Uber vs. Lyft?
Jan. 31st, 2017 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jducoeurh/t to drwex for pointing out this article. (tl;dr: when taxi drivers held a strike to protest Trump's policies, Uber went and dropped their prices to fill in the void.)
On the one hand, I wouldn't necessarily condemn Uber if it was *just* this incident, and I'm enough of a businessman to sympathize with the desire to grab market share when there's an opportunity. That said, Uber has shown an exceptional degree of anti-social bull-headedness even by the standards of corporate America -- they've consistently been assholes at the corporate level -- and their CEO joined one of Trump's advisory boards, which doesn't exactly endear them to me.
And on top of that, Lyft (their biggest competitor) is apparently responding by donating a million bucks to the ACLU.
It's time to start making clear to corporate America that we *are* paying attention, and we *are* going to punish them where it counts -- in the balance sheet. The right wing has been using this tactic pretty effectively over the years, and we should be playing the game, hard. So I think I'm likely to join the #deleteuber movement.
Which brings us to the question: I haven't used Lyft. Is there *any* reason not to just delete the Uber app and switch?
(NB: I actually still use old-fashioned taxis a fair amount, in part because I sympathize with the poor bastards who spent a fortune on a medallion whose value has crashed. Green/Yellow Cab is doing a fair job of being somewhat competitive, and I commend their app to folks who live in this neck of the woods. But in some circumstances the modern ride-hailing services are just more convenient, as well as usually cheaper, and I don't really have any principled objection to them...)
drwex for pointing out this article. (tl;dr: when taxi drivers held a strike to protest Trump's policies, Uber went and dropped their prices to fill in the void.)On the one hand, I wouldn't necessarily condemn Uber if it was *just* this incident, and I'm enough of a businessman to sympathize with the desire to grab market share when there's an opportunity. That said, Uber has shown an exceptional degree of anti-social bull-headedness even by the standards of corporate America -- they've consistently been assholes at the corporate level -- and their CEO joined one of Trump's advisory boards, which doesn't exactly endear them to me.
And on top of that, Lyft (their biggest competitor) is apparently responding by donating a million bucks to the ACLU.
It's time to start making clear to corporate America that we *are* paying attention, and we *are* going to punish them where it counts -- in the balance sheet. The right wing has been using this tactic pretty effectively over the years, and we should be playing the game, hard. So I think I'm likely to join the #deleteuber movement.
Which brings us to the question: I haven't used Lyft. Is there *any* reason not to just delete the Uber app and switch?
(NB: I actually still use old-fashioned taxis a fair amount, in part because I sympathize with the poor bastards who spent a fortune on a medallion whose value has crashed. Green/Yellow Cab is doing a fair job of being somewhat competitive, and I commend their app to folks who live in this neck of the woods. But in some circumstances the modern ride-hailing services are just more convenient, as well as usually cheaper, and I don't really have any principled objection to them...)
(no subject)
Date: 2017-01-31 08:21 pm (UTC)2. Lyft also (I hear) undercut the strike, but they have pledged that $1/four years, so that goes a long way toward good in my book.
Best case scenario would be a charity war between them, tho. Dare Uber to donate a BILLION dollars to the ACLU. Just to show Uber who's got more VC!