The Wheels Come Off Uber • Hacker News Board

Re: The Wheels Come Off Uber

#81

Post by the_gastropod » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 5:58 PM UTC

alejohausner wrote: post #31

People misunderstand Uber's motives. They are not slimy. Quite the opposite: they are a public good. The company is the front end for a giant charitable effort by venture capitalists. They are pouring money into uber, to help it drive down the costs of urban transportation, enabling people in cities to have more money available for necessities like rent, diapers, and food.

Venture capitalists, if looking to be charitable, could be more effective by donating the money to an established, well run charity.

Venture capitalists have dumped money into Uber not for charity, but for an expected return on their investment.

Re: The Wheels Come Off Uber

#82

Post by Animats » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 6:08 PM UTC

curun1r wrote: post #71

Animats wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From that series: Uber’s real problem is that it is a staggeringly unprofitable company with fundamentally uncompetitive economics. It lost $2 billion in 2015, $3 billion in 2016, and another billion in China. It is a higher cost, less efficient producer of taxi service than traditional operators; all of its growth is explained by these multi-billion dollar subsidies as it has flooded markets with additional capacity…

The response to that has always been that if they can stay afloat until autonomous vehicles arrive, they can cut costs to the point where they're profitable. Beyond that, with the driver costs out of the picture, the cost of an autonomous ride would actually be below the per-mile cost of driving your own vehicle to the point where Uber would ride a wave of decreased individual ownership and reliance on car-hailing se…

The Waymo lawsuit shouldn't affect Uber much. Google's LIDAR is rotating machinery for experimental vehicles, not production use. The production products will be flash LIDAR at a low price point. From Continental, definitely, and Quanergy, maybe. (Quanergy, maybe not. They've been talking big since 2015, but haven't shipped.)

Re: The Wheels Come Off Uber

#83

Post by r00fus » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 6:10 PM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #42

slantedview wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can hold political bias and still present a strong analysis.

You can also hold political bias and fake a "strong" analysis, especially if your audience already agrees with or desires the outcome in your conclusion.

The de-biasing of the information and validation of such information is an exercise left for the reader.

Don't ever purely trust someone else's analysis without validation... that's like running a random binary you found on the internet.

Re: The Wheels Come Off Uber

#84

Post by r00fus » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 6:15 PM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #74

sidlls wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. Do you have reason to suspect that's the case in this instance?

Many reasons, but I can't/won't elaborate. What I will say is that the author's bias has given him/her some major blinders and that s/he's become incapable of seeing ways in which s/he is wrong. My suggestion is that the author engage in a forecasting technique developed at Royal Dutch Shell known as scenario planning. One of the key features of scenario planning is that whenever you finish arriving at a conclusion,…

It's not the source's responsibility to be 100% unbiased. It's your responsibility as a reader to detect and adjust for the bias.

Consider applying your advice to your own meta-analysis. If you can't elaborate on your judgement, perhaps it's you who have blinders on?

Re: The Wheels Come Off Uber

#85

Post by r00fus » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 6:17 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #58

alejohausner wrote: post #31

People misunderstand Uber's motives. They are not slimy. Quite the opposite: they are a public good. The company is the front end for a giant charitable effort by venture capitalists. They are pouring money into uber, to help it drive down the costs of urban transportation, enabling people in cities to have more money available for necessities like rent, diapers, and food.

Is this satire or what?

It's the same reason for why "investor class" let Amazon run on negative to slim profits for so long (allowing them to compete with others that could not do this).

Some (I think it was Gruber) said it's like a subsidy from Wall Street to Amazon customers.

I feel that reasoning is short-sighted and dangerous.

Re: The Wheels Come Off Uber

#86

Post by emodendroket » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 6:20 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #85

emodendroket wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this satire or what?

It's the same reason for why "investor class" let Amazon run on negative to slim profits for so long (allowing them to compete with others that could not do this). Some (I think it was Gruber) said it's like a subsidy from Wall Street to Amazon customers. I feel that reasoning is short-sighted and dangerous.

Yeah, but they're not doing that out of a sense of charity; the idea is that eventually they are entrenched enough that they can jack up the prices.

Re: The Wheels Come Off Uber

#87

Post by vec » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 6:22 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #65

SilasX wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing except the fact that there seems to be an extreme taboo that makes everyone steadfastly refuse to do it with the same fervor.

If it were really the only thing giving Uber a monopoly on the market I guarantee somebody else would lose their scruples.

Tipping isn't about scruples. Businesses with scruples would pay their employees a fair wage and price accordingly. And then immediately go out of business as everyone flocks to the competitor that's magically 20% cheaper (before the essentially mandatory 20% tip).

Tipping is entirely about being able to advertise a lower price than the actual customer cost. Unfortunately that is extremely effective, so if one company in a market accepts tips all the others basically have to.

Re: The Wheels Come Off Uber

#88

Post by mikeash » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 6:22 PM UTC

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #77

mikeash wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to disrupt a crony-capitalist, monopolistic system by selling your product at a loss, but you can't make a profit that way.

How are they selling a product at a loss? They're brokering thousands of people to rideshare their cars. Very low overhead. Seems like a brilliant business model, actually.

I have no idea, but they're losing a shitload of money, so they're managing it somehow.

Re: The Wheels Come Off Uber

#89

Post by alejohausner » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 6:26 PM UTC

jlev wrote: post #69

alejohausner wrote: post #31

People misunderstand Uber's motives. They are not slimy. Quite the opposite: they are a public good. The company is the front end for a giant charitable effort by venture capitalists. They are pouring money into uber, to help it drive down the costs of urban transportation, enabling people in cities to have more money available for necessities like rent, diapers, and food.

Is this a joke? They are pouring money into building a monopoly, so they can raise prices when they eventually control urban and suburban transportation.

Whoosh! Yes, I meant it as satire, but I guess I my tone was too serious. There goes my career in comedy.

But on a more serious note, the arrogance of uber (and its backers) reminds me of times before the welfare state, before governments created barriers to unbridled capitalism. Those times were hard for the disempowered poor. If you were very rich, you could reclaim virtue by leaving your fortune to some public charity, or the church. Or you could be a patron for the arts, supporting writers and artists (that's why so many old novels are dedicated to rich patrons). Or you could pay to fund a piece of urban infrastructure, like a park or school.

That's the tone I was appealing to, but I ruined the joke by explaining it.

After the French revolution, then Bismarck's Germany, and finally post-WW1 Europe, the working class gained some power, and introduced some barriers to exploitation by the wealthy classes: barriers like unions, minimum wages, workplace safety regulations, environmental protection, and eventually taxpayer-funded medical care.

Since the 1970s, there has been a wave of corporate propaganda against these barriers. They have been called "unnecessary regulation" and "loss of personal freedom". Uber has adopted that attitude too. I think they are reactionaries who want to dismantle structures that help the working class.

Re: The Wheels Come Off Uber

#90

Post by alejohausner » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 6:30 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #58

alejohausner wrote: post #31

People misunderstand Uber's motives. They are not slimy. Quite the opposite: they are a public good. The company is the front end for a giant charitable effort by venture capitalists. They are pouring money into uber, to help it drive down the costs of urban transportation, enabling people in cities to have more money available for necessities like rent, diapers, and food.

Is this satire or what?

Yup, satire. Geez!