I think this is a very good idea! I know many people around where I live who use local Uber drivers whom they trust to schedule early-morning rides to the airport and things like that. The rider will have the driver come to his/her house at the specified time, and then the driver and the rider will both turn on Uber and the rider's request will be filled by that driver because nobody else is nearby that early. This would would make it much easier to do something like that for both the rider and the driver, and I see this as an important use case because it's really the only remaining one which many people would prefer to use a car service or taxi service than Uber/Lyft. It's also much more profitable for the driver so drivers will like this a lot. Great move on Lyft's part, maybe they could consider allowing riders to directly send requests to certain drivers. The point here being that riders using Lyft like a car service have drivers they trust to come on time, not cancel, etc. which are the only potential problems I see here.
Assuming you mean, other than the ethical concerns?
A) Who's insuring the ride? If it's not insured and the driver is at fault in a collision, there could be no one to pay for injuries to you -- Lyft/Uber certainly wouldn't owe anything for stuff booked outside their platform.
Usually when they drive for a TNC, the TNC provides the insurance for the driver in the course of using the app. It's really unlikely for the driver to have a policy that covers them for non-TNC freelance rides -- especially since the big insurers haven't caught up to the realities of this use case and seriously overprice them.
(AIUI, they just have policies that assume you drive full time commercially, nothing that works on a per mile basis -- and even if they do have such policies, that would defeat most of the purpose of cutting out middlemen, as there would now be a written record of the transaction that can't be hidden on taxes.)
B) In order to get enough information to re-book out-of-band you'd have to accept it and then cancel. Do that a lot and it will be grounds for being kicked off the platform.
(The same applies to the people in the anecdotes in the sibling comments.)
Out of curiosity, what are the ethical concerns? The arrangement is not being made by the middleman company. I don't see how it is unethical to not pay them for something they did not do.
Point (B) doesn't make sense to me. Why do you have to accept and then cancel? You just get the driver's phone number and talk to them directly.
In fact, if this is not common already, I think it undermines the contention of these companies that they are merely a service being provided to independent contractors. If drivers are independent contractors, of course they should be trying to build their own brand and dedicated clientele.
Point (A) is a good one, though. Sounds like there should be independent insurance providers that these independent contractors can use.
If you're instead saying that drivers are employees of these companies, then maybe you're right about all the rest of it. But you can't have it both ways!
>Out of curiosity, what are the ethical concerns? The arrangement is not being made by the middleman company. I don't see how it is unethical to not pay them for something they did not do.
Their service was connecting drivers and riders -- allowing them to find each other for the transaction. They connected you. That was their service. (They provide other related intermediary services, but the "finding" function is the big one.)
Same issue as when a recruiter finds leads and the employer makes an offer to the employee directly and cuts out the recruiter, which is why they set up a bunch of contractual barriers to stop it.
EDIT: Sorry, I misunderstood the use case -- that wouldn't apply to future bookings after the first one's been completed and they've exchanged information. But the "moat" there is the difficulty of iterating through your network of past uber drivers for each future ride.
>Point (B) doesn't make sense to me. Why do you have to accept and then cancel? You just get the driver's phone number and talk to them directly.
AFAIK, they don't give you any way to contacting each other until the ride is accepted. Am I mistaken here?
>If you're instead saying that drivers are employees of these companies, then maybe you're right about all the rest of it. But you can't have it both ways!
No. You can have a legitimate claim to compensation for connecting two people without the seller thereby being your employee -- see the recruiting example (though it's a bit confusing in that there is another employment relationship in the picture but I'm sure you see the mapping -- a recruiter can legitimately claim that they're owed a cut while not saying that their the employer of the, er, hiring manage or the candidate).
EDIT: As above, that wouldn't apply to future rides or job offers after that contract.
There is no moral or ethical obligation to compensate Lyft or Uber for future rides not on their platform.
Also, it seems anyone could replicate this feature by using Stripe Connect. It's cool, but expect rapid commoditization of preplanned ride coordination.
> AFAIK, they don't give you any way to contacting each other until the ride is accepted. Am I mistaken here?
You're not mistaken, but the implication from the parent was that the rider had ridden with the drive before...
> I know many people around where I live who use local Uber drivers whom they trust to schedule early-morning rides to the airport and things like that.
That's what I would do with my driver. She'd arrive, and I would look up an Uber cost estimate, and then pay her cash for the average amount I was quoted. I also could ask her to run errands for me, using this same system.
The benefit is that you can deal with a trusted driver rather than someone that takes 3 wrong turns on the way there then misses the exit for the airport.
You are missing the details here. OP is suggesting that they get an Uber/Lyft driver then instead of paying through the app, pay with cash. Same driver, just no insurance.
What a world we live in. Most of the country (and planet) is so broke they are just scraping by, while programmers have "drivers" and personal shoppers. Wouldn't want to distract those people who have to get to work every day to figure out how to sell the poor people ads!
With Homejoy, you could build a relationship with a single housekeeper, and arrange for them to come once a month. If you're using Uber to commute, it's absolutely the same and very worth cutting out the middle man.
The rest of the time, if you need a ride at a time/place that isn't regular, the driver you know might be far away, might not be driving at that time and might be driving someone else, so it will generally be worth it to pay a premium.
The difference with Homejoy was that many people on their site already had existing cleaning companies. They were using Homejoy for customer acquisition. Once that customer was acquired, there was no need for Homejoy. Once Homejoy was out of the picture, the cleaners regular liability insurance would still be in play. Obviously there were some cleaners that did not have a business.
The difference with Uber/Lyft is that these drivers don't have a business outside of the app. Therefore, once you eliminate the app, you eliminate their commercial insurance and it becomes a really interesting situation if there were ever an accident.
I've had at least a dozen Uber drivers suggest something similar when I road with them more than once. Almost all of them wanted to setup something so I'd pay less and they'd make more.
I hadn't done it as I usually don't need Uber / Lyft much but most of the people I know who have used Uber / Lyft have also gotten similar offers so it must be pretty common I would think.
That works until there is any sort of an accident and the driver's insurance doesn't cover them operating their vehicle as a business. Part of the commission that gets paid goes to providing insurance.
I imagine that when reporting it to the police/insurance agency, many (most?) drivers would omit the fact that they were driving for business purposes when the accident occurred.
Not saying this is legal/ethical, just that it would come to mind in that situation.
If that friend got into an accident while driving to Home Depot for you, would you pay their insurance deductible? If they got hurt would you pay their medical bills? Would you do the same for your off the books taxi driver?
If you get hurt while helping a friend, would you really ask them to compensate you? I wouldn't unless they were somehow responsible. Accidents happen.
It sounds like a good incentive for UbLyft/Lyftber to make things so seamless that it's more hassle to set up an arrangement like that. Until then, that sounds like a good idea.
In Thailand I used GrabTaxi and once I found a driver whom I got along with, I got their personal number and would do this very thing. It worked well for them and me! But then Grab missed out :/
Oh wow, didn't realize that was the focus of the story -- the title should be "Lyft now allows prebooking on both sides", not the existence of a driver-specific app (though breaking it into a separate app is interesting too).
Yep. This is the key for cooperating with shuttles. First, it's much harder to fill a shuttle on-the-spot (with good routes - very important for experience), than using pre-scheduled demand. And afaik, most of the shuttle market already work on pre-scheduled, so it's a requirement(unless you build your own fleet).
But if you do manage to cooperate with shuttles, the prices they could offer are so different than taxis, that sharing may become much less of a pain point for many people.
> trust to schedule early-morning rides to the airport and things like that
It's nice that you can schedule things like this, but if I have a 6AM connecting flight to a once in a two year trip outside the country, I'm booking a rental the night before and dropping the car off early in the morning before my flight. What happens if the driver for some reason can't make it that morning? Is there a backup driver? I'd need to be guaranteed with a backup list at least 10 deep to go with the lyft option here.
So this is of course anecdotal but the only time I book taxis is when it's very important I get somewhere in time, like catching a plane early in the morning. Given the nature of Uber/Lyft it would take a lot before I would trust them with this.
Are taxis more reliable than lift/uber where you live? My experience in Australia is the opposite.
I never had a uber (no lift here) not showing up , while booking a taxi is almost like a lottery. Few years back our office manager booked 4 cabs for 6pm of the following day because we had a work function to go to. The first cab showed up at 6.50 after countless calls to the taxi company, the other never did.
We ended up calling 3 uber and we were on our way within 10 minutes.
That was the day I swore to never get on a taxi again, unless I really really had to.
Similar experience as you with taxis in America. About 6 months ago a good friend was getting married and we booked 3 taxis from one company to take us from his house to downtown. Ultimately the taxi company only sent one guy to drive back and forth 3 times, making it take almost an hour to get everyone there. Coming home 3 of us simply ordered 3 different ubers and we all got back in 10 minutes.
"America" is a very large place. The taxi experience in NYC is going to be very different than somewhere in North Dakota (or even just another city, like Los Angeles).
I've had bad experiences like this with both taxis and Ubers. With Uber, I've had dozens of experiences where either (1) There were no drivers available in my area, (2) The drivers repeatedly canceled on me, or (3) The driver didn't cancel, but also never came to pick me up, and instead just drove in the opposite direction for 10-15 minutes.
I now don't trust taxis, Uber, or Lyft to get me to the airport very early in the morning. I live in DC, not exactly a small town.
This is why I still use an old-school limo company ("limo" as in fancy black car, not a real limousine) for airport pickups/dropoffs in my home city. Years ago I found one that's extremely reliable and trustworthy. Nearly five years later I haven't had a single issue.
Uber in general is much better than taxis, but I still wouldn't really trust it for time-critical early morning pickups.
A tactic some Uber drivers seem to use to avoid having to cancel (which can get them kicked off the platform if they do it too frequently) is to just drive away from you until you get frustrated and cancel on your end.
it's a death spiral. If you call for more than one taxi and drop them, it incentivises taxis to drop their pre-booked clients and pick up people on the road instead, which incentivises people to call for more taxis than they need, etc.
So this is of course anecdotal but the only time I use Lyft (I avoid Uber) when it's very important I get somewhere in time, like catching a plane early in the morning. Given the nature of Taxis, it would take a lot before I would trust Taxis with this.
Edit: The last time I booked a taxi it was 2-3 years ago for a 4am ride to PDX. I booked two to be safe, only one came anyways.
Having done the traveling consultant thing for a while, I completely agree with this sentiment. There is no such thing as a reliable driving service. I've used cabs, black cars, and apps. None of them are anywhere near 100% but one of them is obviously a lot more convenient.
My last experience with a taxi was going to Logan airport. I called one; dispatcher said it'd come in 10 minutes. Never came 15 minutes later. Called another, same thing.
Ended up flagging a taxi down (taxis rarely drove by where I lived but I was in luck (?) after 30 minutes of waiting on the curb).
I am a frequent user of Uber. I don't use Lyft at all. I don't see any reason to use Lyft over uber. It's price estimation is wrong. Uber says $39 for airport, Lyft says $35 - $46 for airport. Estimated time of arrival is also wrong. Uber says it will take 4 mins for driver to come while Lyft will say drive will reach in one minute. I mean I can see on the map there is no way driver can reach in one minute.
Whenever someone say he uses Lyft over uber and I ask the reason. They always says they don't like Uber because they can't tip the driver. I understand there is tipping culture in USA so that could be reason to prefer Lyft.
I can't speak for jngreenlee, but a lot of people are uncomfortable with Uber's business tactics and ethics. Their HR team allegedly sidestepped one employee's very serious sexual harassment complaints, they've allegedly been complicit in using stolen LiDAR IP, along with a whole host of other shady things they've done in competition with Lyft.
Howdy fellow Austinite, you somehow managed to speak for me anyways! These are additional reasons for me to have some resistance switching, even if Lyft had failed me in some way (they haven't).
Add to it that they want to "always know my location", etc
I use Lyft over Uber because Uber is an awful company run by a scumbag and there have been dozens of different high-profile reasons over the years (and many of them in the past couple of months) that any one of them would be a good reason to drop Uber.
I find that very odd; I haven't noticed that much of a difference between any of the taxi-like apps I've used. I almost always end up sitting in the front, especially in Austin.
Plus, don't most drivers drive for both companies at the same time?
That's a surprising experience, I take an Uber at least 2-3 times a week in the bay area and I sit up front almost every single time, unless I have a package with me. I have never been asked to sit in the backseat, even after >700 Uber rides.
Here in Portland almost every driver uses both apps so I don't find a difference in driving. I prefer Uber simply because there's less expectation of tipping and the price is about the same.
Not Op but a few reasons why I prefer Lyft: The app is (subjectively much) nicer, the company seems to treat their drivers better, tipping let's me thank excellent drivers (rating less than 5 stars hurts their livelihood and I reserve for safety or other exceptional cases), Uber drivers annectodally have been less courteous and have canceled on me or refused to actually come to my spot, and Uber the corporation has garnered a bit of a reputation I am hesitant to support.
I use Lyft because Uber has a reputation for being hostile towards their drivers. anecdotally, drivers I've spoken to either used both companies but preferred the way Lyft treated them, or had given up on Uber entirely.
For a while there was a story every week about Uber on HN. Stories of high up executive hires leaving the company, blogs about their toxic culture, revelations of programs like greyball that used machine learning to help avoid government agents, their "Hell" map which uses fake users on other Taxi/Lyft platforms to track all their competitors, how Uber drivers get paid 1/3 of what they did three years ago in many cities, and the list goes on and on and on.
The place is a figurative shit show. Even if the drivers get paid the same from Uber vs Lyft, and even though all companies do shady things, I think I'd still rather give my money to Lyft than anything to Uber.
I think this strongly depends on your local taxi industry. I would never trust a "booked" taxi to turn up on time or at all. There is a reason that Uber became so popular.
In Boston, my experience for many years has been that when booking a taxi the evening before a morning flight there's a 50% chance they'll show up (at all). This both dealing with dispatch centers and direct numbers of drivers.
With Uber/Lyft, I can see the approximate ETA and general availability of cars even before I order the pickup, plan my morning accordingly, and be confident I'll get to the airport on time.
In Palo Alto, taxis are incredibly unreliable. You call for a taxi, they give you an ETA, then they pass your request off to someone else (who in my experience is often not an actual taxi driver). That person is coming from somewhere else, so the ETA is way off, and when you call back to see where the driver is it's a big game of telephone. After 20 mins you realize you should have just used Uber/Lyft and you do that instead. Needless to say, we never use taxis anymore.
I tried to use the Uber pre-ordering for a taxi to the airport a couple of weeks ago. Magically a surge started in my area a couple of minutes before the order was executed. After a driver had been routed, they notified me there was a surge, but did not tell me the amount. It wasn't until the ride finished that my estimated $30 trip actually cost me $85.
Having been severely burned on two occasions by taxis booked for a flight, which didn't show up, and the dispatcher not caring at all and telling me another car would come in "45-60 minutes", by which time I would no longer need to go to the airport as my flight would have left without me... Well, I would trust pretty much any other option before I would ever try to use a traditional cab for an early morning airport trip again.
I don't think scheduling a ride a few days in advance actually helps the drivers. One of the best things about Uber or Lyft for the drivers is that they don't have to think about scheduling, they're told exactly where to drive.
If they have a scheduled ride and they forget about it, or they're stuck waiting around to make that ride and lose business, that doesn't seem like it will be popular.
One big thing that Uber needs to fix is the incentive scheme. One of the Uber drivers I talked to said she hated how they were, in my words, gamified into earning their incentive bonuses. And the incentive bonuses change every time, so it makes it hard for them to keep track. That's something Uber needs to change in order to increase driver satisfaction, making it clearer and more consistent on how to earn the incentives which is where the drivers make more. I don't see how Lyft's "Power Zones" are any different from Uber showing where surge is occurring, but if it works, then great.
This could be something for Lyft drivers people who don't drive so regularly. You could for example spot gigs which you can handle while riding to work. If you know day or two beforehand, you can then adjust your schedule accordingly.
Think about potential drivers in rural areas. I can see this being a key feature that helps Lyft expand into areas with low population density and sparse ridership. Drivers don't want to turn on the app and wait all day -- they'd rather schedule that trip in advance.
I think the key to the article is that when the ride is booked in advance, the driver sees the route and destination. A big compliant from drivers is that you accept a ride and you don't know if you are going 1 mile down the road or 100 miles to the middle of no where. Now the driver can see before accepting the ride (for these advanced booked trips).
I agree. Almost every Uber driver I talk to is unhappy with the constant bonus grind. The bonuses tend to incentivize short rides, so my long ride requests make drivers unhappy. I don't see drivers sticking around if their working hours and pay don't improve.
The drivers are almost always running Lyft and Uber on separate phones, so it looks like a tremendous opportunity for both services to improve and capture the market.
This could be a really good thing if you're an hour away from the airport where you have a morning flight, but a really bad thing if the driver decides that morning to not take you. :)
That would require there to be another driver, which in a less populous area at 4AM might not be the case. It seems like there would need to be steep penalties on both parties if they cancel near the arranged time.
Eg: Driver cancels 2 hours before pickup. Lyft penalizes driver x% of total fee, then uses that to "bid up" the price on that pickup to entice another driver to fulfill the request at the last minute. This has the potential to help attract drivers to go out of their way, which could help in less urban areas.
With the caveat that I don't work for Lyft DevOps or anything (I only used to be a driver way back when)... If you need to make a critical update to the driver side your code is solidly firewalled from having to pass integration tests with the passenger side, and there's a possibility that some problems bleed through between the two different parts of the app. In the early days, there were a few updates where such things leaked through (if I remember correctly, there was one version update where the passengers accidentally could see the primetime map).
Quite frankly, I'm suprised they hadn't done it sooner.
It works pretty well if you turn off JavaScript entirely. I use the "Toggle JavaScript" Chrome extension (by "dsmith" in the chrome web store) for that.
As a rider, I haven't noticed the Lyft app to be slow or especially bloated, so it will be interesting to see if it is significantly faster once the update pushes through with the driver portion removed.
I doubt it. If you aren't a driver I think it would be senseless to be running driver code at the same time as rider code. Maybe a little less disk (flash?), but I'm not certain. I'm neither a mobile dev or a Lyft employee.
Interesting, there's obviously a demand for this feature but I wonder if it will change the way the end user books rides substantially or if its just a nice to have.
Uber has had these features for a while now. As someone else mentioned, Didi has had these features too. 71 upvotes so far. This just further reinforces my view that there is an active voting ring on HN manipulating Uber and Lyft stories in Lyft's favor, which is ironic since many of the comments on such stories talk about Uber being shady.
Throwaway because I fully expect the voting ring people to downvote this.
Downvoters and those who upvoted this story, please leave a comment explaining why this is front page worthy.
> Downvoters and those who upvoted this story, please leave a comment explaining why this is front page worthy.
We don't owe you an explanation, but I'll offer one anyway: I upvoted because it's a story about a popular tech company, and the way they're trying to improve their offering for their semi-employees. Why wouldn't I upvote this?
I dislike the hyper-hatred against Uber that has become fashionable in these parts myself, but I don't think there's any need to resort to conspiracy theories to explain this post getting to the front page.
Internet users are much too quick to interpret disagreement by others as nefarious bad faith. Please don't comment in that spirit here, unless you have evidence of abuse (in which case please send it to us at hn@ycombinator.com, so we can look into it). The overwhelming majority of the time, it's just other users who have different views than you do.
Because the mechanics of how these companies make these decisions, insight into a job I don't do, and competition in a space where, a year ago, I had simply assumed Uber won was interesting.
If I'm part of an organized voting ring, I didn't get the memo.
