The title and content of this article couldn't be farther from the truth.<p>1. Uber and Lyft's absence has created a huge void that remains to this day. There are crazy long lines at the airport.<p>2. There are multiple ridesharing companies that have sprung up in the meantime. Arcade City is just one of them.<p>3. I'm pretty sure Arcade City will disappear once either (a) U/L return or (b) one of the newer companies (Fare, Fasten, etc.) get more drivers.<p>Transportation in Austin is terrible right now. Arcade City hasn't changed that fact.
I live in Austin, and at this time there is still a void, but it's being filled faster than I expected. Fasten launched last week and I've used it four times already and there's not much to say other than it works just like Uber and Lyft.<p>The price is $1-2 more per ride and a I have to wait a few more minutes, but it does the job. The drivers I've talked to also prefer the compensation structure more than Uber and Lyft. Fasten's cut is fixed at $1 per ride (vs 20-28%), or $12 for the day. And like Uber, they get paid every Wednesday.<p>It's not available at the airport, but there's a city bus that drives from the airport to downtown (where getting a rideshare is easy) in 30 minutes for $1.75.<p>EDIT: Clarified Fasten's commission.
Few journalist know that UBER & Lyft are operating under more restrictive regulations in NYC. These regulation include fingerprinting, drug test, medical test and a couple of classes. The cost to comply is at least $600 per driver to start. There are other cost like special license plates.<p>Essentially you have to be a professional to drive an Uber/Lyft in NYC, legally. They comply in NYC so I'm not sure what Uber & Lyft are complaining about. At least one of them should have stayed, especially Lyft this a missed opputunity for Lyft.
I live in Austin, and it's really the other apps like Fare, Fasten, and Get Me that are filling the void. Fasten ends up being the best price (they also have the best app coincidentally), coming out to a few dollars more than Uber or Lyft.<p>I ended up buiding a web app that keeps track of what apps work where (for example, Fasten currently doesn't work from the airport), along with the relative pricing this past weekend:<p><a href="https://ridefinder.io" rel="nofollow">https://ridefinder.io</a>
I've always wondered how necessary something like Uber or Lyft really was. Centralized networks lead to critical mass and that's what I always saw as the appeal. No one wants to hunt for something manually.<p>I feel like something like craigslist, but with an ebay-like "95% driver approval rating" would do the job well enough. Sure, there are people that won't use it for security reasons and lack of standards, but if that's the case an alternative should prop up that ensures these things with standards for their drivers. One being cheaper as all funds go between driver and driven, the other providing a middle man that spends some of these funds to filter bad actors.<p>In my opinion, the mandatory regulation isn't really necessary if competition is healthy. If there's enough demand for finger-printed drivers, a service should crop up to provide it. Facebook though sounds like a terrible medium for this kind of thing. People will use what's familiar I guess.
Here's a Texas Tribune article from today detailing other Austin ridesharing developments in the wake of the Uber/Lyft withdrawal: <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/07/austin-post-prop-1/" rel="nofollow">https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/07/austin-post-prop-1/</a>
Oh that's too funny.<p>So instead of having fingerprints of all drivers, now they don't even have verified names, but simply completely anonymous people.<p>Great going lawmakers!<p>Some things you just can't legislate.
I love how the only effective way to market an Ethereum dapp seems to be to create a Facebook group and let people pay with good old cash.<p>Maybe I'm being a bit too harsh, but the decentralised model just presents way too many risks for both riders and drivers, and the lack of fees means AC is not incentivised to protect either.
Looking at this post if Arcade City can provide a background check for people who use the service and also insurance then they would actually have the people who drive for the service be closer to contractors instead of the faux one that Uber/Lyft try to pull off.
This brings the empire building nature of Uber into question.<p>If a group of people on a Facebook group can replace its functions for a significant group of people in a few days, why is this company valued in the billions again?
I heard this the other day on the Radio Motherboard podcast. You can listen to it here: <a href="https://soundcloud.com/motherboard/when-uber-left-austin" rel="nofollow">https://soundcloud.com/motherboard/when-uber-left-austin</a>
FB normally starts choking off group notifications after a group reaches a certain size. I wonder if Arcade City is paying to keep the group up and running.
There's some dirtiness and shenanigans around the whole thing too.. including the Mayor holding a secret meeting with the Uber/Lyft competitors and the City Council investing taxpayer money in them. I've dug up some of the details but more to come:<p><a href="https://medium.com/@CaseySoftware/mayor-steve-adler-is-scamming-the-austin-tech-community-399d12b976e9" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@CaseySoftware/mayor-steve-adler-is-scamm...</a>