<story><title>The Uber whistleblower: I’m exposing a system that sold people a lie</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/11/uber-files-whistleblower-lobbyist-mark-macgann</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>yupper32</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s also important to realize that the reason Uber and Lyft were able to crush the taxi industry is in part because the taxi industry was absolutely horrible to consumers.&lt;p&gt;The simple act of being able to know what I&amp;#x27;m going to be charged beforehand, and know that the driver has little ability to scam me out of as much money as they can extract from me at my destination made Uber and Lyft SO much better. That should be the bare minimum, and yet the taxi industry couldn&amp;#x27;t figure that out for the most part.&lt;p&gt;I do not care about them breaking taxi laws or regulations. Their treatment of their &amp;quot;employees&amp;quot; absolutely needs improvement, but my god I do not care about the taxi industry as a whole.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>abirch</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m old enough to remember calling a taxi company the day before a flight to arrange a pickup at my place for 5:30. Then calling them again 5:00 the day of the flight and them telling me that the one guy didn&amp;#x27;t come in so now they couldn&amp;#x27;t pick me up until 7 -- My flight departure time! Then me frantically calling other taxi companies. I had to skip my shower.&lt;p&gt;They seemed to hate their customers</text></comment>
<story><title>The Uber whistleblower: I’m exposing a system that sold people a lie</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/11/uber-files-whistleblower-lobbyist-mark-macgann</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>yupper32</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s also important to realize that the reason Uber and Lyft were able to crush the taxi industry is in part because the taxi industry was absolutely horrible to consumers.&lt;p&gt;The simple act of being able to know what I&amp;#x27;m going to be charged beforehand, and know that the driver has little ability to scam me out of as much money as they can extract from me at my destination made Uber and Lyft SO much better. That should be the bare minimum, and yet the taxi industry couldn&amp;#x27;t figure that out for the most part.&lt;p&gt;I do not care about them breaking taxi laws or regulations. Their treatment of their &amp;quot;employees&amp;quot; absolutely needs improvement, but my god I do not care about the taxi industry as a whole.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nostromo</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s funny though: cabs have gotten better and Uber has gotten worse.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve switched back to taking cabs from the airport.  Ubers are slower (cabs are sitting there just waiting) and much, much expensive now (like 2x the cost of a cab).&lt;p&gt;The product isn&amp;#x27;t any better anymore.  The cars are rundown and often smelly.  It is nice to be able to put in an address and not deal with a credit card payment at the destination -- but that&amp;#x27;s about the only benefit left.</text></comment>