[vikaveri]

Why is an app needed? Maybe it's different in the US but we've had an app to get a taxi for quite a while. I've never seen any need to install that app. It's easier to call, tell how many people need a ride, tell when it's needed and get a confirmation that it's on its way and long it'll take for it to be there. Why do I need an app?

[vikaveri]

Before Uber, we had taxi companies bidding for areas. Winning bid got a monopoly for that area. That company would often use subcontractors to have enough drivers. In exchange for monopoly they needed to guarantee a certain level of service. You could get sy taxi at any time to any where, at the same rate, without surge charges. Literally every taxi was new, high end, clean, safe and comfortable. Uber lobbied to change it to "free market" model, promising lower prices, better service. Monopoly areas were removed. We started getting drivers who were dodging taxes, couldn't navigate, used lower quality cars. It should I say that happened in some cities, because Uber doesn't operate in the smaller cities. We still have the same drivers here, in a smaller city but since there's no service level guarantee anymore, there's a ton of taxis available during peak hours but it might be impossible to get one in the middle of the night because it's not cost effective anymore to have drivers standing by. You can also forget about trying to get a taxi to or from to far from cities because that's not cost effective either. Prices have gone up as well. I've talked few dozen drivers and they've all hated the change.

But at least I can use an app if I wanted to

[ChatGTP]

You’re on hacker news and you ask “why do I need an app?”, red alert.

I agree with you by the way.

[vikaveri]

If I may paraphrase a book title "The best app is no app"? :-) Besides, I thought we're supposed to be building services you can talk with now so you don't have to fiddle with old fashioned buttons anymore? Sure the human component doesn't scale that well, but it's pretty localized service and speech recognition is amazing.