Back in April, ride-hailing app Gett acquired “driver-friendly” ride-hailing app Juno, and the merger so far has been nothing short of messy. In June, drivers filed a federal class action lawsuit against the apps after Gett killed Juno’s equity program with drivers — an ownership incentive that had initially made many warm up to the new service. Now, the Gett app has been pulled from app stores for users in the United States.
Previously under the acquisition, both Gett and Juno were functioning as separate apps. Yesterday, Gett briefly announced on Twitter it would now operate as “Juno by Gett,” encouraging people to “Download Juno and join the new family.” Some users are now complaining that Gett was unclear that the original app was going to be killed off, and that the company gave little notice on when that was going to happen.
Many are also experiencing technical issues. One user on Twitter, when told Gett needed to be updated, was redirected to “app not available” in the App Store. Another Twitter user said Gett diverted her to Juno, prompting her to use her Gett login, which didn’t work. Juno’s response was that she had to sign up and create a new account. “You couldn't have made this merger more difficult, could you?” she tweeted. “Your redirect to make it easy & force us to start from scratch?”
A representative for Juno confirmed to The Verge that the migration path from Gett to Juno requires the recent version of Gett, and users with older versions are currently experiencing trouble upgrading.
On top of what appears to be a broken transition system, Juno says in several tweets there are no plans to reinstate the $10 NYC flat fares users loved with Gett. Features like pre-ordering a ride will also not transfer over, though Gett says it will soon target ride promotions to users with loyalty points accumulated from the old app.
Gett currently services 100 cities worldwide, and its acquisition of Juno gives it further reach in the United States. But it seems the company is bumbling through the process. Juno billed itself as being driver-friendly, Gett offered deals that were rider-friendly, and this merger is getting rid of features that made both these apps great, while also, for some, making the transition incredibly frustrating.
Update August 1st 6:20 PM ET: This article has been updated to include a statement from Juno about upgrading to the most recent version of Gett.