Comment by api

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.