41–50 of 123 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>in a few years I think you're vastly overestimating the sophistication of driverless systems.
But it may very well be a few years before a majority of riders would ride in a driverless car
This is gold... "So, yeah, it’s great: you hit the app, and the car shows up now in 10 minutes instead of a 35-minute wait. But now the traffic congestion is so bad that you’re sitting in that car for 20 minutes longer to get anywhere... cities now are starting to discuss and deal with: traffic congestion. The traffic congestion is so much worse. Now, is it all because of Uber? Not it’s not...you suddenly have a new…
Uber's' innovation leads to a fleet that's easier to regulate due to constant monitoring, and pre-booking data. However, when it comes to traffic congestion, their solution is pure demand-side economics: increase prices as high as the market can bear. This means with no cap on supply, more and more cars will get put on the road to serve as part of the private fleet and it's the cities that have to bear the increased costs of road construction & maintenance.
My only hope is that rather than make cities crack down on Uber to maintain the status quo, they'll instead invest heavily in public transportation so all cities can have something on par to NYC today, and NYC tomorrow can have something on par to Tokyo.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish he would have expanded on that. Why would one fail and another not, when the companies have the exact same model?
I explained above, but Uber is way over-valued to the point that they cannot have a reasonable IPO and acquisitions are off the table to all but a few companies that don't need that business and can acquire a direct competitor at a more reasonable expense.
That the OP criticizes Uber's Pittsburgh efforts is disingenuous because it's only a beta-phase pilot. Of course, it's that simple right now. You'd want them to go through this careful pilot phase because the concept released on the streets without full testing is so dangerous. It's an extremely tough nut to crack. But IF they crack it, they're in for the long haul. "Big Taxi" as he calls it doesn't have the desire, technical expertise, freedom, or guts to achieve the self-driving car vision. For one thing, the business is structured too much around drivers paying franchise fees. In the meantime, Uber has already multiple times shown a willingness to throw a big FU at its own drivers, so it's not actually that hard to see them one day discarding their drivers for self-driving cars and keeping all of the profit rent.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except they're "disrupting" the taxi industry to get to that point. So they're destroying jobs and replacing them with less secure, less paid ones. (Wether or not that disruption has a positive effect for society in the big picture is another debate - but in terms of labor you can't ignore it)
> replacing them with less secure, less paid ones My understanding is that people got in deep debt to the medallion owner, which they slowly repaid from taxi revenues. Are taxi jobs at the lowest rung that secure and well-paid?
However, Uber (and similar businesses like airbnb) are really little more than the exploitation of legal loopholes to bypass the usual costs of employment law and industry-specific regulations. Socializing expenses is always profitable, and its easy to beat existing players if you aren't paying the same expenses.
Regarding job security, normal employees at least have a collection of legal protections that cover the employer-employee relationship. It's obviously not going to stop every type of abuse, but it's better than nothing. Some jurisdictions have started to catch up and force Uber et al to act properly, but as usual law is (very) slow to update.
This is gold... "So, yeah, it’s great: you hit the app, and the car shows up now in 10 minutes instead of a 35-minute wait. But now the traffic congestion is so bad that you’re sitting in that car for 20 minutes longer to get anywhere... cities now are starting to discuss and deal with: traffic congestion. The traffic congestion is so much worse. Now, is it all because of Uber? Not it’s not...you suddenly have a new…
No, it isn't done already. Too often, I am in a platoon of 20 cars that has to slam to a stop so one car can cross the intersection on the cross street, and then there's yet another minute of red with nobody in the intersection.
You'd think with cameras already installed on the lights that this would be a far, far simpler job than self-driving cars.
This is gold... "So, yeah, it’s great: you hit the app, and the car shows up now in 10 minutes instead of a 35-minute wait. But now the traffic congestion is so bad that you’re sitting in that car for 20 minutes longer to get anywhere... cities now are starting to discuss and deal with: traffic congestion. The traffic congestion is so much worse. Now, is it all because of Uber? Not it’s not...you suddenly have a new…
Medallions (whether or not they were a good solution), were intended to restrict the number of cars on the road during peak hours, and enforce some uniform regulations on all taxis (pick up people of all races, etc.) Uber's' innovation leads to a fleet that's easier to regulate due to constant monitoring, and pre-booking data. However, when it comes to traffic congestion, their solution is pure demand-side economics:…
hhttp://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2014/03/seattle-city-cou...
As a legally blind person living in the urban sprawl of LA, I rely on Uber and Lyft heavily to be able to commute and run errands. There is a lot about these companies that remains ethically and economically questionable, but until the public transportation options in the area are as quick and accessible as these services I will continue to use them. The pricing is the most unnerving thing for me. In some cases, I am…
The quality of the article isn't that great. But it made me think about this anyway. If Uber can achieve Kalanick's stated end game goal of driverless cars, it will absolutely last. A lot of Uber's pressures come with having to deal with drivers. I don't know what percentage, but it's significant. Variable costs, legal issues, ride quality, and so on. If all of that disappears, Uber is playing an entirely different g…
Once fully self-driving cars are completely actualized, then ridesharing companies like Uber will collapse, because the entire thing becomes a commodity. Right now, there's a lot more to Uber and ride-sharing than just matching cars and riders. There are layers of complexities that are created because you need to deal with real humans on both ends.
Once you get rid of human drivers, anyone can build a ride-sharing system. It just takes enough money to buy enough cars, and the ride sharing app, and that's it. Uber would then be competing against anyone and everyone, and then it's a race to $0, maybe even it turns into a free ride if you watch ads all drive long.