@sun Cloud: more convenient better experience Tifa: more convenient better experience Barret: more convenient better experience Yuffie: more convenient better experience Red XIII: more convenient better experience
@sally@sun nothing comes even close to the convenience of torrenting tbh: - literally free - no ads - lots of subtitles and audio options - anything from 144p to 4K, you name it - runs on any device, no "app" required - no region lock, no censorship - downloads (without arbitrary limits to make you stay online) - sharing is caring
Most streaming platforms do not even deliver HLS streams properly if you use a web browser, Netflix will deliberately cripple your bitrate and refuse to serve you 4K footage unless you use their shitty client which is not available in anything that isn't a proprietary operating system, that doesn't sound convenient to me.
@sun > is has an app reason for me to not use it. i don't need your fucking spyware to burn through my battery while crashing if i don't have google services installed, i fucking hate apps. > ratings ig that's something normies really care about > gps tracking you mean, the company tracks the vehicles? i thought every taxi company does that?
@sun@shitposter.world Streaming: more convenient better experienceGood BD rips actually look way better than a lot of streaming versions of shows/movies. Also qbittorrent search plugins are goated I find anything I want in like 10 seconds.
@lucy taxis didn’t innovate at all and just relied on city monopolies . So I laugh when people complain Uber broke the rules. Fuck the rules, they are only there to enrich a few people and stop competition
@cinnamon@lucy the taxi medallion is a way that they keep prices high and reduce competition because they only give out a smaller number than the demand
For instance, in Spain at least, all taxi owners are freelances. They must get a license from the city Council to operate and the prices are standard for all of them (set by the Council). This system (even if expensive) is fairer with the owner-drivers than a big company exploiting drivers.
It has downsides too, tho. The fares are generally expensive (compared to buses/trains, although I think that's normal anywhere) and there's a "license bubble" (licenses can be re-sold when the owner retires, and their prices increase more and more with time, up to the point that in my area a taxi license can cost as much as a flat).
@susie@lucy Uber forced cab companies to make good apps to be competitive.
I don’t want to say nothing is better but u er was created because cab companies in the USA were stagnant monopolies. Uber can’t get a foothold in countries where cab companies have their shit together
@sun Here the taxi companies have apps too. You can order a taxi to a destination from where you are and choose between prepaid or paying at the destination.
Since the app only calls official taxis they speak fluent Finnish and drive a spaceous modern vehicles. Not sure what you need ratings for in that case, since they are all qualified professionals.
No, it isn't cheaper, but it ain't predatory either. And unlike uber the drivers are professionals contracted under a company with all the regulations and protections that follow.
I also always get a professional taxi when visiting Estonia, because they actually are cheap there. And the idea of taking an uber or a shady taxi when in a foreign country is a no no. I don't care if people have generally favourable experiences, I am not risking it. @lucy
@sun >streaming is more convenient have to use vpn to change location to watch what you want >streaming is a better experience lower quality due to bandwidth vs fixed quality >cloud is more convenient I have a 1T flash drive that's the size of a dongle on my keychain >cloud is a better experience one more click everytime you wanna save to disk instead of cloud >uber is more convenient need smartphone+app+localization enabled vs walk up to taxi line or call a taxi agency from any phone
@guizzy@lucy@susie I kept trying taxi when I got home from traveling, because there’s always a taxi waiting at the airport. I got burned multiple times by them taking crazy routes to increase the fee and then demanding only cash even though they have a card swiped, one guy held me hostage until I had to give him a 50 dollar bill for a 22 dollar ride and he had no change. Now I walk past the taxis and wait 15 minutes for an Uber to come
@sun@susie@lucy When Uber showed up and gave them competition, taxis were in a place where you couldn't just expect them to take card payments, so you had to make sure you carried enough cash to pay for your ride, and then if they did they'd guilt you about tipping electronically so they didn't have to declare it. You had surprises like "ah, airport is a flat (high) fee" that you don't know in advance before you took the taxi, and that's when they didn't take detours to extract more cash. They were also typically terrible uncaring drivers. Uber you went in the car, went out and paid AFTER leaving so that there's no awkward "payment while sitting in the back seat" period and the drivers are terrified of having a less than perfect score so they are extremely pro social.
The inelastic prices for high demand in taxis also meant that there was no extra incentive for them to go out to drive in peak times or to pick you up specifically. I remember after a Christmas office party waiting for over an hour and a half, ordering taxis and them just not showing up (I think I tried 2 or 3 companies). They'd pick up other people than me who called for them because why bother? There's people wanting taxis all over the city and they pay the same! Finally I got sick of waiting in the cold and I just ordered an Uber for 3x usual pricing; and it arrived quickly.
@cinnamon@lucy it’s good in theory but in practice once you got the medallion you were guaranteed income so you could do a crappy job. That is why resale of medallions is so high, it’s a money printer
@sun@shitposter.world@lucy@netzsphaere.xyz Yeah, but giving much more licenses than what the market can support only causes problems to everybody: if taxis start to compete fiercely among themselves because there are too many, they're going to drop the prices below the cost price (earning too little or even losing money). That only serves to ruin taxi owners-to-be, when they realize that they've entered into something that's not a business, but a trap.
Actually, something similar to that (oversized taxi pool) happened in my city and the solution they adopted was to divide the pool into "7 colors" (one sticker of a color on every taxi), and one day per week, the taxis with that color can't work (it's forbidden). That way they create a little bit of artificial scarcity and ensure that all the taxis in service a given day get their fair piece of the cake, plus they have a rest day every week (otherwise they would be too greedy and work everyday, and that's not healthy).
Something similar happens here with cafeterias: people got used to such low prices that the owners have to stretch to make ends meet. Who pays for that? The cafeteria employees. They usually work more hours than what's on their contract ("it's a secret that everybody knows") and earn low salaries. That's not good. Letting the taxi business become that, wouldn't be a good idea, IMHO.
@mer@sun Uber / Didi / Cabify was a bless in my country (Mexico), because all taxi drivers were assholes, only drove in certain places and their tariffs were expensive than anything. Even they cried to government to limit their use.
Not only that, even one case of a female abducted by criminals was solved using the GPS History.
@sun@cinnamon@lucy It's not a money printer, it's an anchor around their necks
> For years, the price of a New York City taxi medallion—a permit required for a driver to operate a yellow cab—soared higher and higher, reaching more than one million dollars. After Uber and other rideshare companies entered the industry in the early 2010s, medallion prices crashed suddenly and precipitously, plummeting to only around $150,000 in a matter of years. Many medallion owners are hardworking drivers who now face extremely high debt loads and precarious economic circumstances through no fault of their own. This Note explains the severe impact of this medallion debt crisis and how it came to exist. Because efforts to obtain relief through litigation have failed, this Note argues that local, state, and federal government officials should adopt proposals to offer financial assistance to medallion owners. This Note outlines some of these proposals and argues that the unique circumstances of the taxi medallion price crash and debt crisis warrant robust support for medallion owners.
streaming is probably more convenient for normal people but has been consistently worse than piracy for me. 4:3 video cropped to 16:9, songs removed due to licensing, episodes removed due to controversy, etc
@feld@bikeshed.party@sun@shitposter.world@lucy@netzsphaere.xyz Ooooooffff!! Seeing those bubbles form and later explode hurts my eyes. Poor people! (the ones paying $1M and the ones seeing the price drop after they got into debt). Reminds me to student credits (which, fortunately, we don't have here, at least not yet). :blobcatcry2:
@sun Yeah, I've never been to the US so I don't know how it is over there. Here taxis "just work" no matter if you call them, use the app or walk to them. However! The amount of shady taxis have increased a lot after the taxi field got open for competition when uber started being popular. So it is important to pick a taxi that belongs to a reputable company. Hence why the app is great, since don't have to remember the "good companies".
There are no hidden fees here and no issues with payments. Shady taxis do try the getting lost tactic I suppose. @lucy
@sun@shitposter.world@feld@bikeshed.party@lucy@netzsphaere.xyz Yes, regarding bubbles being awful. What I don't think may hold is to create overcompetition by completely deregulating the taxi market (infinite medallions). That only contributes to create jobs/business that give loses instead of benefits (for the workers).
@sun Streaming is inconvenient because whichever services that you have will never have the movie that you want to watch at the time. I can't think of the last time that a streaming service had a solid service exclusive.
@tinosoft@sun >only drove in certain places like uber drivers will do when they can't get by without surge pricing revenue > and their tariffs were expensive than anything uber was only cheap because softbank gave it an MBS petrodollar enema, it's as expensive if not more expensive than taxis now Imagine dumb enough to think a loss leader is better than an established system just because it's in the expand phase.
@sun@susie@lucy why is was created is irrelevant, why it didn't die in irrelevance like countless startups is the softbank vision fund. The app is myth spinning, the secret ingredient was massive amounts of wasted venture capital.
@sun@tinosoft in a vacuum, a taxi in an area with taxi medaillons is more vetted than a guy who signed up on an app, yes you'll get b& if you are a bad actor but there is very little vetting for new drivers what happens is the people that "feel unsafe" (older car, guy listening to the radio) get lower ratings and get booted off the app and the app automates classism/racism
@sun@susie@lucy And aside from price it still looses. Any phone, including dumbphone or landline can call a taxi. Uber needs an app and location service.
@sun Over here the driver quality is way worse on the uber-like services compared to the larger taxi franchises, but it probably varies by country and legislation etc
@rin@lucy@sun tbf the latter also has a 5% chance of being a nice modern EV with a driver who isn’t calling all his friends and family or having tiktok open and blasting the same 20 seconds of whatever turkish music on repeat
@rin@lucy@sun they do where i live, depending on the company you get understaffed but nice and slightly more expensive, or essentially gig economy BS with 99% rude immigrant drivers who focus on their private phone instead of the road, and some of the dirtiest cars you’ve ever seen with cracked windshields and one or more wheels wobbling