
Do nice guys come second? - edward
https://www.1843magazine.com/features/do-nice-guys-come-second
======
colmvp
As mentioned in the article and countless times on HN:

 _Many people in Silicon Valley are biased against Lyft because they think
that ride-sharing will be a winner-takes-all market. They are probably wrong.
Once a ride-sharing company gets to a certain level of reliability and waiting
times are short enough, there is little benefit to using one service over
another. Uber and Lyft will both be able to claim a lead in lots of cities,
and both will be around for a while._

Furthermore, if you live in a city with both, it's not uncommon to talk with
drivers who work for both services.

I will also add that the need for expansion has toned down the quirkiness of
Lyft from when they first out a few years back. The giant furry mustache was
replaced. No more fist bumps. And the drivers I encounter are generally less
talkative and charismatic. That's not meant to criticize the company, but
AFAIC, there is just a lot less separating the two companies.

So playing it slow and sane might be second in the long run, but if they keep
expanding I don't see them not eating into Uber's market and climbing their
way up. Well, unless of course Uber's investment into driverless cars is able
to come to fruition within our lifetime.

~~~
Declanomous
I have no idea what the situation is like in the rest of the country, but Lyft
seems to do pretty well in Chicago. The drivers I speak to tend to use both
Lyft and Uber, but prefer Lyft overall; Lyft allows tipping, and Uber
customers are allegedly pickier.

I'd say most people I know use one or the other exclusively. I think Uber
actually tends to be cheaper at busier times than Lyft if you tip when you use
Lyft. The average Uber vehicle seems newer than Lyft vehicle as well.

Either way, I don't think Lyft is at much of a competitive disadvantage in
Chicago, at least in the 20-something crowd. The older individuals I know are
much more likely to use Uber exclusively, and use the features that are not
present in Lyft, like calling a standard taxi, or Uber Black.

It's all anecdotal of course, but I personally wouldn't worry too much about
Lyft. I think the fact that they appear to allow a broader range of vehicles
and drivers is a competitive advantage.

~~~
neeleshs
Allowing tipping is why I don't use Lyft.

~~~
buu700
Exactly this, to be honest. I use Lyft whenever Uber is too far away, but
always prefer Uber given the choice primarily for this reason. (That, and Uber
has a superior airport pickup UI, last I checked.)

It's not about money; it's just a UX thing. I don't like having to remember to
go back into the app after the fact to pay more to not look like a jerk. I'd
rather Lyft just raise their rates by 15% and kill the option to tip, or at
least give me an opt-in setting to auto-tip (and factor the auto-tip into fare
estimates).

~~~
st3v3r
"I don't like having to remember to go back into the app after the fact to pay
more to not look like a jerk"

But you don't. The driver doesn't see that you tipped or not.

------
spiderfarmer

      But Lyft is stuck in Uber’s shadow. I asked one venture capitalist what he thought of Lyft. He put his thumb and index finger into an L shape, brought his hand to his forehead and mouthed “loser”.
    

I don't get this obsession with market share. Is Apple a loser? Is Pepsi a
loser?

~~~
_pmf_
> I asked one venture capitalist what he thought of Lyft. He put his thumb and
> index finger into an L shape, brought his hand to his forehead and mouthed
> “loser”.

Is this some kind of satire? Do people who have left their fraternity some
years ago actually talk that way?

~~~
bitwize
Have VCs actually left their fraternity?

------
BatFastard
No, nice guys come in 15th. Cause they are being tripped, sued, and cheated by
the sociopaths. And there seems to be an endless number of those.

As a nice guy developer for many years, who has build some amazing products, I
have learned that no good dead goes unpunished. Irregardless I will continue
to be a nice guy because that is how I believe the world 'should' work. One
last cheer for Bernie!

~~~
ikeyany
Surely it's possible to be a nice guy while screwing over the cheaters.

~~~
daveloyall
Cheaters are people.

~~~
daveloyall
Wow, that got a downvote?

I meant it as answer to the question: No, it's not possible to screw over
people while being a nice guy. Ipso facto.

~~~
ikeyany
I did not downvote you, but I question why you suppose righting a wrong makes
you no longer 'nice'.

~~~
daveloyall
Alternatively: you can screw over the cheaters all you want. But, don't call
yourself a nice guy. :)

I believe this is one of the reasons it's common for people to self-describe
themselves as assholes.

~~~
ikeyany
Being nice and punishing someone else are not mutually exclusive.

------
CapitalistCartr
"Sorry, you need to enable JavaScript to visit this website."

~~~
awalGarg
If you use some style injector plugin (like stylish), you can add this for
that page:

    
    
        #seckit-noscript-tag { display: none; }
    

and it works fine... (or you can remove the matching div from the web
inspector if you are using a browser which has one).

Aside: That one element is blocking an entire working page for no reason.
Where oh where has web dev come to :'(

~~~
erlehmann_
It probably is not “for no reason” – the reason is that the page contains
advertising and tracking scripts. The page owner is even willing to lie
(pretending that JS is necessary is a flat-out lie if the page works fine
without any JS features) so that users enable JS and run those.

In 2013, I created a program to visualize what hosts a web site notifies when
it is loaded [http://daten.dieweltistgarnichtso.net/src/list-web-
bugs.py](http://daten.dieweltistgarnichtso.net/src/list-web-bugs.py) – you can
see the output for the article here:
[http://daten.dieweltistgarnichtso.net/pics/graphs/web-
bugs/w...](http://daten.dieweltistgarnichtso.net/pics/graphs/web-
bugs/www.1843magazine.com-web-bugs.png)

~~~
gluelogic
Hey, this is cool! Nice work. I am going to play around with this later.

~~~
erlehmann_
I also have a page to visualize German newspapers' tracking:
[http://news.dieweltistgarnichtso.net/posts/zeitungs-
tracking...](http://news.dieweltistgarnichtso.net/posts/zeitungs-
tracking.html)

------
bovermyer
I really like this idea: "They have talked about building a city and designing
it differently, so the car would not dominate the landscape."

Custom-designing a utopic city has been tried before (see California City),
but I never tire of seeing people try. The end result could be fantastic,
especially in this case.

------
panglott
Lyft, has a name that is not distinctive from the English word "lift", which
may make for a nice pun, but it's harder to express in conversation that
you'll use a ride-sharing service rather than just calling a friend. "I'll get
a lift."

Uber has a lot more brand recognition, but like Chik-fil-A they are also known
by a minority for terrible business practices and are on unofficial boycott.

~~~
scintill76
You're saying Chick-fil-A has terrible business practices? The only reason I
know for people to hate them is that their owners have taken Christianity-
based opposition to gay marriage (or something alone these lines), which
doesn't really seem like a business practice of the restaurants.

~~~
panglott
Perhaps I should have said just "terrible practices". The brand is about
perception, and lots of liberals perceive Chik-fil-A as materially supporting
regressive social values. Too bad the chicken is fantastic.

With Uber you have the perception that the company is exploiting drivers,
driving down wages, disregarding how it puts women at risk, and all kinds of
sexist behavior. [http://time.com/3595318/uber-sexism-tech-delete-
app/](http://time.com/3595318/uber-sexism-tech-delete-app/)

