I would like to respectfully disagree. Calling a cab is a nightmare, at least in San Francisco, prior to Uber. You were put on hold for several minutes, you had to explain where you were, the driver could not show up or show up extremely late.
When you are inebriated, these steps can easily be considered overwhelming and lead to many people not wanting to go through the process.
In contrast to open phone > tap uber app > tap call cab. The difference is night and day, and I think that's why the program will succeed now when it has failed before.
The biggest upgrade is seeing where the car is. Calling a cab is basically playing the lottery in places like San Francisco, whereas with Lyft/Uber/Sidecar you get to see how far it is. It's much easier to convince yourself not to drive (if that's something drinking causes you to do) if you can see how long you will be waiting.
What make you think that the existing program was a regular cab? One would hardly describe "NFL players can call cabs" as "an existing union program where they call a phone number for a car" without intending to mislead.
The barely-described prior program could be slower than calling a cab, if it's a national call-center that then picks a city-specific service, and doesn't draw on as many providers. Clearly there have been problems with it.
And if you're drunk and out past some contractual/implied curfew, talking to strangers is harder: there's some embarrassment involved. Pushing a button in an app depersonalizes the situation, helpfully so.
According to this article (http://www.thepostgame.com/features/201304/nfl-players-worry...) the major problem is privacy - players worried that the team management could find out that they'd been drinking (and to a lesser extent, cost, and perhaps to a greater extent, stupidity. Cost will be reduced with Uber, privacy should be less of a concern, and stupidity will remain unaffected).
> NYC is the only city where getting a cab is easy
Define "easy". I've had several infuriating experiences trying to get a cab in NYC, all of which ended in me walking or taking a subway instead. NYC has a lot of cabs, but they also have a lot of cab patrons.
I would argue it's easy to get a cab in Chicago from most parts of the city where people spend time at night. No, it's not easy to get a cab from the the West Side or Uptown at night, but that's because it doesn't need to be. The cabs follow the people.
> This seems to be the central issue with Uber- it has solved a San Francisco problem, and is now trying to apply the same solution everywhere.
Dealing with taxi dispatchers in Seattle is awful. They're rude, they don't tell you when your cab is coming, sometimes they just don't pick up.
Some taxi drivers aren't much better. They can be extremely reticent to accept credit cards, and I have been refused service before because I wanted to pay with one.
The introduction of Uber (and especially UberX) in Seattle has made deciding whether or not to drive a total no-brainer.
Note thought that the existing program for the players doesn't involve just calling any random yellow-car cab company - they have a special number and service set up.
When you are inebriated, these steps can easily be considered overwhelming and lead to many people not wanting to go through the process.
In contrast to open phone > tap uber app > tap call cab. The difference is night and day, and I think that's why the program will succeed now when it has failed before.