
Uber's behaviour is already bad, we don't need to add hyperbole.
Actually, if it weren't for Uber's call they would not have been at the incident's location at the wrong time. Of course, it's a worse case scenario / exaggeration, but when they make thousands of calls, it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility.
Yes, but they would have been driving around the same city. That they went down street X as opposed to street Y is a really, really tenuous attempt to pin responsibility on Uber.
In fact, you could argue that Uber doesn't give them directions and that they drove down the wrong street of their own volition. More to the point: this thinking is just a distraction.
So that means that if anyone dies or is seriously injured on their way to a client, the blood is on the client then? Come on now, that doesn't make any real sense.
My two previous comments were inundated with downvotes, so I gather that my original aside comment was seen by most as a stupid or irrelevant one. I accept that, but assigning responsibility for a possible accident wasn't really where I was coming from. It was more about increasing the odds of something tragic happening, for absolutely no justifiable reason.
To further elaborate on that point, I meant that driving is a fairly risky activity that we engage in. A driver is accepting that risk in order to make a living. A client is obviously not responsible if an accident happens, as the driver has accepted the risk associated with the transaction, in exchange for money.
However, for every extra minute or mile on the road, a driver has a slightly higher chance of getting into an accident. Uber has made thousands of such calls, for absolutely no good reason and with no monetary benefit for the drivers. Although not directly responsible for possible accidents, the sheer number could have conceivably contributed to increasing the odds of one such accident/injury or even death (in a worse case scenario) happening. Which makes Uber's actions even shittier in my books.
I understand that most people here don't see it that way.
Note: Of course my assumption about the odds might be entirely false, if I misunderstood the way Uber works. For example if cars are just running around town until a fare is requested, instead of being parked somewhere.
The article documents recruiting Lyft drivers by riding with them, which is neither unethical nor illegal. It doesn't document cancelling rides, which would definitely be unethical, and should be illegal.
Uber ought to be liable to a lawsuit, at least in general for violating Lyft's terms of service with fake accounts on a mass scale.
Along the same lines as the AirBnB spamming controversy, when it was reveled they violated Craigslist's ToS on a large scale to grow their business in the early days.
Agreed. I can't even sign up for their app on Android using Google account and Google Wallet. I emailed their support email a week ago and haven't heard anything back. The Wallet dialog pops up but I can't click anything. Looks like I won't be signing up with Uber anytime soon.
Where I was, Uber was constantly jacking up the price with surge pricing, between 1.25x to 1.75x the normal price. Meanwhile, Lyft not only wasn't jacking up the price during those same hours but was running a 25% special. On top of that, the Lyft drivers were typically friendlier. No brainer which one I recommend to others.
Am I the /only/ person commenting that has had a better experience with Uber? I am having a hard time thinking about using Lyft over Uber in the future (West LA area).
Uber has a culture of breaking the rules. As beneficial as that was and is in their growth, it's not surprising it mutates in less pleasant ways as they grow. The same actions that seemed benevolent before, will seem more and more malevolent as they look less and less like an underdog.
A cheesy line from Batman comes to mind, they will live long enough to see themselves become the villain. The customers will end up asking for more regulation in a few years. Maybe Uber will start issuing a limited amount of medallions in every city. But a lot of money to be made along the way.
I only meant that how we look at them changes with their size, and if they want to remain the "good guys" their tactics should change too.
If Lyft had 5 times the funding, Uber recruiting their drivers would look like a bold move. It would mean Uber believes drivers will stick with them long-term because life for drivers with them is clearly better, and the initial investment pays off in the long run, despite them having a smaller war chest to begin with.
Now that Uber has 5 times the funding, the same move looks like Uber is afraid of Lyft beating them in the market, and is trying to kill them early by buying off their drivers and crippling them. They can afford this even if driving for Uber is a shittier experience long-term than driving for Lyft, since they have so much more money it doesn't really matter. Lyft will be dead or badly injured before drivers figure it out, so Uber doesn't need to worry about being the best in the market.
What their actual motives are is anyone's guess, but it doesn't look good for them to do this.
The way people perceive actions tends to change based on the status of the person(s) performing the action at the time the action was performed.
Everyone knows reddit admins used to game the system by faking submissions to solve the chicken and egg problem and nobody really cares, but there would be an uproar if they were found to be manipulating story placements behind the scenes today because the scale of the site is so different.
People are pretty willing to overlook borderline underhanded things if you are really an underdog trying to get a leg up, but far less so when you're the industry leader trying to crush upstarts.
I was thinking of taxi legislation as the example (EU city example, can't speak for the US). Taxis in my city need to be registered and the drivers need to have a taxi license, the cars need to have prices clearly listed on their window, as well as the driver's ID visible in the car. All of this is due to consumers getting repeatedly ripped off, complaining about it to the city's politicians, which then wrote up the regulations. The consumers are much better protected now, and have a clear channel for complaints.
To me that is clearly a consequence of consumers wanting more regulation. Same as with perishable products having to be clearly marked with its due date in stores, and practically every consumer protection law/regulation out there.
Not saying that these laws can't be abused, but that doesn't mean the consumers aren't the main reason behind their existence.
Really? My view is the other way around. Customers ask for more regulation and businesses are against it. Some of the consumer requested laws include national laws like the Pure Food and Drug Act and Clean Water Act, state laws like various lemon laws, and local laws like rent control.
I think some businesses are against it (they tend to be the smaller ones), but other businesses (these tend to be the larger ones) like it because, while it imposes a burden on them, it imposes more burden on their competitors. Also, businesses can often get into a position where they basically write the regulations that they will have to abide by (i.e., regulatory capture). In that situation, regulation can be an asset for a business.
I speak of course in broad generalities, and not to each and every company or consumer. To start, all members of a business are also consumers, so there is no clear cut distinction between the two, and some consumers are philosophically against all regulations even without being in control of a business.
It will be interesting to see how long a company with that culture can survive. Uber may even be able to flout federal law because of their extensive passenger & travel data. (Suspect Larry Page got off easy on the illicit drug advertising because of this, others would expect to do hard time.)
For service startups we benefit from the early adapter "eliteness." Early drivers as well as users of Uber were of a high social status and fairly sophisticated. Much like the early days of usenet, rules can be lax or non-existent. However when the mass market begins to arrive startups which previously flourished with an tight early adapter user base start to show their cracks.
No one wants to kill their own momentum but a way to see if your startup will start to stink as it grows is to recruit both service providers and users from online ad campaigns very early on. Track them as their own segment and see what sort of unique problems they bring.
This is a really dumb strategy though, breaking the rules means not being constrained by the social norms and trying something new, however, it doesn't mean being an a-hole and doing purely malicious stuff at all. That's very unentrepreneurial.
IMO Uber's greatest threat is someone coming along and making a similar service and licensing it to cities so that the cities could control who becomes a driver, total number of drivers, as well as integrate with traditional taxi services and take a cut of the revenue. Then all the sudden Uber et al. are competing with a entity that has the ability to legislate them out of business.
Underhanded tactics like this is just more ammunition for anyone who wants to make the argument that the industry needs to be regulated. Uber might be shooting Lyft in the foot but they're also putting holes in the floor they're standing on themselves.
Uber controls its fate, though its success may be stymied by municipalities. Taking the business directly to cities puts the onus on them- a much harder proposition than providing a good service. I know which business I'd rather run.
They are succeeding, but not to the extent of Uber/Lyft. Regulated taxi industry pricing is much higher than lyft or UberX pricing. If taxis get de-regulated and/or UberX/Lyft get regulated then Curb/Hailo/etc will be well positioned.
> Regulated taxi industry pricing is much higher than lyft or UberX pricing.
Empirically, it's a bit higher, but not much. A few data points from my recent experiences - I take a cab to work once or twice a week if I'm running late. The last 3 Ubers (UberX) I've taken were $11.02, $11.45 and $9.79. The last 3 Hailos I've taken were $12.29, $10.39 and $12.09. These are from similar times on similar workdays with similar traffic patterns. (Edit: this is in NYC and the Hailo fares include a 20% tip)
I'm thinking I'll pay the extra dollar from now on, worth it to avoid supporting these business practices. Although my biggest problem with Hailo has been availability - it's often impossible to get a Hailo near rush hour while Ubers are always available.
I suppose it depends on where you are using the services. In Los Angeles, after you factor in tip for a taxi driver, Uber and Lyft are about 40-50% cheaper. Here's Uber's analysis of the pricing in LA http://blog.uber.com/LAuberXpricecut
Curb (TaxiMagic) is just a (bad) dispatch-management service; it's not really built into any taxi system, and doesn't provide any sort of feedback or quality control on the ride experience.
There is a feedback mechanism in Curb (I'm a former employee). For some taxi companies, LA for example, Curb has very deep links into the dispatch system and can choose not to offer rides to certain drivers directly - so enough bad feedback and the taxi driver will no longer get Curb ride offers. For other taxi companies reviews get reported back to the taxi management and they can act on the report as they choose (some companies act quickly and promptly and some others don't do anything).
Recruiting drivers from competitors isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's the tactics used here to attempt to kill Lyft by making it bleed cash that are unethical.
"Earlier this month, CNN reported that Uber employees around the country ordered and then canceled 5,560 Lyft rides, according to an analysis by Lyft. (Lyft arrived at this figure by cross-referencing the phone numbers of users who tried to recruit Lyft drivers to Uber with users who had previously canceled rides.) "
The amount of money involved in the cancelled rides is inconsequential to Lyft's success. 5,000 cancelled rides is what, about $100,000? Techcrunch reported a $100 million annual gross revenue rate at Lyft last December, with 6% weekly growth.
Can't stomach unethical, morally bankrupt anti-competitive tactics. Sabotaging a competitor's services distorts the free-market, ultimately harming consumers. If Uber aren't suitably punished by the courts, I hope at least their reputation is tarnished in the court of public opinion. Although that's not clear since "there's no such thing as bad publicity" and Uber's been getting a lot of that recently.
Either way, I'm at least glad I've never used Uber yet, and now never will.
Sabotaging a competitor is precisely how the free-market operates that's why we have regulations, because a free market isn't actually free or desirable.
That depends on whether you define free market as anarchy or free of regulation or whether you define it in the original economical theory sense: a lot of competitors with essentially same product and everyone instantly know all available into (so everyone buys cheapest of the same).
Monopoly is not free market in the original sense, even if it came out from unregulated competition.
Depends on what you mean by "free market". There's the free market that Adam Smith talked about, and there's the free market that Ayn Rand talked about.
I'm so tired of people who don't know what "free market" means making up their own definition and then saying it's a bad thing.
A "free market" is an economics term meaning a marketplace free from anti-competitive forces such as government subsidies, government price floors or ceilings, monopolies, cartels, oligopolies, non-compete agreements, etc.
If Google and Apple make an agreement about smartphone pricing, then we might not have a free market for cell phones. The government could then use regulations against such anti-competitive agreements to end the price fixing and restore a free market. In that scenario it was private enterprise causing a non-free market and regulation that made it a free market.
Regulations can help a free market (breaking up monopolies, preventing cartels and anti-competitive practices) or regulations can harm a free market (subsidizing production, preventing new entrants from entering the market). This notion of "free market vs regulations" is completely misunderstanding what a free market is and how the systems involved work.
So in the end, what you're saying is that he's right? I took his comment as a broad generalization, not some flippant slogan via "free market is a fantasy economics concept pretty much exclusive to all who read Ayn Rand and vote Ron Paul". But you already knew that.
They narrowly defined a word that has many definitions while demonstrating outrage at any other meaning.
While they are technically correct in a textbook sense, their idea of a "True" free market has never existed in the context of this conversation, and it can be argued that price collusion between suppliers for a market is the natural result of free markets.
I disagree with your defintion in the google-Apple example and so does Wikipedia. It's pretty clear that if the government regulates it it's not a free market anymore.
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A free market is a market system in which the prices for goods and services are set freely by consent between sellers and consumers, in which the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
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The wikipedia quote doesn't seem to support your point, though.
It specifically lists "price-setting monopolies" and the like (which would include price-fixing agreements between Google & Apple, right?) as interference in a free market. Prices must be set freely by consent between sellers and consumers, not amongst sellers in backroom deals.
If a government's only "regulation" is to stop monopolies, price-fixing, and other violations of the natural supply/demand pricing, then you have a free market.
If no one stops those things, then you do not have a free market.
Enforcing anti-trust regulation depends on the industry:
If BurgerKing and McDonalds collude to set a hamburger at $10, then Joe's Hamburger will quickly open and win market share with its $4 hamburger.
If the product is an advanced piece of tech with large amounts of IP - there can only be a few firms, thus the need to prevent collusion through regulation.
Exactly this. I have to explain this to people all the time. A free market is not the same as anarchy. Regulations are involved in making a market free by preventing non-governmental anti-competitive forces from distorting the market.
Right. Most libertarians would agree that courts play a vital role in enforcing rules/laws that govern across specific areas relating to contracts - specifically the areas of duress and coercion.
>I'm so tired of people who don't know what "free market" means making up their own definition and then saying it's a bad thing.
"Free market" has multiple, ill defined and often conflicting meanings, which is partly what makes it so useful for propaganda purposes.
Yours is just one of those meanings, and a particularly pernicious one at that, because a marketplace free from anti-competitive forces has NEVER existed and never will exist.
The neoclassical school economics actually uses the term 'perfect competition' to describe your particular meaning, and while it's a very common assumption, it's one that always breaks their models (making them a poor fit to reality).
> If Google and Apple make an agreement about smartphone pricing, then we might not have a free market for cell phones.
If people buy the phones voluntarily, knowing that the prices are set by agreement between Google and Apple, then that's a free market. The fact that you disapprove of sellers colluding to set prices does not mean collusion automatically stops the market from being free.
> The government could then use regulations against such anti-competitive agreements to end the price fixing and restore a free market.
Using regulations to force companies (or anyone) to do things they have not chosen to do voluntarily is not a free market. The fact that regulations might lead to an outcome you approve of does not make regulatory coercion a free market operation. The way a free market would "fix" price collusion between two sellers is by buyers voluntarily choosing not to buy from those sellers, causing those sellers to lose money and either go out of business or change their practices.
> Sabotaging a competitor is precisely how the free-market operates
No, it isn't. A free market is a market in which all transactions are voluntary: nothing happens unless both parties agree to make it happen. So unless your competitor agrees to let you sabotage them, sabotaging a competitor is not a free market operation.
Interesting to hear Travis Kalanick's response to the Lyft accusations last week where he mentioned that "competition is better for the consumer, better for the driver"
I am not surprised by this. I am sure Lyft is just among a list of threats to Uber and we are only seeing a small part of that strategy.
Its ethically not good but I think it would be wrong to say that we penalized many other companies that make similar plays or resort to tactics that are just as ruthless. It doesn't seem illegal just mean and aggressive.
Honestly, it kinda seems like something they would do.
Just dropped Uber. Guess now I have to sign up for Lyft. These tactics seem very similar to the Hoffa era, really had high hopes for a sharing economy but things are escalating quickly to become similar to Hoffa era tactics. Minus the whole fighting for the middle class spirit.
This is ridiculous. The competition is great for us as consumers. To be honest, when I first moved to the city I used Uber exclusively. The sort of "executive" brand really appealed to me. As of late, with the news of Uber's shady tactics, I've been using Lyft more and more. Lyft Line, which was released prior to Uber's attempt at the same feature, has been a lot of fun and a really great way to meet random people in SF.
Heard plenty of stories about Travis Kalanick well before Uber took off the way it has. To that end I'm not surprised by any of these shady (and most likely illegal) tactics. Not sure if Google Ventures really knew what they were getting themselves into.
Oh come on.... the on-line rags are awash with stories of Travis Kalanick's abrasive character and less than honourable approach to doing business. It's hardly a secret.
It's amazingly sad that instead of competing through innovation, marketing, or price adjustments...that capital would get devoted to competitor sabotage of QOS (almost like a real life DDOS attack). What a terrible usage of capital and resources!
I wonder sometimes if certain markets -- like taxi services, used car dealerships, domain registrars, etc. -- have inherent and non-obvious structural characteristics that bias the market toward "slimy" behavior.
To some extent Uber and Lyft are being driven by customer dissatisfaction with the expensive price-fixed "cab mafia," but in reading about these companies it seems like the sliminess has just shifted to other domains.
To those who have used Lyft: do you get any choice in which drivers come to pick you up?
If not, I can see how the combination of Uber's policies can lead to a lot of cancelled rides even without Uber explicitly telling their recruiters to do so. To wit:
- You're an Uber recruiter, and you call up a Lyft driver to pick you up from somewhere.
- At some point, I assume you get to see the driver's profile through Lyft, at which point you flip through your messaging app and realize that he's already been pitched.
- Since Uber discourages you from pitching to the same driver more than once, you cancel the ride.
This leads to a lot of cancelled rides coming from Uber's recruiters, while letting them keep their company line of, "We don't ask our employees to deliberately cancel rides". Because, technically, they haven't.
I find this somewhat funny in a way because I've ran into several drivers that were "double agents" driving both for Uber and Lyft. It makes a lot of sense actually driving for both to make up for dead times.
I wouldn't expect a passenger to care, but it seems like something the ride sharing services themselves could use to prevent "double agents." I wonder if Lyft/Uber could take legal action against drivers who are displaying their trademark while driving for a competitor's service?
It's a dog-eat-dog out there and if they weren't the market leader we would somehow all come around to agreeing this is the ultimate "growth hack" or appreciating Uber's "hustle". But by being top dog and having sterling investors like Google Ventures backing them, we hold them to a higher standard (much like their "polished clientele").
Since most of the risk to these services comes from the regulation side, I wouldn't be surprised that someone's greasing the wheels in Sacramento or Washington. There's enough money at stake here for those involved to do whatever is necessary. When I heard a few days ago that a lawmaker who voted in favor of rideshare restrictions was caught drunk driving the night after the vote, my first thought was that maybe it was a set up. Hire some people to buy this guy a few drinks, encourage him to get on the road, call the police to report a driver driving dangerously. Would you be surprised? I wouldn't.
Anyways, regarding the product - I use Lyft a lot more than Uber since I know a few folks there but most of my friends use both and Sidecar interchangeably. Every time I catch a Lyft, I tend to talk to the driver to figure out how much they're making, what are the pain points, and what can these services do better and there seems to be an opportunity to differentiate. Here were some ideas I had:
- Drivers tell me they can't find a place to relieve themselves since parking is hard to come by around SF. I think they would appreciate some designated "refuel" stations where they can pull up, park, pee, get coffee/red bull, and maybe vacuum or clean their cars up.
- I would love to be able to pick a fuel efficient car and see Lyft do a green mustache to indicate I'm making a choice for a hybrid. Maybe hybrids can get bonus payments since they can stay on the road longer per tank.
- Several friends have complained recently about how random the route-finding applications were that these drivers used. Some used Apple Maps, the built-in nav on the apps, or Google Maps but it wasn't always consistent and some of the routes were TERRIBLE. Seems like an opportunity for either Lyft or Uber to build better path-finding in their largest markets via maybe highly localized traffic information or by paying off the city for access to bus/taxi lanes.
And yet if you post about AirBnB's history of spamming Craigslist users, you'll get downvoted into oblivion. Playing dirty is considered okay on HN so long as you're a YC company.
Actively requesting your competitor's service and then cancelling it is in a whole other league of scamminess than simply sending out a bunch of unsolicited e-mails to potential users, IMHO. Not a fan of AirBNB's tactics either, but Uber's are way more predatory.
With regards to your third point, I just took an uber yesterday and the driver was using an uber-supplied navigation tool. maybe part of the existing app used for drivers? on my end, the app asked for a destination address and it was synced with the driver. the route was what i would expect.
the driver did complain however that they were forced to pay $10 for this ability and had no way to opt out.
Yes, it uses the driver's app. At least the rider's app was updated a little over a week ago (August 18) to allow this. Presumably the driver's app was updated around the same time to integrate with it.
This was what prompted my friend to get annoyed because the path seemed a bit out of the way. I would also appreciate the ability to choose optimize by time or distance.
I think that they found a sweet spot where they can make a lot of money and still get away with it, because companies will get acquihired and VCs recoup their investment before people get fed up and start complaining. And "growth hacking" and "hustle" and the like are just ways of making those practices not trigger pangs of conscience, the way saying "you're being an antisocial, malicious jerk" might.
It doesn't have to mean those things, but yes, it often does unfortunately. I still think there are some white hat techniques that can get results, but I'm no expert.
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 277 ms ] threadBefore now I'd considered them too small to be worth bothering with, but hey, if Uber is worried then maybe I should give it a try. After this, and Uber's attempts at doing the same with GoTaxi a few months ago, I'll be very happy to take my business elsewhere.
I'd also be interested to know if the VCs that invested in Uber were aware of these tactics. It's especially sad to think of good startup investment money being used to defraud a competing company rather than invest in good customer service.
Where I felt the app shortage hurt the most wasn't at the top - there are a few glaring omissions, and some of the apps took a long time to show up, but WP8 for the most part has apps for top services (facebook, twitter, instagram, spotify, uber, etc).
But then there's this second tier of apps where WP8's coverage is absolutely terrible.
I was talking with a coworker today about how his bank (small, local bank) just released an app allowing mobile check deposit - on android and iOS.
Your favorite pizza chain or sub shop has an app for ordering delivery or takeout? Android and iOS only.
Target has an app that allows you to search an item, and then see what aisle it's in in the store - android and iOS only.
There's this huge class of convenient but not necessary apps that you don't get on windows phone right now, and having spent a couple of months with them, I don't think I could go back. It's too bad really, I feel like Microsoft got a lot of things right with WP8. I definitely preferred the UI compared to android.
In line with Microsoft's info-not-apps philosophy, I'd love for them to work with, say, Lyft, to integrate the APIs behind the app into Cortana - so I can have a similar experience as the Lyft Android Wear app. Extrapolate to all the apps that are UI layers for a web service.
It really does seem a two-horse race between iOS and Android.
Either way the intended meaning was clear enough not to warrant a flame.
Having never used a ride-sharing service before, I hesistantly installed Lyft and handed over my payment information.
After the first ride, I didn't look back. I used their services maybe 10 times in 3 days in order to get around the city. Waits were never very long (we got rides at many different times of day, morning, mid-day, late night) and all of the drivers I had were friendly.
My experiences were all pleasant and the fares were reasonable. I can't speak to the quality of the Uber experience, but it seems many of the Lyft drivers were not too keen on the company.
All of them said they vastly prefer Lyft — they said Uber's policies for firing otherwise excellent drivers as soon as they dip below 4.6/5.0 stars makes them very worried.
As a user, I found the actual driving experience of Lyft better, but the Uber app is vastly superior to Lyft's – not being able to split rides being a major annoyance.
Actual implementation of policies can be completely different (imagine a ratings drop triggering an automated email saying "turn in your kit before 6pm today or a security detail will come get it" vs. triggering a non-confrontational call from someone trained to help you improve your ratings). Even the tone with which a policy is generally enforced (even if the end result is exactly the same) matters.
I don't have direct experience with either Lyft or Uber, but I wouldn't discredit drivers' impressions.
I wonder if action they took against my account was a result of them trying to mitigate these attacks from Uber. If so the damage is much worse than just the canceled rides.
> the risks of using customer's credentials in such a careless and ridiculous way many magnitudes higher than the potential rewards
Are you sure? What are the risks of parking a username? I doubt it's illegal and I bet they could obfuscate the traffic well enough to make it very difficult to prove to a court that they were the ones doing it. The only downside seems to be a bit of slightly negative PR (i.e. the assumptions of those who jump to conclusions) when Lyft detects the widespread parking.
Meanwhile, the upside is the expected value of their most profitable customers times the probability that they will switch to Uber+Lyft or 100%Lyft.
Low risk, large upside... I don't think this is as bad a business proposition as you make it sound like.
It's interesting, there are two totally different cultures when it comes to Lyft and Uber drivers. Lyft drivers are always happy to talk and love it when you sit in the front seat. Uber drivers are always pretty friendly but often encourage sitting in the back like a taxi. There are drivers that are both on Uber and Lyft and they are always great and seem to be more like a typical Lyft driver than an Uber driver.
Don't do that -- it screws over the driver who has to burn gas.
If you the type of person who closes a bar, though, I would strongly suggest additionally adding a photograph, since it will make you easy to identify in the crowds of the bar rush.
I'd be interested to know what, specifically, you disapprove of. The article sounds to me like one company trying very hard to recruit another's drivers.
What is the alternative? One or both companies refrain from recruiting each others' drivers? Google and Apple (and others) recently got in trouble for doing that sort of thing.
Uber does have an explicit SUV option (I don't recall Lyft having this), which has proven to be a boon upon occasion.
I don't see why Lyft being "a fellow startup" should affect any of Uber's business tactics.
Startups don't have any intrinsic motivation to play nice with each other.
At this point Uber essentially is the #1 established company of car services, so them resorting to dirty tactics to fight Lyft leaves a very sour taste in the mouth.
Would the VCs like Google Ventures and other VCs self-police and influence Uber from this tactics. Uber already has first entrant advantage, this is not childish, this is sinister. Some driver somewhere burned lot of gas and rubber only to be disappointed that there is no fare there.
I will not use Uber until they make mends, I know I am a small hummingbird but anything with in my means to discourage this practice.
It could be even worse.
Imagine a Lyft driver going to a Uber initiated non-existent fare. Now imagine him or her getting into an accident and dying on the way there.
Uber's behaviour is already bad, we don't need to add hyperbole.
In fact, you could argue that Uber doesn't give them directions and that they drove down the wrong street of their own volition. More to the point: this thinking is just a distraction.
To further elaborate on that point, I meant that driving is a fairly risky activity that we engage in. A driver is accepting that risk in order to make a living. A client is obviously not responsible if an accident happens, as the driver has accepted the risk associated with the transaction, in exchange for money.
However, for every extra minute or mile on the road, a driver has a slightly higher chance of getting into an accident. Uber has made thousands of such calls, for absolutely no good reason and with no monetary benefit for the drivers. Although not directly responsible for possible accidents, the sheer number could have conceivably contributed to increasing the odds of one such accident/injury or even death (in a worse case scenario) happening. Which makes Uber's actions even shittier in my books.
I understand that most people here don't see it that way.
Note: Of course my assumption about the odds might be entirely false, if I misunderstood the way Uber works. For example if cars are just running around town until a fare is requested, instead of being parked somewhere.
Along the same lines as the AirBnB spamming controversy, when it was reveled they violated Craigslist's ToS on a large scale to grow their business in the early days.
Uber X: $3 base fare, $0.30 per minute, $1.50 per mile
Lyft: $2.25 base fare, $0.27 per minute, $1.35 per mile
Both have a $1 trust and safety fee, and Lyft has a lower minimum.
I’ve personally had better experiences with Lyft overall, and I’ve taken at least 100 rides with each service.
Where I was, Uber was constantly jacking up the price with surge pricing, between 1.25x to 1.75x the normal price. Meanwhile, Lyft not only wasn't jacking up the price during those same hours but was running a 25% special. On top of that, the Lyft drivers were typically friendlier. No brainer which one I recommend to others.
And at the end the good care belongs to the driver not to the services behind them.
A cheesy line from Batman comes to mind, they will live long enough to see themselves become the villain. The customers will end up asking for more regulation in a few years. Maybe Uber will start issuing a limited amount of medallions in every city. But a lot of money to be made along the way.
If Lyft had 5 times the funding, Uber recruiting their drivers would look like a bold move. It would mean Uber believes drivers will stick with them long-term because life for drivers with them is clearly better, and the initial investment pays off in the long run, despite them having a smaller war chest to begin with.
Now that Uber has 5 times the funding, the same move looks like Uber is afraid of Lyft beating them in the market, and is trying to kill them early by buying off their drivers and crippling them. They can afford this even if driving for Uber is a shittier experience long-term than driving for Lyft, since they have so much more money it doesn't really matter. Lyft will be dead or badly injured before drivers figure it out, so Uber doesn't need to worry about being the best in the market.
What their actual motives are is anyone's guess, but it doesn't look good for them to do this.
Everyone knows reddit admins used to game the system by faking submissions to solve the chicken and egg problem and nobody really cares, but there would be an uproar if they were found to be manipulating story placements behind the scenes today because the scale of the site is so different.
People are pretty willing to overlook borderline underhanded things if you are really an underdog trying to get a leg up, but far less so when you're the industry leader trying to crush upstarts.
Consumers hardly ever ask for regulation.
To me that is clearly a consequence of consumers wanting more regulation. Same as with perishable products having to be clearly marked with its due date in stores, and practically every consumer protection law/regulation out there.
Not saying that these laws can't be abused, but that doesn't mean the consumers aren't the main reason behind their existence.
I think some businesses are against it (they tend to be the smaller ones), but other businesses (these tend to be the larger ones) like it because, while it imposes a burden on them, it imposes more burden on their competitors. Also, businesses can often get into a position where they basically write the regulations that they will have to abide by (i.e., regulatory capture). In that situation, regulation can be an asset for a business.
{rolls eyes}
For service startups we benefit from the early adapter "eliteness." Early drivers as well as users of Uber were of a high social status and fairly sophisticated. Much like the early days of usenet, rules can be lax or non-existent. However when the mass market begins to arrive startups which previously flourished with an tight early adapter user base start to show their cracks.
No one wants to kill their own momentum but a way to see if your startup will start to stink as it grows is to recruit both service providers and users from online ad campaigns very early on. Track them as their own segment and see what sort of unique problems they bring.
Underhanded tactics like this is just more ammunition for anyone who wants to make the argument that the industry needs to be regulated. Uber might be shooting Lyft in the foot but they're also putting holes in the floor they're standing on themselves.
But why aren't they succeeding?
Empirically, it's a bit higher, but not much. A few data points from my recent experiences - I take a cab to work once or twice a week if I'm running late. The last 3 Ubers (UberX) I've taken were $11.02, $11.45 and $9.79. The last 3 Hailos I've taken were $12.29, $10.39 and $12.09. These are from similar times on similar workdays with similar traffic patterns. (Edit: this is in NYC and the Hailo fares include a 20% tip)
I'm thinking I'll pay the extra dollar from now on, worth it to avoid supporting these business practices. Although my biggest problem with Hailo has been availability - it's often impossible to get a Hailo near rush hour while Ubers are always available.
I don't think it will get much further than that in many European cities. Most of the regulations are in place for a reason.
I believe that the hail / cancel tactic is unethical, but this article only describes direct recruitment.
"Earlier this month, CNN reported that Uber employees around the country ordered and then canceled 5,560 Lyft rides, according to an analysis by Lyft. (Lyft arrived at this figure by cross-referencing the phone numbers of users who tried to recruit Lyft drivers to Uber with users who had previously canceled rides.) "
Either way, I'm at least glad I've never used Uber yet, and now never will.
Monopoly is not free market in the original sense, even if it came out from unregulated competition.
But we already know these free markets are either not efficient or likely not efficient. Strong form efficiency is provably false.
Weak form efficiency is only possibly true if P = NP (http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.2284).
A "free market" is an economics term meaning a marketplace free from anti-competitive forces such as government subsidies, government price floors or ceilings, monopolies, cartels, oligopolies, non-compete agreements, etc.
If Google and Apple make an agreement about smartphone pricing, then we might not have a free market for cell phones. The government could then use regulations against such anti-competitive agreements to end the price fixing and restore a free market. In that scenario it was private enterprise causing a non-free market and regulation that made it a free market.
Regulations can help a free market (breaking up monopolies, preventing cartels and anti-competitive practices) or regulations can harm a free market (subsidizing production, preventing new entrants from entering the market). This notion of "free market vs regulations" is completely misunderstanding what a free market is and how the systems involved work.
They narrowly defined a word that has many definitions while demonstrating outrage at any other meaning.
While they are technically correct in a textbook sense, their idea of a "True" free market has never existed in the context of this conversation, and it can be argued that price collusion between suppliers for a market is the natural result of free markets.
--- A free market is a market system in which the prices for goods and services are set freely by consent between sellers and consumers, in which the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market ---
It specifically lists "price-setting monopolies" and the like (which would include price-fixing agreements between Google & Apple, right?) as interference in a free market. Prices must be set freely by consent between sellers and consumers, not amongst sellers in backroom deals.
If a government's only "regulation" is to stop monopolies, price-fixing, and other violations of the natural supply/demand pricing, then you have a free market.
If no one stops those things, then you do not have a free market.
If BurgerKing and McDonalds collude to set a hamburger at $10, then Joe's Hamburger will quickly open and win market share with its $4 hamburger.
If the product is an advanced piece of tech with large amounts of IP - there can only be a few firms, thus the need to prevent collusion through regulation.
"Free market" has multiple, ill defined and often conflicting meanings, which is partly what makes it so useful for propaganda purposes.
Yours is just one of those meanings, and a particularly pernicious one at that, because a marketplace free from anti-competitive forces has NEVER existed and never will exist.
The neoclassical school economics actually uses the term 'perfect competition' to describe your particular meaning, and while it's a very common assumption, it's one that always breaks their models (making them a poor fit to reality).
If people buy the phones voluntarily, knowing that the prices are set by agreement between Google and Apple, then that's a free market. The fact that you disapprove of sellers colluding to set prices does not mean collusion automatically stops the market from being free.
> The government could then use regulations against such anti-competitive agreements to end the price fixing and restore a free market.
Using regulations to force companies (or anyone) to do things they have not chosen to do voluntarily is not a free market. The fact that regulations might lead to an outcome you approve of does not make regulatory coercion a free market operation. The way a free market would "fix" price collusion between two sellers is by buyers voluntarily choosing not to buy from those sellers, causing those sellers to lose money and either go out of business or change their practices.
No, it isn't. A free market is a market in which all transactions are voluntary: nothing happens unless both parties agree to make it happen. So unless your competitor agrees to let you sabotage them, sabotaging a competitor is not a free market operation.
@ about 4:40 in this video:
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/uber-s-kalanick-hires-former-...
Which, of course, is you exercising your market decision to not use Uber.
Now this? Nice "pivot" guys.
Its ethically not good but I think it would be wrong to say that we penalized many other companies that make similar plays or resort to tactics that are just as ruthless. It doesn't seem illegal just mean and aggressive.
Honestly, it kinda seems like something they would do.
As an end-user, we must avoid Uber. We can't let them win.
To some extent Uber and Lyft are being driven by customer dissatisfaction with the expensive price-fixed "cab mafia," but in reading about these companies it seems like the sliminess has just shifted to other domains.
By this point, it's an excellent job interview question. "What do you think of Uber?" Anyone says they love Uber is a no-hire.
"Operation SLOG (Supplying Long-term Operations Growth)"
Backronym if ever there was one..
If not, I can see how the combination of Uber's policies can lead to a lot of cancelled rides even without Uber explicitly telling their recruiters to do so. To wit:
- You're an Uber recruiter, and you call up a Lyft driver to pick you up from somewhere.
- At some point, I assume you get to see the driver's profile through Lyft, at which point you flip through your messaging app and realize that he's already been pitched.
- Since Uber discourages you from pitching to the same driver more than once, you cancel the ride.
This leads to a lot of cancelled rides coming from Uber's recruiters, while letting them keep their company line of, "We don't ask our employees to deliberately cancel rides". Because, technically, they haven't.
I had never thought of that before then.
Since most of the risk to these services comes from the regulation side, I wouldn't be surprised that someone's greasing the wheels in Sacramento or Washington. There's enough money at stake here for those involved to do whatever is necessary. When I heard a few days ago that a lawmaker who voted in favor of rideshare restrictions was caught drunk driving the night after the vote, my first thought was that maybe it was a set up. Hire some people to buy this guy a few drinks, encourage him to get on the road, call the police to report a driver driving dangerously. Would you be surprised? I wouldn't.
Anyways, regarding the product - I use Lyft a lot more than Uber since I know a few folks there but most of my friends use both and Sidecar interchangeably. Every time I catch a Lyft, I tend to talk to the driver to figure out how much they're making, what are the pain points, and what can these services do better and there seems to be an opportunity to differentiate. Here were some ideas I had:
- Drivers tell me they can't find a place to relieve themselves since parking is hard to come by around SF. I think they would appreciate some designated "refuel" stations where they can pull up, park, pee, get coffee/red bull, and maybe vacuum or clean their cars up.
- I would love to be able to pick a fuel efficient car and see Lyft do a green mustache to indicate I'm making a choice for a hybrid. Maybe hybrids can get bonus payments since they can stay on the road longer per tank.
- Several friends have complained recently about how random the route-finding applications were that these drivers used. Some used Apple Maps, the built-in nav on the apps, or Google Maps but it wasn't always consistent and some of the routes were TERRIBLE. Seems like an opportunity for either Lyft or Uber to build better path-finding in their largest markets via maybe highly localized traffic information or by paying off the city for access to bus/taxi lanes.
I'm not so sure about that. This is playing dirty no matter who is doing it.
Personally I’d call them out for being unethical scumbags regardless of market position.
the driver did complain however that they were forced to pay $10 for this ability and had no way to opt out.
this was in sf
I don't understand why Silicon Valley and Startups think acting like this is not only acceptable, but should be applauded.
If you were to A/B test for user satisfaction instead (much harder to measure) you'd get a totally different result.
A/B testing is a tool, you can use it for good or bad.
I think you would pretty much get Amazon.
Strictly from a customer point of view they are the company that would get the highest user satisfaction I would give any company.
They do worry me though, that much power in some verticals is far too open to abuse.