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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.




> 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".

Personally I’d call them out for being unethical scumbags regardless of market position.


> 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"

I'm not so sure about that. This is playing dirty no matter who is doing it.


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.


I would also consider that playing dirty, although not as much as answering ads, accepting the room, then canceling last minute.


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.

this was in sf


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.




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