
How a 30K-member Facebook group filled the void left by Uber and Lyft in Austin - abhi3
http://techcrunch.com/2016/06/07/how-a-30k-member-facebook-group-filled-the-void-left-by-uber-and-lyft-in-austin/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook
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jdrock
The title and content of this article couldn't be farther from the truth.

1\. Uber and Lyft's absence has created a huge void that remains to this day.
There are crazy long lines at the airport.

2\. There are multiple ridesharing companies that have sprung up in the
meantime. Arcade City is just one of them.

3\. I'm pretty sure Arcade City will disappear once either (a) U/L return or
(b) one of the newer companies (Fare, Fasten, etc.) get more drivers.

Transportation in Austin is terrible right now. Arcade City hasn't changed
that fact.

~~~
mc32
This is the perfect time for an upstart to provide a service which does
conform with city regulation and it or they will be able to swoop in when or
if other cities institute similar requirements to the dismay of the
incumbents.

~~~
kodablah
I'm hoping for the opposite. I am hoping that the voters who wanted the extra
regulation (or just wanted to spite Uber/Lyft out of anger towards their
campaign practices) receive sub par service. As a counterbalance, sometimes
it's good that there are consequences to added regulation that makes
businesses want to cease operations (regardless of who is "right" here).

~~~
schwap
> I am hoping that the voters who wanted the extra regulation ... receive sub
> par service.

Why?

~~~
kodablah
To encourage compromise in other areas of the country/world where citizens and
voters often think there is no downside to adding regulation. So I guess in a
precedent-setting way (unfortunately to the detriment of the minority that was
against the additional regulations). Too often I feel locales make
regulations, even if the majority of the citizens want them, that they feel
have very little downside purely because they don't think companies are
willing to leave.

As egregiously capitalistic as it may sound, I like that companies have to
bend and so do consumers instead of either the company's leverage being too
large or the government/citizens' leverage being too large. In the ride
sharing space, I believe that Uber and Lyft have bent more than
municipalities.

~~~
MikeHolman
It seems to me that Uber and Lyft have not bent much. From my (maybe ignorant)
perspective it looks like their entire practice is to completely ignore all
the laws about taxi regulations until a city threatens to kick them out, by
which point they have enough leverage to change the laws in their favor.

Only this time they played chicken and lost the battle.

~~~
EdHominem
Considering that the government wants them to buy taxi medallions at $0.5M
each, there isn't a lot of bending they can do.

Everything else is a smoke screen over the issue of losing medallion sales.

What people forget during these discussions is that this is _not_ free money
for the city, it's money out of every rider's pocket for an overpriced
service, some small percentage of which trickles down to the city.

As for the battle, Uber is busily serving people elsewhere while Austin is
stuck with cabs. The people of Austin are the losers in this.

------
frakkingcylons
I live in Austin, and at this time there is still a void, but it's being
filled faster than I expected. Fasten launched last week and I've used it four
times already and there's not much to say other than it works just like Uber
and Lyft.

The price is $1-2 more per ride and a I have to wait a few more minutes, but
it does the job. The drivers I've talked to also prefer the compensation
structure more than Uber and Lyft. Fasten's cut is fixed at $1 per ride (vs
20-28%), or $12 for the day. And like Uber, they get paid every Wednesday.

It's not available at the airport, but there's a city bus that drives from the
airport to downtown (where getting a rideshare is easy) in 30 minutes for
$1.75.

EDIT: Clarified Fasten's commission.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
How is liability being addressed? For example, if a Fasten _et al_ rider is
injured in a car accident, who is liable?

~~~
frakkingcylons
From their page on rider safety
([https://fasten.com/safety](https://fasten.com/safety)):

"""

From the moment your ride starts, our goal is to provide the maximum level of
protection for both you and the driver. Fasten provides coverage in the
following areas during your ride:

* Commercial auto liability and uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage up to $1,000,000 per occurrence (this covers you as a rider)

* Contingent comprehensive and collision coverage up to $50,000 per occurrence

"""

------
rockarage
Few journalist know that UBER & Lyft are operating under more restrictive
regulations in NYC. These regulation include fingerprinting, drug test,
medical test and a couple of classes. The cost to comply is at least $600 per
driver to start. There are other cost like special license plates.

Essentially you have to be a professional to drive an Uber/Lyft in NYC,
legally. They comply in NYC so I'm not sure what Uber & Lyft are complaining
about. At least one of them should have stayed, especially Lyft this a missed
opputunity for Lyft.

~~~
csours
I wonder if they formed a coalition for this to ensure No Separate Peace.

------
xur17
I live in Austin, and it's really the other apps like Fare, Fasten, and Get Me
that are filling the void. Fasten ends up being the best price (they also have
the best app coincidentally), coming out to a few dollars more than Uber or
Lyft.

I ended up buiding a web app that keeps track of what apps work where (for
example, Fasten currently doesn't work from the airport), along with the
relative pricing this past weekend:

[https://ridefinder.io](https://ridefinder.io)

~~~
frakkingcylons
Hey I saw your post on the Austin subreddit last week. Thanks for building it,
it's been useful.

------
jalami
I've always wondered how necessary something like Uber or Lyft really was.
Centralized networks lead to critical mass and that's what I always saw as the
appeal. No one wants to hunt for something manually.

I feel like something like craigslist, but with an ebay-like "95% driver
approval rating" would do the job well enough. Sure, there are people that
won't use it for security reasons and lack of standards, but if that's the
case an alternative should prop up that ensures these things with standards
for their drivers. One being cheaper as all funds go between driver and
driven, the other providing a middle man that spends some of these funds to
filter bad actors.

In my opinion, the mandatory regulation isn't really necessary if competition
is healthy. If there's enough demand for finger-printed drivers, a service
should crop up to provide it. Facebook though sounds like a terrible medium
for this kind of thing. People will use what's familiar I guess.

~~~
cortesoft
One of the best parts about Uber is that you just request a ride and it shows
up. The whole process takes seconds to complete, and a driver is there within
a few minutes.

If I had to peruse a list of drivers close to me, find a balance between
price, rating, and proximity... then request a ride from that driver.... and
then have to repeat that process when the driver declines the ride or has
already taken another fare.. I think I would call a cab.

The entire key to the success of Uber is the ease with which you can get a
ride fast. Your idea of a craiglist-ebay hybrid for selecting a ride wouldn't
work.

~~~
jalami
I think you're right. It's not perfect, I just gave a lowest-tech example that
would be serviceable to some people with low middle-man cost.

A lot of Uber drivers aren't loyal though, they'll have both apps open in
order to get fares and I think that's the end-game. Discovery services often
live and die by their exclusives and if there's no viable way to force driver
exclusivity, the discovery medium becomes way more important than the driver.

I'm sure I'm being naive, but I don't think Uber is all that special of a
service. It handles queues, paths and estimation. Other services could out-
feature it with relatively low-tech provided the regulatory overhead isn't
prohibitively expensive, especially if U/L chose not to operate in a that
geographic market.

------
yohoho22
Here's a Texas Tribune article from today detailing other Austin ridesharing
developments in the wake of the Uber/Lyft withdrawal:
[https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/07/austin-post-
prop-1/](https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/07/austin-post-prop-1/)

------
Animats
I'm amazed that anybody can organize anything via Facebook groups. It's like
pounding a screw.

~~~
cheeze
I use FB groups all the time and have never had an issue. Something like
lyft/uber seems difficult, but they fit many other use cases just fine.

You're basically saying "I'm amazed that anybody can organize anything via
<every forum software ever>

------
cperciva
So, to steal a line... capitalism interprets regulations as damage and routes
around them?

~~~
chirs
Completely withdrawing from a location is not really "routing around."

This is a case where capitalism is attempting to dominate the political realm.

~~~
cperciva
Uber and Lyft completely withdrew, but _capitalism_ didn't. To the contrary,
capitalism routed around the lack of Uber and Lyft, by spawning a (poor)
alternative.

------
ars
Oh that's too funny.

So instead of having fingerprints of all drivers, now they don't even have
verified names, but simply completely anonymous people.

Great going lawmakers!

Some things you just can't legislate.

~~~
f0urtyfive
The Austin City council members that promoted the ban had received campaign
contributions from the Texas Taxi Lobby. It was never about having verified
names, it was about making money for Taxis.

~~~
lovemenot
Don't mess with Taxis.

------
mpeg
I love how the only effective way to market an Ethereum dapp seems to be to
create a Facebook group and let people pay with good old cash.

Maybe I'm being a bit too harsh, but the decentralised model just presents way
too many risks for both riders and drivers, and the lack of fees means AC is
not incentivised to protect either.

~~~
zanny
Muggles don't care about decentralization or freedom or privacy. They want to
press a button on their phone and something happens, no matter the
consequences.

There are risks in everything. The only thing any ridesharing app at the end
of the day can truly offer consumers of any meaningfulness in terms of driver
/ rider security are public ratings on both from all their previous customers
and clients. Anything else is some artificial gating metric that tries to
break people down into historic footnotes.

I hope that AC has such a feature, but even if it does not if its an Ethereum
app you can very easily include ratings per contract.

------
zitterbewegung
Looking at this post if Arcade City can provide a background check for people
who use the service and also insurance then they would actually have the
people who drive for the service be closer to contractors instead of the faux
one that Uber/Lyft try to pull off.

------
Spooky23
This brings the empire building nature of Uber into question.

If a group of people on a Facebook group can replace its functions for a
significant group of people in a few days, why is this company valued in the
billions again?

~~~
cortesoft
I love Uber, and I would never use this facebook group.

Uber is awesome because I hit one button and a ride shows up. I don't have to
call anyone, I don't have to type out a message, or delete a thread, or
negotiate a deal with a driver. I don't have to wonder which drivers are close
to me, or even think at all.

I hit button, car shows up.

People are using this sub-optimal solution because it is the only option at
the moment. It is not a replacement for Uber.

~~~
Spooky23
The point is, the lousy Facebook group thing is still better than a cab.

Once Uber runs out of war chest dollars to subsidize rides, what is stopping
competitors?

------
abhi3
Can someone explain why Uber had to shut down? Couldn't they have just
complied with the regulation by fingerprinting drivers?

~~~
betojuareziii
They argued it as a supply-side issue. They see quick onboarding as a key
feature to supplying the demand in a given city. They argued that with the
fingerprint requirement, they would not have enough drivers on the road
quickly and thus create an inferior user experience.

------
aembleton
I heard this the other day on the Radio Motherboard podcast. You can listen to
it here: [https://soundcloud.com/motherboard/when-uber-left-
austin](https://soundcloud.com/motherboard/when-uber-left-austin)

------
guelo
FB normally starts choking off group notifications after a group reaches a
certain size. I wonder if Arcade City is paying to keep the group up and
running.

~~~
natrius
The group doesn't rely on notifications to work. Drivers watch the stream of
posts and riders post into it.

------
caseysoftware
There's some dirtiness and shenanigans around the whole thing too.. including
the Mayor holding a secret meeting with the Uber/Lyft competitors and the City
Council investing taxpayer money in them. I've dug up some of the details but
more to come:

[https://medium.com/@CaseySoftware/mayor-steve-adler-is-
scamm...](https://medium.com/@CaseySoftware/mayor-steve-adler-is-scamming-the-
austin-tech-community-399d12b976e9)

~~~
modfodder
That's just the Mayor and the City Council "disrupting" the current ride
sharing duopoly.

------
TheHolyLancer
When you enact prohibition, people don't stop drinking, you get moonshine and
stills blowing up.

