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Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

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Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#71

Post by phpmal »

ectoplasm wrote: post #51
mattmanser wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just said the same thing, but framed as a positive. Use VC money to put taxis out of business then jack up the price and let the service level plummet as cheap immigrants become the drivers.

Out of thousands of rides, 90% of the time I get an immigrant cab driver. I find they're perfectly capable.

You are viewing it as a business that's flush with VC cash and assuming it will continue.

When cable TV was installed in the UK - thanks to US investment - they dug up almost every pavement in towns and cities nationwide, call centres were local to their customers, the technicians were actual skilled employees who worked in teams of several people.

Jump forward a decade or two. They are deeply in debt. Call centres are outsourced and often abroad. Technicians work for contractors and have nothing invested in the business they represent. If you live a few meters away from a cabled street then there's virtually no chance that they will hook you up.

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#72

Post by jasonsync »

jfoster wrote: post #24
rtpg wrote: post #6

Wait, so Uber spent $900 million dollars? I thought that considering they offload so much of the costs of running of the business( EDIT: through having drivers buy the cars, for example), they wouldn't have such high operating costs. Though according to this[1] article, Uber's at 3000 employees worldwide. What are those employees doing? EDIT: For reference, Greyhound's 2014 operating costs were 600 million pounds (50…

I haven't seen the data, but I bet a huge percentage of it is subsidized rides. They essentially use free rides as a carrot for users to learn the value of Uber. The great part for Uber is that once they've trained their userbase, that cost largely disappears.

Walmart tactics.

Open in new town. Sell at a loss to get customers. Go on hiring spree.

Local business can't survive the mass exodus of customers and employees.

Once the only job in town is Walmart and the only store left is Walmart you slowly raise prices and profit.

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#73

Post by thinkmoore »

jedrek wrote: post #69
mattmanser wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just said the same thing, but framed as a positive. Use VC money to put taxis out of business then jack up the price and let the service level plummet as cheap immigrants become the drivers.

Uber doesn't have to put taxis out of business, it's growing the market - getting a lot more people using taxi-like services. Both people who aren't willing to shell out how much cabs charge in their artificially restricted markets and people who've had shitty experiences with cabs in the past. Not to mention how poor taxi service is in the vast majority of US cities. I personally use Uber because I hate calling a ca…

All of the cab companies I use in Boston have exactly such and app. I'd be willing to bet the same is true in many cities.

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#74

Post by maxucho »

beagle3 wrote: post #47
puranjay wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is active pretty much everywhere. They're truly aiming to corner the entire global transport market. They're putting in $1B in India alone. When the dust is settled, you're going to get a company that controls the private transport industry in an area that stretches from San Francisco to Kolkata For an industry that was once dominated by small local players, this is truly mind blowing. I don't think there is a s…

They're spending an awful lot for control of a market that is expected to disappear within a few years when self driving cars mature. Of course, they are aware of it and are investing in being a leader in that market - but they're fighting with global giants over there, not the local Taxi outfits.

If anything, I could see Uber being one of the first adopters of self-driving cars when they're ready. They're already investing in it heavily, hiring away 40 robotics researchers from CMU to focus on it. [1] They want to corner the market, get everyone using Uber, and then eventually make the change to self-driving vehicles when they're ready.

[1]: http://www.wsj.com/articles/is-uber-a-friend-or-foe-of-carne...

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#75

Post by danielweber »

jasonsync wrote: post #72
jfoster wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen the data, but I bet a huge percentage of it is subsidized rides. They essentially use free rides as a carrot for users to learn the value of Uber. The great part for Uber is that once they've trained their userbase, that cost largely disappears.

Walmart tactics. Open in new town. Sell at a loss to get customers. Go on hiring spree. Local business can't survive the mass exodus of customers and employees. Once the only job in town is Walmart and the only store left is Walmart you slowly raise prices and profit.

Walmart has a profit margin of less than 4%. They are aggressive about controlling costs, which small-time companies can't compete with.

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#76

Post by danielweber »

wfo wrote: post #40
sbank wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private monopolies are largely unproblematic as they will be destroyed by more effective competitors eventually. I'm way more afraid of government monopoly. Point in case: The protectionism and government interference that has kept the taxi business shitty for so long.

Private monopolies are in some theoretical circumstances unproblematic because according to extremist free-market ideologues they are destroyed by more effective competitors. In reality they are broken up by governments, regulated into the ground, or destroy a nation/society, and they manage to make a society/market a whole lot worse before this long-term and extreme regulatory action obliterates them and fixes the p…

How is "ride-sharing" any kind of natural monopoly? Uber can't lock in either drivers or riders.

They have to consistently provide a good experience for both drier and riders, who can switch literally by opening a different app on their phone.

Uber probably had the market strength to contractually demand that you couldn't be on the Lyft network while on the Uber network. If they had done that, they would have lock-in effects. Maybe they didn't because they were afraid of monopoly accusations.

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#77

Post by danielweber »

joosters wrote: post #59
beagle3 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're spending an awful lot for control of a market that is expected to disappear within a few years when self driving cars mature. Of course, they are aware of it and are investing in being a leader in that market - but they're fighting with global giants over there, not the local Taxi outfits.

'Expected to disappear' within a few years? Go on, name me a year when there will be significant numbers of driverless cars on the road.

Okay, 2030.

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#78

Post by danielweber »

puranjay wrote: post #3
icpmacdo wrote: post #2

I dont think Uber is going anywhere soon. It has such a strong brand. Everyone I know trusts uber a lot more than there local cab companies.

I do wonder what will happen once Uber starts charging market rates. Right now, your ride is subsidized by Uber. Once it comes time to turn on the profits, you'll have to pay more - substantially more in some markets. Will you still use Uber? Probably. But many who started using Uber instead of, say, taking their own car or using public transport, just might go back.

Uber is making money off of each ride. "Money they charge the end user" minus "money they pay to the driver" is a value that increases significantly each quarter.

They have a bunch of other expenses, but those are expected to lessen in the future. Training (of both customers and drivers) should fall to near-zero, for example, over time.

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#79

Post by wfo »

puranjay wrote: post #65
wfo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private monopolies are in some theoretical circumstances unproblematic because according to extremist free-market ideologues they are destroyed by more effective competitors. In reality they are broken up by governments, regulated into the ground, or destroy a nation/society, and they manage to make a society/market a whole lot worse before this long-term and extreme regulatory action obliterates them and fixes the p…

> they manage to make a society/market a whole lot worse I can imagine this argument holding true for resource-based businesses, say, oil and gas. I can't imagine a taxi services aggregator having that substantial an impact on a nation

You're right the argument is less strong for a non-natural monopoly, but Microsoft, say, when they had a monopoly, held back computing by years and we're still seeing the aftereffects of their monopoly; it has warped an entire industry in not only the US but the world.
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