<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>dcchambers</author><text>I can&amp;#x27;t speak for everyone, but for me it was never about the cost. It was about the ability to easily&amp;#x2F;instantly schedule a ride without having to call a phone number and wait for a ride which was notoriously unreliable, and not having to deal with cash or the classic line &amp;quot;my credit card machine doesn&amp;#x27;t work.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Virtually all of the cab companies still around now have mobile apps and many of them have all the features that Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft have (card payment via app, car-tracking, etc).&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s still a win for the consumer, even if you&amp;#x27;re using old school cab companies.</text><parent_chain><item><author>standardUser</author><text>The difference between taxi fares and Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft fares has all but vanished. People were willing to pay taxi rates all along, now they are doing so and getting what is arguably a much better service.</text></item><item><author>rainyMammoth</author><text>Uber and lyft are both on the way down. The price at which they need to operate to be profitable is not a price that most americans are ready to pay. As simple as that.&lt;p&gt;For now they delay this reality by subsidizing rides in order to generate business. In some cities like San Francisco, most incentives were removed and among my friends we all stopped using Uber (unless we really have to). It simply became way too expensive.&lt;p&gt;(Comment that I already issued yesterday on a similar thread)</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/technology/uber-earnings.html</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>&amp;gt; People were willing to pay taxi rates all along&lt;p&gt;Baloney. The market size of people willing to pay taxi rates for transportation is &lt;i&gt;much&lt;/i&gt; smaller that the market sizes currently implied by Uber and Lyft&amp;#x27;s valuation. Before Uber and Lyft, most people I know would only take taxis very occasionally, for special occasions or emergencies. Once Uber and Lyft started offering such good rates they would use ride sharing much more often.</text><parent_chain><item><author>standardUser</author><text>The difference between taxi fares and Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft fares has all but vanished. People were willing to pay taxi rates all along, now they are doing so and getting what is arguably a much better service.</text></item><item><author>rainyMammoth</author><text>Uber and lyft are both on the way down. The price at which they need to operate to be profitable is not a price that most americans are ready to pay. As simple as that.&lt;p&gt;For now they delay this reality by subsidizing rides in order to generate business. In some cities like San Francisco, most incentives were removed and among my friends we all stopped using Uber (unless we really have to). It simply became way too expensive.&lt;p&gt;(Comment that I already issued yesterday on a similar thread)</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/technology/uber-earnings.html</url></story>