Comment by misja111
1 day ago
Lol. Before Uber 'destroyed' the functioning taxi market in Amsterdam, getting a taxi after going out meant waiting for sometimes up to 45 minutes. It meant standing in a line and when someone cut the line in front of you, saying something about it could get you in a fight. Taxi drivers often were (former) criminals who cashed in their savings of black money to get a taxi license and a quiet life. Occasionally tourists were robbed or taken on detours, good luck to get your money back in those days. And I'm not even mentioning the outrageous prices yet for a taxi drive in the city in those days.
Uber might not be 100% perfect but it has been a real blessing, a salvation of all the misery that we had to endure in the 'functioning' taxi market.
I often tried taking taxis after reading about shady practices of Uber and Lyft. I usually came away saying “never again.”
You wait too long to get picked up by a smelly dirty old car and then they pull stuff like pretending the card reader is broken to get you to stop at an ATM so they can avoid taxes.
The worst experiences were in SF. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these companies started there. Of course SF is uniquely dysfunctional in many ways.
I’ve read many comments online over the years to the effect that people would pay more for Uber and Lyft to destroy the taxi industry.
What’s wrong with the taxi industry is that it’s a cartel, especially in major cities, and everyone knows when you have a monopoly or a cartel everything starts to suck.