Posted on 03/12/2017 6:37:19 PM PDT by ameribbean expat
With rain pouring down and crowds of festival attendees hopping from party to party, RideAustin and Fasten, two popular ride-hail apps in town, went totally dead for at least portions of the evening. Fasten, a small startup from Boston that paid to be the "official" ride-hail service of SXSW, experienced a 12-times increase in demand Saturday night that forced it offline for at least an hour. RideAustin, a nonprofit that's especially popular among locals, was down for "several hours," it said in a Facebook post, after its database was overloaded.
The local ride-hail apps still have a week to try to redeem themselves, but this weekend was supposed to be a triumph for them. RideAustin, Fasten, and others emerged in the Texas capital after Uber and Lyft exited last May, protesting a requirement that their drivers be fingerprinted for background checks. The local services portrayed the departure of the two behemoths as typical of the bullying capitalists from Silicon Valley.
(Excerpt) Read more at buzzfeed.com ...
I have no dog in this hunt other than to say the cabbie union demanded Austin hold Uber and Lyft to the same standards as the local cabbies which ripped all the profit these ride-sharing businesses would have stood to make so they left town. Don’t really care whether these drunks have to dry out before getting their next ride or not.
that’s enough summary for me. dont want to give the ORIGINAL FAKE NEWs traffic by clicking on their stupid link..
“typical of the bullying capitalists from Silicon Valley.”
They don’t call Austin the a-hole of Texas for nothing.
A well deserved distinction.
“I have no dog in this hunt other than to say the cabbie union demanded Austin hold Uber and Lyft to the same standards as the local cabbies...”
In last year’s Prop 1 Referendum, Uber & Lyft spent $10,000,000.00. The cabbie union spent $500.00.
Looks like that cabbie union has some great political operatives.
typical of the bullying capitalists liberals from Silicon Valley.
Uber & Lyft provided horrible and expensive service in Austin and left town.
The new ride sharing services are even worse.
As for me, I was in downtown Austin last night and had no problem getting cabs.
I have no problem with them requiring the finger prints being on file for cabbies and ubber. think about it you are trusting the cabbie or ubber driver to not be a criminal waiting to victimize there passenger. I have never used ubber because of this mistrust.
“Rideaustin” is non profit?! How do they pull that off? Somebody’s paying somebody for something
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