Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue • Hacker News Board

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

#361

Post by daughart » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 1:03 PM UTC

toasted wrote: post #355

Off-topic - but currently in India and the uber experience is absolutely amazing. The handful of times we have used taxi drivers, none of them can find the place where we are staying even with written directions in english and in hindi or even with a hindi speaking person instructing them via the phone. There is always some niggle over pricing and whatever you pay them they claim you are shortchanging them. With uber…

In Boston it's practically the opposite experience. Cabbies almost always know exactly where I'm going and the fastest way to get there, because they've logged the hours necessary to learn Boston's confusing street system. Uber drivers are usually flipping between at least 2 GPS systems, and frequently get lost, confused, and turned around. The rider experience has really dropped off now that any Joe can make a few bucks as a part-time Uber driver.

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

#362

Post by XJOKOLAT » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 1:07 PM UTC

zouhair wrote: post #220

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…

As much as I hated and still hate the Uber tactics and way of business, I have to give to them, they managed to shake things up and force taxi companies to get on with the times or suffer hard ones. All in all it will be good for consumers and workers as long as Uber is forced to pay its dues where it wants to do business.

Agreed. I took a local company cab recently and was really impressed and I was wondering if that would have been the story had the market not changed.

Have still never taken an Uber and don't feel the need to.

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

#363

Post by Cyph0n » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 1:07 PM UTC

ohwello wrote: post #311

Cyph0n wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha, you're right - I did not phrase that correctly: I use a secured CC sparingly to avoid over-utilization. In this case, I had to use my debit card.

Utilization has no lasting effect on your credit score - if you have 100% utilization one month and pay it off next month, your credit score will be the same as if your utilization was 0% the whole time. It doesn't matter for building credit in the long term.

I see, thanks for the info. I will keep that in mind.

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

#364

Post by dwightgunning » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 1:09 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #146

As others point out this isn't necessarily bad, but it does mean that Uber is extremely vulnerable. If we learned anything in the last bubble it was that attempting to bootstrap through the power curve is exceptionally susceptible to capital constraints. Back in the dot com days a number of 'baby telephone companies' that were building out their networks and spending huge amounts of money on laying out the infrastruc…

> Its nice that if Uber does implode (not that they will) that only VC's will lose their money...

Although don't forget the VC funds' lending partners are often pension funds and other traditional investment vehicles that you or I might use.

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

#365

Post by lobo_tuerto » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 1:50 PM UTC

The biggest beef I have with Uber is that they went from a transparent price calculation to an opaque (and basically always more expensive rate).

So I always write back to their support team and they usually refund the extra charged money, but it's tiring to have to do this for every long trip I make with them.

(I'm talking about Uber in Mexico City).

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

#366

Post by kaosjester » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 1:51 PM UTC

aedron wrote: post #333

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is like arguing that Amazon would never be worth a Billion dollars because there aren't enough book buyers. If we were talking about Uber's current model then you're 100% correct. But if we look at all to where they're going there's tremendous potential. They bought Otto - which is arguably the leader in self driving trucking and they have self driving trucks on the road right now. If they're able to cap…

So Uber's marketing BS is working. Self-driving trucks and, even more so, cars, are by any reasonable measure decades away. There are technical challenges that we have no answer for. Like all technical challenges, they can probably be overcome, but no one knows when or how, and what hardware advancements are necessary. That's not even getting into the regulatory hurdles. Put out a demo proof-of-concept and people thi…

This isn't about marketing. Uber is literally pushing toward this. They hired most of CMU's National Robotics Engineering Center! They're making this push, and it's either that or bust for them.

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

#367

Post by sah2ed » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 1:57 PM UTC

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…

> The Uber model has no barrier to entry and they've lost their first-to-market advantage. Doesn't paint a pretty picture.

Agree. Steve Blank argues that the first-mover or second-mover strategy has never worked [1]. Uber is a second mover, Lyft was first.

[1] https://shift.newco.co/why-startup-pioneers-have-arrows-in-t...

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

#368

Post by _nedR » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:05 PM UTC

kahnpro wrote: post #356

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but you needed a different app for each taxi company. That's a terrible experience.

And guess what Uber and Lyft are? Two different taxi companies with two different apps. I'm not sure what you think has changed here?

Yeah, but Uber and Lyft are not restricted to one city or country. No Taxi company (of the kind that actually owns and operates their own fleet of cars) could do that.

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

#369

Post by ddalex » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:07 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #288

MarkMc wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is most certainly a network effect. It's similar to eBay: Buyers and sellers can switch to another eBay clone, but they don't because there are no buyers or sellers on the clone. Similarly, nobody will download another app if it doesn't have any drivers, and drivers will not install another app if there are no riders.

That's spot on. The massive moat is that Uber has captured the market, which requires both drivers and customers (not to mention the billions of dollars of global infrastructure & deployment, people talent, accumulated knowledge, brand & user trust, etc). To compete you need a very large amount of capital and nobody is going to give you that money now that there is an Uber. You don't just have to replicate Uber, you…

The problem is that Uber doesn't control the platform. It doesn't control the cars that it uses, or the laws, or anything. It has no natural moat - its moat are the money it has.

But the moment a car manufacturer that has significant production capacity deploys self-driving cars on it own, with an app to rent-a-ride on its platform, and the caveat that the self-driving tech cannot be used on the Uber service (Tesla, I'm looking at you), Uber is toast.

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

#370

Post by mindcrime » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 2:25 PM UTC

vertex-four wrote: post #163

lacampbell wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when do hackers bleat about obeying laws and regulations? What happened to having a "we can do better" mindset? Has everybody wigged out and flipped their "I want a nanny state to protect me 24/7" bit? Hacker News is fairly progressive/authoritarian. The kind of attitude you describe can still be found on slashdot.

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…

HN is very far from being "libertarian leaning". It might have been so in the past, but that time is long gone.

This is one of those places where people will happily sit around and argue that breaking laws is moral and necessary, no matter what the law.

It looks like there are about two of us in that camp, in this discussion, versus pretty much everybody else. It's pretty clear the pendulum has swung and this site is largely oriented towards big government interventionism.