[harg]

A few years ago it seemed everyone in London used Uber the whole time to get around. It was pretty cheap and convenient.

Nowadays very few people I know seem to use Uber (and the equivalents) on even an occasional basis. It's a lot more expensive than it used to be and you just can't rely on it any more.

I tried to get one last month for the first time in ages (from a not particularly out-of-way location) and no driver was around to accept my booking. It took over an hour of trying and I eventually managed to get a Bolt. It was a painful experience.

In a way it's a good thing - I don't think it's sustainable to have everyone be driven around in private. vehicles in European cities, especially when there's often very good public transit available. There was a point when Uber usage was simply a lazy habit for people. Although I accept that for some people and situations it is the best option (disabled, lots of luggage etc)

[robertlagrant]

> In a way it's a good thing - I don't think it's sustainable to have everyone be driven around in private

I know people who haven't bought a car because they just use Uber. It was an incredible advancement, but all these services will regress to the mean. In London, TfL, their regulator and competitor, is definitely not a fan, which must be expensive, and having to provide essentially full time jobs to their drivers (who signed up with no such guarantees) is always going to raise internal expenses through the roof.

The person who suffers is the customer, who has to look elsewhere. The one positive is that at least Uber has forced local competition to join the 21st century with app payments, driver photos, location tracking, app payments, etc.

[SV_BubbleTime]

I would argue it’s not regression, that it’s normalization. ZIRP is on pause and things need to be profitable right now, I don’t see this as a bad thing in any way.

If the business model doesn’t work, it shouldn’t have money thrown at it.

[HWR_14]

How is it to societies benefit if someone doesn't buy a car? It could be if someone drives less, but if they replace a car with a car driven by another person, it seems to be even worse.

[benjaminwootton]

It just seemed to stop working in London post pandemic.

I must have used it for 1000 rides before 2020. You would usually be picked up in less than 5 minutes around zone 1.

When I started using it again in late 2021, it became almost impossible to get anyone to accept the order and then not cancel.

It's strange how dramatically it seemed to crash and burn. From ubiquitous to basically useless.

[mhh__]

Seems fine now.

[t0mas88]

I had the same experience. It used to be quite convenient, but not anymore. A few weeks ago I tried to get from Shoreditch to Canary Wharf during a normal workday. Used both Bolt and Uber, took half an hour to get a car while both promised pickup within 3 minutes...

[curiousgal]

Overground to Whitechapel and then Elizabeth Line. I gave up on Uber in London.

[evgen]

I was never a huge Uber fan but would use them occasionally, especially when I needed to take a trip that did not start or end in zone 1. These days? I ended up nuking the app from my phone because the service had become useless. Back to black cabs (and tube/bus) for me.

[a2tech]

Last time I was in London I had the worst time with Uber--I could always get a car, but they could never find me then they'd call me and it was always a mess trying to find one another. I eventually just switched to using the black cabs and that worked a lot better

[janejeon]

Every time I catch an Uber in London, the drivers for some reason always end up massive racists.