New Yorkers Can Now Get Unlimited UberPool in Manhattan for $200 • Hacker News Board

Re: New Yorkers Can Now Get Unlimited UberPool in Manhattan for $200

#91

Post by harryjo » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 5:53 PM UTC

kdamken wrote: post #63

ixtli wrote: post #11

Before you get all excited about this, it's ONLY UberPOOL and your destination must start and end in Manhattan. So if you use this to commute for two weeks you're paying 10 (edit: obviously 100/20 = 5, it's early. leave me alone) dollars flat for a cab ride that you share and will take longer than normal because of the overhead of splitting the ride. There are certainly some people for whom this will be cost effectiv…

Also, uberpool is terrible. Can easily make a 20 minute ride 60 minutes depending on how many other fares they pick up/drop off on the way. I took one into the city once to try it out. Normally a 20 minute drive, we stopped and picked up 2 other fares. They both got dropped off before me (which is insane), and it ended up taking over an hour. The worst part? The drive told me that if we dropped off one and another ca…

What was the price compared to a cab, though? $10 vs $30?

Re: New Yorkers Can Now Get Unlimited UberPool in Manhattan for $200

#92

Post by hx87 » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 6:00 PM UTC

morley wrote: post #59

djrogers wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot that people commute 2 ways in your math, so 2 weeks of commutes would be 20 trips coming out to $5/trip, not 10.

This is compared to ~$2.50 a trip on the subway, which (depending on which line you're near and whether you have a transfer) could take substantially less time than a car ride. There are however some "subway deserts" -- the upper-east and lower-east sides come to mind -- whose residences would greatly benefit from skipping two long walks a day.

For people who are intolerant of heat and odor like me, avoiding overcrowded and AC-less stations in the summer alone is worth the $2.50.

Re: New Yorkers Can Now Get Unlimited UberPool in Manhattan for $200

#93

Post by mikeash » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 6:09 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #76

They rolled a version of this out in DC months ago with a marketing campaign cleverly tied to major track work on the Metro. http://dcinno.streetwise.co/2016/07/29/uber-dc-monthly-pass-... Very reasonable price (I suspect, in fact, they lose money on it). Service is OK. I prefer to take a bus but not everyone has a convenient bus line.

They're pretty up front about losing money on it. "Uber had promised to invest $10 million in D.C. during the SafeTrack program in a mix of ways. That includes offering financial incentives for drivers while still discounting UberPool this summer in D.C. Some of the money applies to incentives for the Pool Pass as well, since otherwise drivers would not likely feel very motivated to take a $1 fare."

It will be interesting to see how Uber shakes out in the long term. They can't keep this up forever.

Re: New Yorkers Can Now Get Unlimited UberPool in Manhattan for $200

#94

Post by macandcheese » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 6:24 PM UTC

macandcheese wrote: post #57

45h34jh53k4j wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$116.50, +1 for a new metrocard Uber beats subway by $16.50; or three and a bit uberpools/month But there is the whole: subway = nuclear power = low carbon footprint vs uber = dead dinosaurs.

There's also the whole: subway = not air conditioned and miserable, uber = air conditioned and comfortable. Also, as a Hudson Valley resident for most of my life, Indian Point and nuclear power in general is a huge concern for me.

I'd assume I'm getting downvoted because I made a comment about my trepidation towards nuclear power.. If you lived within an emergency evacuation zone for a nuclear plant you may feel the same (disclaimer: I don't, but I lived close enough to Indian Point to feel unsafe, and everytime I take Metro North and see it fly past my window, I think what a risk it is)...

Indian Point is a liability to the people and the ecosystems of the lower Hudson Valley. New York State / Cuomo recently denied Entergy's certificate to continue using the Hudson River (1), which they are battling in court. Terrorism risks aside, this is not a state of the art nuclear plant. It's over 40 years old, the bolts are (literally) starting to break (2), and there was a recent radioactive leak (3) into the HUDSON RIVER. How can this not be worrying? It's been shown that NY can maintain energy levels at a cost of 20-30% higher without nuclear power (4), a number I hope will decrease as NY improves wind and solar (mind you, this report is from the Manhattan Institute, a think tank that vehemently supports fracking). This comes down to an increase of $76–$112 per residential customer. Personally, I'd be willing to pay twice that if it meant shutting down IP.

1. http://www.riverkeeper.org/news-events/news/stop-polluters/p... 2. http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/baffle-... 3. http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/indian-point/2016/02/0... 4. https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/economic-impacts-cl...

Re: New Yorkers Can Now Get Unlimited UberPool in Manhattan for $200

#95

Post by untog » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 7:09 PM UTC

bpicolo wrote: post #74

kdamken wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, uberpool is terrible. Can easily make a 20 minute ride 60 minutes depending on how many other fares they pick up/drop off on the way. I took one into the city once to try it out. Normally a 20 minute drive, we stopped and picked up 2 other fares. They both got dropped off before me (which is insane), and it ended up taking over an hour. The worst part? The drive told me that if we dropped off one and another ca…

Been very good in my experience for going from San Francisco -> East Bay.

This is the core of why everyone argues about Uber online. In some cities it's fantastic. In others it's terrible.

Re: New Yorkers Can Now Get Unlimited UberPool in Manhattan for $200

#96

Post by untog » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 7:10 PM UTC

macandcheese wrote: post #94

macandcheese wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the whole: subway = not air conditioned and miserable, uber = air conditioned and comfortable. Also, as a Hudson Valley resident for most of my life, Indian Point and nuclear power in general is a huge concern for me.

I'd assume I'm getting downvoted because I made a comment about my trepidation towards nuclear power.. If you lived within an emergency evacuation zone for a nuclear plant you may feel the same (disclaimer: I don't, but I lived close enough to Indian Point to feel unsafe, and everytime I take Metro North and see it fly past my window, I think what a risk it is)... Indian Point is a liability to the people and the eco…

You may also be getting downvoted because the subway system is air conditioned.

Re: New Yorkers Can Now Get Unlimited UberPool in Manhattan for $200

#97

Post by untog » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 7:13 PM UTC

There's probably something to be said here about Uber limiting this to Manhattan - by far and away the most subway-covered area of the city - and not somewhere like East New York that's crying out for transit.

Of course, they do so to make money, and I don't begrudge them that. But it goes some way to highlight the fact that Uber is mostly certainly not a tide that raises all ships.

(as an entirely different aside, the roads in Manhattan are already terrible, and the subway is already quicker for a lot of journeys. Once you add in the fact that the Pool takes you far out of your way... eh.)

Re: New Yorkers Can Now Get Unlimited UberPool in Manhattan for $200

#98

Post by michaelt » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 7:26 PM UTC

petra wrote: post #90

jacques_chester wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're betting on self-driving cars. My expectation is that self-driving cars will be promptly disintermediated. "Google Rides", maybe, or "Amazon Prime for People", scatter-gathering over thousands of small companies owning 1 or 2 cars. Prices will fall to the marginal return. Uber's investor fountain will run dry and they'll be stuck with the same economics as everyone else. There will be no brand loyalty once pri…

Uber losing could happen, sure. But why would tiny companies win ? big companies still have somewhat better economics(volume discounts, vertically integrated maintenence, a variety of ways to raise capital, maybe a bit of branding(with regards to reliability, cleanliness...), etc).

A company that limits itself to online dispatch and doesn't own any vehicles itself (a) can expand to new cities at almost no cost, (b) can perform well on certain metrics like return on capital invested and revenue per employee, (c) faces no risk from buying too much capacity and (d) bears much less of the costs of risks like bad routing, mispricing or vandal customers, and so doesn't have to spend money mitigating those risks.

Of course, to get those benefits the supply of self-driving cars has to outpace the large companies' ability to expand. The fact your dispatch software can scale to 100 cities in a day is irrelevant if Google, Amazon and Uber are buying all the self-driving cars as soon as they come off the production line.

Re: New Yorkers Can Now Get Unlimited UberPool in Manhattan for $200

#99

Post by macandcheese » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 7:37 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #96

macandcheese wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd assume I'm getting downvoted because I made a comment about my trepidation towards nuclear power.. If you lived within an emergency evacuation zone for a nuclear plant you may feel the same (disclaimer: I don't, but I lived close enough to Indian Point to feel unsafe, and everytime I take Metro North and see it fly past my window, I think what a risk it is)... Indian Point is a liability to the people and the eco…

You may also be getting downvoted because the subway system is air conditioned.

Most lines have working AC. But I bet that anyone (myself included) that complains about the NYC subway being hot is most likely referring to the 10-15 minutes of hell standing on a subway platform in absolute delirium-inducing 95 degree, 100% humidity, Gotham city fresh air.

Re: New Yorkers Can Now Get Unlimited UberPool in Manhattan for $200

#100

Post by jacques_chester » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 7:42 PM UTC

petra wrote: post #90

jacques_chester wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're betting on self-driving cars. My expectation is that self-driving cars will be promptly disintermediated. "Google Rides", maybe, or "Amazon Prime for People", scatter-gathering over thousands of small companies owning 1 or 2 cars. Prices will fall to the marginal return. Uber's investor fountain will run dry and they'll be stuck with the same economics as everyone else. There will be no brand loyalty once pri…

Uber losing could happen, sure. But why would tiny companies win ? big companies still have somewhat better economics(volume discounts, vertically integrated maintenence, a variety of ways to raise capital, maybe a bit of branding(with regards to reliability, cleanliness...), etc).

There are economies of scale, but there are also people who don't know they're going to go out of business for undercutting the major rates.

And there will be people who bought a self-driving car et voila, someone pitches "AirBNB for self-driving cars!" and they decide to undercut Uber to make a few easy bucks.

There will be constant downward pressure on price and no structural way to build a moat against it.