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

Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 256 posts

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#151

Post by throwaway2048 »

lev99 wrote: post #143
jsonne wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem though is that they led the way by breaking down all the regulatory barrier to entries. Whats to stop anyone from starting a ridesharing company tomorrow?

The network effect. You have the give your drivers a reason to use your app instead of uber. You have to give riders a reason to use your app instead of uber. The two reasons have to be good enough to build a large enough network for the rideshare system to work.

those reasons have largely boiled down to "lose money on each ride", that's not going to last.

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#152

Post by aetherson »

philwelch wrote: post #103
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I am really perplexed with Uber's business model. They can't survive much longer and they can't keep getting injections of cash to stay alive, can they? It's rumored they'll IPO in 2019, if I remember correctly, which means they have to somehow survive until then to at least reach that stage. Are they planning to raise prices? Cut employees? What are they planning on doing here?

If Uber had to, they could flip the profit switch. They haven’t chosen to because they’re reinvesting in growth, but if it was an existential question they could survive in the short term.

This is at best deeply unproven. We don't have a good idea of how much their volume would be depressed if they raised prices.

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#153

Post by QAPereo »

StevePerkins wrote: post #16
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #6

It is strange that private investors are willing to fund my discounted travel.

I seriously don't understand the endgame here. Apparently, it WOULD BE possible to completely kill off the legacy taxi industry given 10 years or so of artificially subsidized pricing. So I understand the concept of disrupting a previous oligarchy, replacing it with a new monopoly, and then profiting through rent seeking. But where are the barriers to entry that would allow Uber to solidify as that new monopoly? Ther…

I think they believe in total automation within a few years, rather than the realistic decades.

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#154

Post by alasdair_ »

bob_theslob646 wrote: post #71
ihsw2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is to drag the entire ride hailing industry underwater long enough to drown out competitors, and the trick is to do this without drowning themselves in the process. This is the nature of "predatory" pricing. There is something to be said for volume and if a couple competitors die in the process then Uber's volume can only go up. Unfortunately their competitors have found a variety of ways to keep from being…

Is that really the idea? Do you know how large the ride hailing market is? I am almost positive the point of subsidizing the price of the rides is to get you addicted/ build up a habit or get you comfortable using the service. I think they are aware of the competition and are comfortable owning 60+% versus trying to get 80%+. Their revenue is growing which is still wild despite bad press. >Unfortunately their competi…

>Their revenue is growing which is still wild despite bad press.

Not really. The revenue for a company selling dollar bills for 80c each will keep increasing until all the cash is gone as well.

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#155

Post by blhack »

misun78 wrote: post #83
ilamont wrote: post #77

What's to stop Uber from slowing the burn via an increase in base prices? People would still use Uber as long as it's A) more convenient than other transportation B) better quality rides than cabs and C) just a little cheaper than cabs. There are surely other forms of revenue they can spin up too, but this seems to be pretty straightforward, especially in markets where they have already decimated local taxi firms.

Increased competition. Lyft is burning through money at an unprecedented rate to catch up with Uber given that they smell blood this year and investors ala Google are willing to subsidize the burn. At some point, this has to stop but 2017 does not seem to be the year. Source: Lyft pushes back profitability after increased burn - https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/14/unpacking-lyfts-projected-...

>Increased competition.

Maybe I'm weird, but:

1) I don't even look at what the price of lyft is. So they could up the price by a significant percentage I wouldn't even notice.

2) Even if Uber was more expensive than lyft, I would almost definitely still take uber.

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#156

Post by throwawayjava »

fpisfun wrote: post #132
throwawayjava wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Outside of things like... military things, etc "Aside from the most impressive engineered systems known to man kind, the government can't do anything right"

Right, things that enable those currently in power to remain in power they do well. Things that help the average citizen, most definitely not.

Both components of your claim are dubious.

> things that enable those currently in power to remain in power they do well

1. It's unclear to me how most of our military hardware is in any way even closely related to "enabling those currently in power to remain in power", perhaps aside from functioning as PC jobs programs. Super impressive engineering, but it's not really clear to me why most of it is particularly necessary.

2. Then I guess maybe we should vote for people who run effective services.

> Things that help the average citizen, most definitely not.

My local government has a system that allows you to reserve park space. I can also look up hours for rec centers on the city website. Those things are helpful to me, the average citizen, and definitely work well.

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#157

Post by [deleted] »

gaius wrote: post #99
wpietri wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they manage to kill their competition -- and I'm not expecting they will -- I don't understand what their endgame is. I don't see what their moat is. Ridesharing companies are not hard or expensive to start. They'll have a hard time extracting monopoly rents, and there isn't much of an economy of scale they can reap. And once autonomous cars become part of the picture, I think they're in an even worse positio…

BMW extending their leasing business to on-demand car use BMW has no choice but to do this, as do all the strong brands. They can't compete in a world that you don't care about the brand because you're riding journey-by-journey with no personal investment.

[deleted]

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#158

Post by ethbro »

bunderbunder wrote: post #145
gaius wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber's microservice architecture and it's pretty insane Symptomatic of too many engineers and too little leadership

"Too many engineers" is the impression I tend to come away with whenever I attend a tech talk by someone from the more fiscally beleaguered of the tech darlings. The talk is invariably about some really impressive bit of software that appears to have required equally heaping measures of smarts and money to build, and also appears to be a $10 solution to a 10¢ problem.

Never underestimate the ability of someone with an IQ of 135 to make every problem difficult.

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#159

Post by wils1245 »

__sha3d2 wrote: post #29
chollida1 wrote: post #2

Better source, and one that the article references: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-29/uber-s-th... At this point, two things are clear to me: 1) Uber will IPO, there's just oo much money and influence behind it to stop that. 2) I'd be really worried if I was an employee about my options and also about my job. Employee's now ahve two large worries hanging over their heads..... What about my job and wh…

> And to top it all off, the biggest thing driving their valuation recently, self driving cars, appears to be in serious jeopardy, can anyone make a credible case of Uber having self driving fleet in the next 5 years? Uber currently sends teams to major cities all over the world to build maps for self driving cars. They outfit cars in those cities with 6 figure camera rigs and enable 'passive collection', where maps…

Parent comment is likely referring to the lawsuit against them which has recently seemed to take a turn for the worse for Uber.

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#160

Post by Marazan »

philwelch wrote: post #139
Marazan wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reinvesting for growth is a terrible euphemism for subsiding taxi fares. When they flip the switch they become more expensive that a regular mini-cab. Customers will leave in droves, drivers will leave in droves. There s no loyalty to a middleman.

The QC alone makes Uber’s business model viable. Holding drivers accountable with ratings makes Uber worthwhile at a premium over regular cabs, and significantly expanded the market. The only real risk at that point would be Lyft, the company that started the price war in the first place. Uber may or may not be subsidizing fares, but they’re also spending tons of money on engineering and product development, both on…

Rating people is great but it is not a unique value proposition.
Post reply on HN