Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 161 posts

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#151

Post by vaishaksuresh »

sp332 wrote: post #148
vaishaksuresh wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are subsidizing the passenger's trip, but taking a cut from the driver's fare. There is a difference.

Taking a cut from where? I don't think Uber's costs are 60% and the drivers' are 40%.

The article is talking about a different thing. If the trip costs me $10, the driver keeps ~$7 and Uber gets $3. If the driver thinks he needs $9 for this to be viable, then Uber should either take $1 or charge the customer $12 and pay the driver $9 is my point. I don't want the additional $2 to be covered by tips, which is determined by an unspoken rule.

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#152

Post by sp332 »

vaishaksuresh wrote: post #151
sp332 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking a cut from where? I don't think Uber's costs are 60% and the drivers' are 40%.

The article is talking about a different thing. If the trip costs me $10, the driver keeps ~$7 and Uber gets $3. If the driver thinks he needs $9 for this to be viable, then Uber should either take $1 or charge the customer $12 and pay the driver $9 is my point. I don't want the additional $2 to be covered by tips, which is determined by an unspoken rule.

But right now Uber is actually subsidizing your ride, so you pay $10, the driver gets $20 and Uber's "cut" is -$10. On top of that Uber does have expenses of their own so Uber loses $15 total.

The only way this works over the long term is to force out competition so that they can massively jack up prices, and/or replace drivers with self-driving cars that have lower costs.

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#153

Post by smallgovt »

Arizhel wrote: post #141
smallgovt wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of customers/drivers do YOU think would switch over to Lyft et al? From my experience in growth/marketing, I would bet there would be around 50% drop off, but I could definitely be wrong! These things are hard to guess. (Customers need to switch as well as drivers) Even a 1% drop off leads to 5000 people let go. Anything substantial would lead me to strongly considering other avenues of redemption. To…

>What percentage of customers/drivers do YOU think would switch over to Lyft et al? Um, all of them? If Uber went under, what choice would they have? Why would customers give up on Uber/Lyft and go back to cabs, when there's at least one company that does almost the exact same thing and is a direct competitor? Why would they refuse to install the Lyft app, when they've already shown they're willing to install the Ube…

I agree with the reasons you ended your last comment on. Ignorance and lack of availability (or rather a mismatch in supply and demand) would surely lead to drop-off. In addition, laziness will lead to drop-off i.e. "Uber was marginally better than taking the next best alternative for me. I'll just go back to that now because I'm too lazy to figure out this Lyft thing".

I'd guess the difference in our conclusions is based on your belief that these are "easily countered with some advertising".

Most of my background is in paid advertising, and reactivation on defunct company contacts is never close to 100% -- not even close.

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#154

Post by quizzas »

valuearb wrote: post #53
rthomas6 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter if Uber's not actually making money. And they're not, last I heard.

it only matters if they can. Few rapidly growing tech startups make money while still investing in growth.

The problem is market maturity. If Uber is currently facing a quickly maturing market, the upside is limited. Investing in growth is much different than investing in diversification. For example, Google's ad-click market is completely mature, there is very little new growth there. So all their investments are in something new to add to their revenue pipeline, whether that will be AR or autonomous technologies. The fact that Uber is already seeing a loss of market share indicates that market maturity is fast approaching. How much of their investment is simply protectionism to maintain market share rather than growth?

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#155

Post by Arizhel »

smallgovt wrote: post #153
Arizhel wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What percentage of customers/drivers do YOU think would switch over to Lyft et al? Um, all of them? If Uber went under, what choice would they have? Why would customers give up on Uber/Lyft and go back to cabs, when there's at least one company that does almost the exact same thing and is a direct competitor? Why would they refuse to install the Lyft app, when they've already shown they're willing to install the Ube…

I agree with the reasons you ended your last comment on. Ignorance and lack of availability (or rather a mismatch in supply and demand) would surely lead to drop-off. In addition, laziness will lead to drop-off i.e. "Uber was marginally better than taking the next best alternative for me. I'll just go back to that now because I'm too lazy to figure out this Lyft thing". I'd guess the difference in our conclusions is…

I still don't see the problem. In this case, the people too stupid to figure out the Lyft app (seriously, if you can figure out the Uber app, then the Lyft app isn't any harder) can just go back to using cabs. So the cab drivers now are making more money, and the cab companies will need to hire more people, who could be former Uber drivers. What's the problem?

Keeping around rotten management because you don't want to disrupt the people below them is always the wrong thing to do, because then you're not fixing the problem, you're letting it fester.

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#156

Post by smallgovt »

Arizhel wrote: post #155
smallgovt wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the reasons you ended your last comment on. Ignorance and lack of availability (or rather a mismatch in supply and demand) would surely lead to drop-off. In addition, laziness will lead to drop-off i.e. "Uber was marginally better than taking the next best alternative for me. I'll just go back to that now because I'm too lazy to figure out this Lyft thing". I'd guess the difference in our conclusions is…

I still don't see the problem. In this case, the people too stupid to figure out the Lyft app (seriously, if you can figure out the Uber app, then the Lyft app isn't any harder) can just go back to using cabs. So the cab drivers now are making more money, and the cab companies will need to hire more people, who could be former Uber drivers. What's the problem? Keeping around rotten management because you don't want t…

If people go back to cabs then all is fine from an employment standpoint, but the problem is the section of customers whose best alternative is public transit, walking, cycling. (I'm in this group)

After thinking more about this, I think I actually agree with your argument that we should sentence Uber to death just because it's the 'right' thing to do even if it indirectly leads to unemployment of a lot of people.

However, we started this thread under a shared premise of utilitarianism. If we treat these 'death sentence' decisions on on a case-by-case (i.e. no future precedent set), it's hard for me to believe punishing the 'corrupt management' (which probably only amounts to a dozen individuals) is worth screwing with peoples' livelihoods. At Uber's scale, it just seems like a given that there will be hundreds of people whose lives will be SERIOUSLY screwed, albeit indirectly.

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#157

Post by Arizhel »

smallgovt wrote: post #156
Arizhel wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't see the problem. In this case, the people too stupid to figure out the Lyft app (seriously, if you can figure out the Uber app, then the Lyft app isn't any harder) can just go back to using cabs. So the cab drivers now are making more money, and the cab companies will need to hire more people, who could be former Uber drivers. What's the problem? Keeping around rotten management because you don't want t…

If people go back to cabs then all is fine from an employment standpoint, but the problem is the section of customers whose best alternative is public transit, walking, cycling. (I'm in this group) After thinking more about this, I think I actually agree with your argument that we should sentence Uber to death just because it's the 'right' thing to do even if it indirectly leads to unemployment of a lot of people. Ho…

I think it's more than a dozen individuals; from what we're seeing with Uber, and what I know about corporate culture from experience, bad corporate culture permeates the entire company, from the top down. In Uber's case, this means not only their executives, but also their HR department (which backs up harassers), and also their engineering (which is very large for a company like that). The drivers are a different thing because they don't work directly with the corporate HQ people and are really just part-time contractors anyway. So I really don't have a problem with those hundreds of people at Uber HQ getting seriously screwed. Most of them will probably get jobs elsewhere anyway, though they'll now have the Uber resume stain, but these people aren't poor people living paycheck-to-paycheck, they're relatively wealthy Silicon Valley office workers (engineers, managers, etc.).

For everyone else, drivers, customers, etc., I really do think they'll just move on to other things and it won't be a big deal. Lyft seems to be doing fine, though it'd be nice if they eliminated the tipping.

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#158

Post by amazingman »

angry-hacker wrote: post #116
amazingman wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you know, their culture really is that toxic, their ethics really are that terrible, and Kalanick really is a hyper-libertarian jerk. The first claim is what catalyzed the latest spate of bad press, but there have been many, many examples of the latter 2 claims over the past few years. All you have to do is browse to your favorite search engine and use it.

And you can find hundreds of CEO's with the same characteristics. I hate uber for breaking the laws and calling it disruption, but obviously media smells the blood and this attack gets s lot of attention and pageviews so they keep pouring the oil to fire.

Good. I'm tired of there being so many positive feedback loops for individuals and companies practicing bad/malicious ethics, and/or failing at even the most basic compassion/egalitarianism.

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#159

Post by vaishaksuresh »

sp332 wrote: post #152
vaishaksuresh wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is talking about a different thing. If the trip costs me $10, the driver keeps ~$7 and Uber gets $3. If the driver thinks he needs $9 for this to be viable, then Uber should either take $1 or charge the customer $12 and pay the driver $9 is my point. I don't want the additional $2 to be covered by tips, which is determined by an unspoken rule.

But right now Uber is actually subsidizing your ride, so you pay $10, the driver gets $20 and Uber's "cut" is -$10. On top of that Uber does have expenses of their own so Uber loses $15 total. The only way this works over the long term is to force out competition so that they can massively jack up prices, and/or replace drivers with self-driving cars that have lower costs.

Right, so make my cost $15 and pay the driver $25 and Uber still loses $15. I'm okay with that if that means I and the driver don't have to stress out about the tip before each ride. I don't want to be responsible for the driver making living wage when I don't employ him.

If Uber does this and they realize customers are not riding as much anymore, then it is a problem with their pricing and setting of expectation.

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#160

Post by Kiro »

hackuser wrote: post #131
vaishaksuresh wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thanks! If drivers need to be compensated better, I would suggest increasing the fare or Uber taking a smaller cut. A lot of people prefer Uber just so they don't have to deal with tipping like in traditional cabs.

> A lot of people prefer Uber just so they don't have to deal with tipping like in traditional cabs. Is their any data to back this up? Outside of Hacker News, I don't think I've ever heard someone complain about tipping. I have no problem with it.

Ask anyone outside the US. Tipping belongs in the stone age.
Post reply on HN