71–80 of 424 posts
So what's "net revenue" in this context? I always thought revenue was income before costs, and profit was revenue minus cost. Gross revenue would make sense as "total income", but net revenue doesn't make any sense to me. Clearly I'm missing something. Can someone explain?
Presumably this is intentional -- Uber could raise prices and make more money, but right now they're choosing to keep prices very low in order to undercut Lyft and the cab companies with the assumption that having a monopoly will return more profits in the future. At least anecdotally, here in SF Lyft is almost always more expensive than Uber.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lyft may be more expensive on paper but I always use it instead of Uber where it is available and they send me so many discounts and coupons that I almost never pay the full price.
Out of curiosity, why do you prefer Lyft?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uber does background checks, not sure where the idea that they are skipping them comes from
It might come from the fact that they ragequit Austin rather than do background checks.
Uber is making the rest of us in SV look terrible. 1. Collect a huge pile of money at sky-high valuations from those who really should know better. 2. Ignore any sensible unit economics and undercut local taxi/transport services until those small businesses go bankrupt since they don't have Uber's money pile. 3. Evade local regulations that everyone else follows in the name of 'innovation' even though the reality is…
Huh? What's the end game? The end game is a company with self driving cars, having SIGNIFICANTLY less overhead than they currently do with human drivers. And, probably a ton of technology patents to boot? Yea, they're definitely a brazen company, but do you really expect anything less from a unicorn company? Very few make it this big without cutting some corners, having some connection, etc.
Right now Uber is really just proving that if you burn billions and billions you can create a "market" for your "product." It has yet to show that it's a real company with long term prospects. There's a difference between losing money because you haven't hit scale (when Facebook was losing money in the early years) and losing money because you're at scale and just undercutting everyone to show you can make "revenue" or by investing in "innovation" that everyone and their brother is doing and doing it better than Uber.
Presumably this is intentional -- Uber could raise prices and make more money, but right now they're choosing to keep prices very low in order to undercut Lyft and the cab companies with the assumption that having a monopoly will return more profits in the future. At least anecdotally, here in SF Lyft is almost always more expensive than Uber.
That's such a terrible strategy I can't believe that's really what they're doing. The short term problem is that they can't burn through money long enough for it to work. The barrier to entry to create an Uber or Lyft competitor is very low - anybody with a car and a laptop can create a viable Uber competitor. Nobody's doing it because Uber, Lyft, and taxis are everywhere, but when there's only Uber, and they're sudd…
Uber is making the rest of us in SV look terrible. 1. Collect a huge pile of money at sky-high valuations from those who really should know better. 2. Ignore any sensible unit economics and undercut local taxi/transport services until those small businesses go bankrupt since they don't have Uber's money pile. 3. Evade local regulations that everyone else follows in the name of 'innovation' even though the reality is…
Evade local regulations that everyone else follows in the name of 'innovation' even though the reality is they are just taking a free pass on conducting background checks, and skipping safety guidelines. When they replace all taxis, do they really think they can just permanently ignore all driving laws? Since when do hackers bleat about obeying laws and regulations? What happened to having a "we can do better" mindse…
Please stop perpetuating this myth- started by Eric Raymond and happily encouraged by SV "thought leaders"- that hackers must, by definition, be laissez-faire capitalists who love Ayn Rand and treat breaking laws as a noble goal in and of itself. I do none of those things, because I recognize that many times regulations are vital for ensuring human health and happiness, and think that free-for-all capitalism leads mostly to misery for all but a few in the plutocracy. "We can do beter" implies not settling for a world like that.
Other people don't have to agree with my politics, but if they want to say I'm "not a hacker" because of that, they can take their very-politically-motivated prescriptivism and... well, I got told by dang the other day and I'm trying to cut down on the angry HN posts because of it, but you get the idea.
Presumably this is intentional -- Uber could raise prices and make more money, but right now they're choosing to keep prices very low in order to undercut Lyft and the cab companies with the assumption that having a monopoly will return more profits in the future. At least anecdotally, here in SF Lyft is almost always more expensive than Uber.
That's such a terrible strategy I can't believe that's really what they're doing. The short term problem is that they can't burn through money long enough for it to work. The barrier to entry to create an Uber or Lyft competitor is very low - anybody with a car and a laptop can create a viable Uber competitor. Nobody's doing it because Uber, Lyft, and taxis are everywhere, but when there's only Uber, and they're sudd…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uber does background checks, not sure where the idea that they are skipping them comes from
By 'background check' I mean a process that the local govt. believes is necessary based on experience and past incidents, not something that someone at Uber came up with randomly. "News of assaults by ride-hailing drivers has been a frequent occurrence. Reports of rape, battery and harassment have grabbed headlines in California, Georgia, Illinois, Texas, Washington, Florida and many other states. While some of these…
Disclaimer: I work at a background check company
Uber is making the rest of us in SV look terrible. 1. Collect a huge pile of money at sky-high valuations from those who really should know better. 2. Ignore any sensible unit economics and undercut local taxi/transport services until those small businesses go bankrupt since they don't have Uber's money pile. 3. Evade local regulations that everyone else follows in the name of 'innovation' even though the reality is…
AFAIK, this is called "Dumping the market". And it should not be legal...
Can prices ever be "too low?" The short answer is yes, but not very often.
Generally, low prices benefit consumers. Consumers are harmed only if below-cost pricing allows a dominant competitor to knock its rivals out of the market and
then raise prices to above-market levels for a substantial time. A firm's
independent decision to reduce prices to a level below its own costs does not
necessarily injure competition, and, in fact, may simply reflect particularly
vigorous competition. Instances of a large firm using low prices to drive
smaller competitors out of the market in hopes of raising prices after they
leave are rare. This strategy can only be successful if the short-run losses
from pricing below cost will be made up for by much higher prices over a longer
period of time after competitors leave the market. Although the FTC examines
claims of predatory pricing carefully, courts, including the Supreme Court, have
been skeptical of such claims.