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Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue

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Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue

#221

Post by henrikschroder »

TheSageMage wrote: post #196
animex wrote: post #167

Uber will be a dead Unicorn in the medium future. They've got too many legal pressures, competitors with native advantages (i.e. the automakers), and their expansion plans have them overextended. Here in Edmonton, AB, Canada, regulatory changes have pushed the Uber prices to almost 2x during non-surge times over regular taxis. Taxi's have stepped up. Local competitors have sprouted. Carshares are abounding. It's all…

... and that exactly what the Taxi industry should do, step up. Not just in price, but in technology. IMO the best feature of Uber is the app and transparency like features of taking a trip. If I can pull the app up, input where I am and where I want to go, how much it will cost, and when my driver will be here, I'm happy. The few experiences I've had with local Taxi systems, coming from a everyone-drives-a-car subur…

Some have already done it, Taxi Stockholm has a very nice app; enter pickup and destination, book it, track it, pay through it, etc. And they're marketing themselves by stressing all the things they provide that Uber doesn't. You get a licensed, properly insured taxi driver in a nice car.

Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue

#222

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

lacampbell wrote: post #202
vertex-four wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And as a leftist, Hacker News is very, very libertarian-leaning most of the time by nature of its general support for startup companies no matter what laws they break and its general dislike of laws and systems designed to protect people from the sociopathic entities we call companies. There's some dissent, but it's certainly not a progressive haven. This is one of those places where people will happily sit around an…

The sociopathic entities we call governments are far more powerful and do far more damage than those we call companies. MacDonalds has yet to bomb anyone that I am aware of, and I can't recall Google using force to prevent someone leaving a country, or Amazon water-boarding people it has captured through overseas kidnapping.

You're proving his point.

Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue

#223

Post by tehlike »

aianus wrote: post #213
tehlike wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a google employee, this often makes me sad too, but when it comes to human life, it's a bit more nuanced than that. engineers don't have the luxury to do many things they could otherwise do on their server side software. You break a server, you fire-drill it, get the resources, roll back the release or so on. You lose money, sometimes tens of millions of dollars, but not human life. You write your post mortem, and…

You could have used those $10m to save hundreds or thousands of lives. It doesn't make any sense to hypothetically spend $10m extra dollars to save a single life.

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html

There is difference.

Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue

#224

Post by mjevans »

henrikschroder wrote: post #221
TheSageMage wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and that exactly what the Taxi industry should do, step up. Not just in price, but in technology. IMO the best feature of Uber is the app and transparency like features of taking a trip. If I can pull the app up, input where I am and where I want to go, how much it will cost, and when my driver will be here, I'm happy. The few experiences I've had with local Taxi systems, coming from a everyone-drives-a-car subur…

Some have already done it, Taxi Stockholm has a very nice app; enter pickup and destination, book it, track it, pay through it, etc. And they're marketing themselves by stressing all the things they provide that Uber doesn't. You get a licensed, properly insured taxi driver in a nice car.

One advantage Uber has over the app you mention is that it's in many (most) cities. You only need /one/ app and one place to go to get fulfillment. The network effect is not insubstantial.

Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue

#225

Post by sundaeofshock »

duaneb wrote: post #34
quickben wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, about (2). Taxi got a bit cheaper. Also for peak times people use them to dodge surge pricing. It's equalizing.

There aren't any taxis anymore in SF.

I'm surprised to hear there are no taxis in SF. However, in the city of San Francisco there are plenty of taxis. I take them all the time and they are still easy to hail from the street. There are plenty of times when I want a professional driver who knows The City, instead of some random person from the East Bay.

Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue

#226

Post by apapli »

moxious wrote: post #113
apapli wrote: post #102

Uber: the worlds fastest growing charity.

So others in this thread are calling it venture capital subsidized transportation. Why does the idea of venture capital charity seem so hilariously backwards?

Because VCs are using investor money and their investors are looking for a return. Someone along the line will be pissed off of their investments don't pay off.

Burning up $800m to subsidise an app with the justification of "market share" decades before self driving vehicles become the norm is totally fine by me, as long as it's not my money being incinerated.

Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue

#227

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #188
antiviral wrote: post #6

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…

> 3. Evade local regulations Could you share some specific information to substantiate this? I frequently hear this statement on Hacker News, and (as far as I can recall), every time I've asked for a source or evidence for the claim, I have not gotten a satisfactory answer. Black car services where you arrange pickup with a specific driver ahead of time have always been regulated differently than taxis. Uber has cars…

Your position then is that ubers (the ones most of us use) are not actually taxis? How do you define 'taxi'?

Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue

#228

Post by kmonsen »

paulddraper wrote: post #175
animex wrote: post #167

Uber will be a dead Unicorn in the medium future. They've got too many legal pressures, competitors with native advantages (i.e. the automakers), and their expansion plans have them overextended. Here in Edmonton, AB, Canada, regulatory changes have pushed the Uber prices to almost 2x during non-surge times over regular taxis. Taxi's have stepped up. Local competitors have sprouted. Carshares are abounding. It's all…

They still have the momentum. This isn't a start up trying to figure out how to make money (Twitter) or a company that can't/won't change (Blackberry). This is a company making money that is pursuing a blitzkrieg on the industry. They can sit back any day and rake in billions. I agree there isn't a high entry barrier, but I don't think they've lost the first-to-market advantage.

The thing is once they stop subsidizing the rides, will people stop using them?

Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue

#229

Post by SixSigma »

aianus wrote: post #198
nsp wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To some degree, Juno's stated differentiator is being the best ride hail app from the drivers perspective by: - 50% of founder equity goes to drivers - 10% vs 20-25% cut of fares - no pooled concept (this may be purely because they're too small to support it, though it is also unpopular with drivers

Why do I care what the drivers like? I don't buy any other products or services based on the happiness of the workers. Uber still has the most drivers and the cheapest prices.

So all your products are made with child labour and indentured slaves ?
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