I agree with you, Bizgrrl. It sounds like an unregulated taxi service to me as well. And, I do not think this would be safe around here.

I do think there could be a market for a service to drive elderly people to doctor's appts or to the grocery store and have someone accompany them on such. Maybe there is already something like that?

I have no problem regulating these services. The original concept of ride-sharing in heavy traffic areas (NYC, San Jose) made sense, but it's clearly gone beyond that.

A good article on Uber:
http://www.salon.com/2014/08/31/why_uber_must_be_stopped/

Complete with casual labor and piecemeal work. But, hey, it's convenient and "disruptive"!

Okay guys... Uber (and the so-called sharing economy) creates real problems for progressives that need to be considered, primary among them the casualization of labor. [link]

This interventionism, this activism, is crucial for Third Wayism to work – you have to convince people who identify as on the left that what you’re doing is not a betrayal of their old ideological commitments, but an extension of them to meet new challenges that somehow, never quite explicitly stated, mean that social democracy has to be abandoned...

And only progressives can make these fights about more than just which candidates win, but whether we want to live in a world in which Uber and its ilk disrupt full-time employment, a living wage, and economic security, or in a world in which all workers have those things by right.

The mass transit cabal really has it out for Uber and Lyft Line. It is clearly rent seeking by Taxi/Limo providers and Commissions.

New study by mathematicians and engineers finds taxicab share use in New York City could result in a 40 percent reduction of taxi trips. Overview article here:

(link...)

Note how mass transit apologists express deep concern over the result of cheaper, cleaner, faster, more comfortable options cutting into the subway and bus business. Rent seeking served beside bad social engineering. Rich.

For a searchable data base of taxi/limo trips in NYC please see:

(link...)

Note the government agency has collected this data for decades and could not find a way to exploit and tweak-out efficiencies lurking within the regulatory process.

The folks working in, and the rabid supporters of, mass transit are motivated by blind ideology and not rational economically justifiable policy or models.

Remember not long ago the Mass Transit True Believers attempted to inflict upon Great Smoky Mountains National Park visitors mandatory (read "monopoly") rubber tire buses spewing diesel fumes as they lumbered thru Cades Cove.

Fortunately that effort was defeated.

Zealots. Plain and simple.

I've spent the last 17 months in Washington Heights. Public transit is strong enough here that I don't use uber much and the shady town car guys have been rendered less necessary since the green cabs came to be. Uber is very convenient and feels safer to me, but just haven't needed it much in NYC.

However I think uber could find a niche in cities like Knoxville where cabs are nearly obsolete and overpriced. Everything will hinge on the demand. If demand is high enough to warrant enough cars, I suspect they will do well. Otherwise they will be as rare as Knoxville cabs, only nicer cars.

Yeah. Can't tell you how many times I caught a cab at my office by Columbia and told them I was going to Inwood/Washington Heights and got a "awwwww man. Why don't you catch the next one?" or "I'm actually done today. Just forgot to turn my light off"

I'm personally fascinated by Uber, Lyft and other companies, both the convenience they offer and the legal and regulatory challenges they pose.

I've always thought of Uber in these terms. A black car service is licensed to operate in a market. You can use the phone to call them to schedule a pickup. That pickup can be now (if available) or at some point in the future. This is all legal, licensed and regulated (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong). Same with taxi services, which are also licensed to pick up people curbside.

Since Uber doesn't operate fleets of vehicles, it must fall under a different classification than black car and taxi services.

With Uber Black, in one sense, they only replace the phone with an app with all sorts of modern conveniences, like one tap service request, geolocation routing, status to pickup location, arrival notification and so on. The black car service is still the licensed provider, with Uber providing a marketing, lead gen, and payment platform to those companies. Uber Black, to me, seems perfectly legit from a legal and regulatory standpoint.

But what's wrong with flipping the business model, as long as the car services are licensed and regulated? Black car services seem to love Uber, who take on all the software development, technology infrastructure, and marketing costs, and increase yield of their sedans. It's the taxis that balk, and that's primarily because Uber has made taking a typically nicer, cleaner sedan and better customer experience as convenient or moreso than taking a taxi.

Uber X, on the other hand, is an entirely different animal. There drivers are unregulated, random citizens who simply want to earn a bit of extra cash by picking up fares. From one perspective, they are supplying the exact same software and services to someone. On the other, that someone is performing a service that has otherwise been a regulated one for many, many years, and is regulated in part for safety (general traffic safety, passenger safety, and the like). To me, this is where fairness breaks down... if Uber X can compete against taxis, there is an un-level playing field likely providing an advantage to one side over the other (I say likely, because my attempts to use Uber X were utter failures... the drivers tend to be much more unreliable that taxis and Uber Black sedans).

I've used Uber several times in cities on business trips, and have enjoyed the experience, although the price was too steep for me to consider using it on an everyday basis. Sorry, I could talk about this all day except that I have a job to get back to. ;-)