I still believe that Uber artificially creates a market by subsidizing a price point that is attractive to the drivers.
Yes. Unfair competition.
Wouldn't it be more than competition since the market would not exist in the first place?
Disrupting Uber
21–30 of 230 posts
Re: Disrupting Uber
#22It's a bit silly to leave out any mention of self driving cars in an article called "Disrupting Uber". Driving around cars around all day is a silly job, ideally a job that should not exist in 5 years from now. We'd better discuss basic income instead of co-op taxi companies.
I'm trying to think of a job that isn't "silly", in the sense that it couldn't eventually be done by robots, and I'm drawing a blank... Do you intend to say that working is "silly"?
Re: Disrupting Uber
#23What they're missing is that higher wages depend on some barrier to entry (there are many kinds) that protects the people who have jobs at the expense of anyone who is looking for a job. As someone who works for a company with high hiring standards and correspondingly high pay, I have mixed feelings about this. It seems like there should be some jobs that are easy to get without much training, and taxi driver is a go…
>that protects the people who have jobs at the expense of anyone who is looking for a job.
And also at the expense of the customers.
Re: Disrupting Uber
#24> "competing with Uber might seem intimidating, but in many respects the company is a paper tiger. Its massive valuation, which stood at $62.5 billion in January, comes from intellectual property — its brand and data — rather than from tangible assets."
Right... except that the brand is what creates the demand side of the market, the data is what makes the platform efficient and the IP provides strong defense against 3rd parties like this one.
Just to point out this is a thought-piece in a very socialist political magazine - and while I love Bernie as much as the next guy, this piece is a political folly and not really grounded in any business or technical fact.
Re: Disrupting Uber
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
If their unit economics are positive than this is not true. If their unit economics are negative then it will be a spectacular show when the music stops. This is aside from promotional costs for the first few months when they enter a new market, as long as those costs actually decrease within the first year in a new market.
That view doesn't look at the big picture - it's very possible that they are allowing for, and happy with, losing money to grow market share for many more years, maybe even until they can offer driverless rides to turn market share into profit.
Waiting for driverless cars to make them profitable seems like one of the worst bets you could make. Even if they were content to wait, say, 20 years, when driverless cars hit the market, what's to stop anyone from buying a small fleet of them and tossing their own uber-like app up on the store?
Heck, I can even see it in the distant future, turnkey Uber-like businesses, you get your choice of franchise to buy into. You supply the cash for the cars, they supply you an app and a little branding.
Saying "Uber's playing a long game by waiting for driverless cars and THEN..." just seems totally implausible.
Re: Disrupting Uber
#26It's a bit silly to leave out any mention of self driving cars in an article called "Disrupting Uber". Driving around cars around all day is a silly job, ideally a job that should not exist in 5 years from now. We'd better discuss basic income instead of co-op taxi companies.
I'm trying to think of a job that isn't "silly", in the sense that it couldn't eventually be done by robots, and I'm drawing a blank... Do you intend to say that working is "silly"?
The silly spectrum, as defined culturally.
Re: Disrupting Uber
#27> Yet again, an investigative report has found that Uber underpays its drivers. Aren't the fares proportional to how many drivers are available? If the fares are too low, don't drive. If enough people stop driving, the fare will go up.
>If the fares are too low, don't drive.
It's still better to be under paid, than make no money. Some people simply can't afford to take the morale high ground. It's societies job to ensure that employers don't take advantage for people in unfortunate positions.
While I understand the reasoning and appeal behind Uber, I still think it has a weird business idea. Very few people seem to want to discus the fact that ordinary taxi drivers aren't exactly well paid either. This is despite the fact that their in an artificially limited market, with little or no competition. Uber is an important part in increasing service, which is apparently extremely poor in some countries. In terms of pricing, the salaries don't appear to leave much room for lowering the cost.
Re: Disrupting Uber
#28These "disruptors" need to work on wealth creation and not installing "economic rents." Economic rents, a term in Microeconomics, is trying to achieve profits beyond those in an efficient market (for example, creating artificial scarcity). The appear to be complaining because Uber is lowering the cost of overly expensive taxi fares when they should be working on a system that provides rides for less money while still helping drivers get more pay (if that is important to them).
In NYC, because of the legacy taxi medallion system which artificially limited the number of medallions to 13,000 (resulting in a medallion market value of $1.2 million now down to $700,000 after Uber/Lyft), taxi fares are still about twice that of many US cities. The artificial limit of medallions created artificial scarcity which resulted in "economic rents" thus ultimately requiring passengers to pay much higher fares that then went to the medallion owners.
One example would be to lower gas usage by using electric vehicles or hybrid cars (NYC Yellow Taxis are converting to hybrids) which not only lowers fuel costs but lower air pollution. They could make a financial deal with the city or state showing the lower health care costs from lower air pollution and have the cars financed.
Re: Disrupting Uber
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're driving for beer money you won't care that the fares are low. If you're driving as a career you can't just not work and hope the fares go up.
It's an important point, that these concerns are always about careerists, not the beer money group. But there are two groups here. The beer money group could be significant: retirees, students, people who want extreme flexibility because they have another primary job or responsibility. Half of all drivers is a significant block. On the other hand, careerists legitimately face an impossible situation, since so much of…
> Restrictive policy responses hurt one group of people in an attempt to protect others.
That's the definition of Pareto optimality
Re: Disrupting Uber
#30What they're missing is that higher wages depend on some barrier to entry (there are many kinds) that protects the people who have jobs at the expense of anyone who is looking for a job. As someone who works for a company with high hiring standards and correspondingly high pay, I have mixed feelings about this. It seems like there should be some jobs that are easy to get without much training, and taxi driver is a go…
I think the most valid complain about Uber as an employer is that it is advertised as well a paying job but that there are hidden costs that most drivers won't consider.
It's similar to how programmers often look at consulting rates, but don't factor in non-billable hours.