That was always the goal. Uber and Lyft prices were heavily subsidized early on. Their investors poured billions into them in order to not just establish market share, but tk drive existing taxi services out of business. Taxi services that had things like: fleets of company-owned vehicles instead of personal vehicles, commercials grade maintenance schedules, stricter licensing requirements for drivers, unionized employees instead of independent contractors, etc

Uber and Lyft just plain ignored a lot of existing regulations by saying "those don't apply because this is an app" to legislators who were too old to know how to turn on a smart phone. They got the public on-board by temporarily offering artificially low prices and high payouts to drivers. Now they have established themselves and removed the competition, so the payouts are going down and the prices are going up.

There are still some US cities that do not allow Uber or Lyft to operate, and there are other countries in the world that do the same.

[–] The_Terrible_Humbaba@slrpnk.net 0 points 2 months ago

It's still miles better than Cabs, I can't believe this even has to be argued! When was the last time anyone here defending cabs/shitting on Uber actually took a cab somewhere?

The few times I had to/decided to take a taxi, I got absolutely ripped off. And with an Uber, even if it's expensive, you at least know before hand how much you're paying. You can decline if you think it's too much. Good luck trying that with taxis.

[–] makeshift0546@lemmy.today -5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I couldn't give a fuck any the regulations. They sucked and did nothing. Cabs were broken and Uber fixed that shit right up.

[–] paultimate14@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

How were they broken?

[–] makeshift0546@lemmy.today -2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Scamming, not showing up, not servicing 'those people '.