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Ride-hailing’s NYC dominance, and the impact of DeleteUber

toddwschneider.com

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Re: Ride-hailing’s NYC dominance, and the impact of DeleteUber

#31

Post by seanmcdirmid »

ghaff wrote: post #14
jbob2000 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully, Uber exists. Otherwise I'd have to download and register on all sorts of dinky city-specific apps any time I travel. Uber, for all of its faults, is the only one that works in every city I've traveled to.

I won't say it's vanishingly small but, relatively speaking, there aren't a huge number of people who have a problem with needing taxi services in a bunch of different cities. I travel about 100 days a year and I don't use these services very much and I don't think I've used Uber in a year or two. Worldwide availability of a brand just doesn't seem like a huge deal.

There are some places where brands like Uber is extremely valuable, like Manila, where taxis are very apt to rip off free-off-the plane foreigners. Heck, most of SE Asia (there are local services also, but I’d rather not track them down before each trip).

Re: Ride-hailing’s NYC dominance, and the impact of DeleteUber

#32

Post by alexggordon »

So since this information was so hard to pull out of the article, I've summarized it according to the weekly ride-share dominance chart[0]. Pre #DeleteUber, Uber sat at about ~75% of the weekly rideshare dominance. Currently, Uber sits at about ~68.5% of weekly ride share dominance. While it sounds like there were about half a million people that requested their account be deleted, at least in NYC (remember these charts are JUST NYC ride hailing) the campaign has had a negligible impact.

Judging by the demographic of people that protest, and are protesting on twitter, I'd be more curious about judging the impact of #DeleteUber by looking at ride-hailing rides around epicenters of people younger than 30. Fortunately though, he covered this also, touching on Lyft's growth in Brooklyn. I'd also be curious about ride hailing stats around universities too.

[0] http://cdn.toddwschneider.com/taxi/update2017/ridehail_marke...

Re: Ride-hailing’s NYC dominance, and the impact of DeleteUber

#33

Post by viscanti »

fenwick67 wrote: post #23
jbob2000 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully, Uber exists. Otherwise I'd have to download and register on all sorts of dinky city-specific apps any time I travel. Uber, for all of its faults, is the only one that works in every city I've traveled to.

Yes god forbid you install two apps

Install N apps where N is the number of markets you eventually travel to. If you only ever travel to one other market maybe 2 is fine. If you need to download tens or hundreds of apps that might be a bit much. Not everyone will travel to that many markets, but for those who do, they might care.

Re: Ride-hailing’s NYC dominance, and the impact of DeleteUber

#34

Post by throwaway_80bf3 »

x_throwaway80bf wrote: post #27
throwaway_80bf3 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is so utterly false. You're essentially claiming that the value of these services is all based on the innovation of the _hailing_ functionality, but there are countless apps that recreate this functionality _exactly_ whether for 'regular' taxis or separately licensed cars. There wasn't before Uber showed up. Last time I took a Juno, the driver asked me if he could text me a promo code so I could send it to me…

> It's illegal in NYC for a yellow cab to refuse a ride request to any of the five boroughs... Yes, of course. But the reason you don't see Uber drivers doing the same thing (or outright avoiding these unprofitable trips) is that they are subsidized to provide that unprofitable ride stock in areas where it's intrinsically not economical to provide ride stock. When you compel a yellow cab to do it, it means the prices…

Ultimately no one did anything about the experience I brought up in the OP until Uber. This isn't an endorsement of Uber, more of a statement of fact. That anyone can now avoid all the old PITA of moving around NYC is good.

I generally don't consider the long term sustainability of the companies I purchase goods from. I do try to apply a vague and probably non-uniform ethical filter to them.

That said, I'm a software developer and my very generous salary is the indirect (via the demand curve) result of the destruction of manifold entrenched business models at the hands of VC subsidies. If I spent all day hailing yellow cabs it wouldn't make a difference.

Re: Ride-hailing’s NYC dominance, and the impact of DeleteUber

#35

Post by ghaff »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #31
ghaff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't say it's vanishingly small but, relatively speaking, there aren't a huge number of people who have a problem with needing taxi services in a bunch of different cities. I travel about 100 days a year and I don't use these services very much and I don't think I've used Uber in a year or two. Worldwide availability of a brand just doesn't seem like a huge deal.

There are some places where brands like Uber is extremely valuable, like Manila, where taxis are very apt to rip off free-off-the plane foreigners. Heck, most of SE Asia (there are local services also, but I’d rather not track them down before each trip).

That may be the case but my point was that hopping off-the-plane in SE Asia and grabbing a cab is not such a routine occurrence for most Westerners as to be a viable business model for VC-backed companies.

Re: Ride-hailing’s NYC dominance, and the impact of DeleteUber

#36

Post by ghaff »

specialist wrote: post #30
mattmanser wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, every local market has always supported loads of private hire firms. It's a very price sensitive market. And Uber's support for cities isn't great anyway, from my experience. Like here in Nottingham Uber doesn't support the suburbs 2 years after arrival. You can go there with Uber, just not come back, no-one's around. A local app with better suburb support is ultimately going to win, as if you can only…

Forgive my ignorance... How can Uber not support an area? If a both a driver and a passenger in Goldsport Wyoming both have their apps installed, they can't transact?

I think he's saying there just isn't much driver availability. I live 40 miles outside of Boston and whenever I've looked there has been little or nothing available. Uber and Lyft might as well effectively not exist in my town although, yes, I can fire up the app and request a ride.

Re: Ride-hailing’s NYC dominance, and the impact of DeleteUber

#37

Post by x_throwaway80bf »

throwaway_80bf3 wrote: post #34
x_throwaway80bf wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's illegal in NYC for a yellow cab to refuse a ride request to any of the five boroughs... Yes, of course. But the reason you don't see Uber drivers doing the same thing (or outright avoiding these unprofitable trips) is that they are subsidized to provide that unprofitable ride stock in areas where it's intrinsically not economical to provide ride stock. When you compel a yellow cab to do it, it means the prices…

Ultimately no one did anything about the experience I brought up in the OP until Uber. This isn't an endorsement of Uber, more of a statement of fact. That anyone can now avoid all the old PITA of moving around NYC is good. I generally don't consider the long term sustainability of the companies I purchase goods from. I do try to apply a vague and probably non-uniform ethical filter to them. That said, I'm a software…

> I generally don't consider the long term sustainability of the companies I purchase goods from.

We could probably go on at length about the moral problems here, but likely not productive in a comment thread.

> That said, I'm a software developer and my very generous salary

I'm not sure how to read that. I am also a software engineer, and even very high salaries in wealthy urban zones are typically not 'generous' in the sense that good software labor creates a vast wealth surplus for the shareholders and ownership, to such a degree that the high salaries are still not very fair.

> the indirect (via the demand curve) result of the destruction of manifold entrenched business models at the hands of VC subsidies.

Sure, but usually companies are expected to demonstrate evidence that the subsidy wouldn't be _permanent_ .. that there is evidence of a path to profitability.

The reason it's worthwhile to draw much more attention to the VC subsidy situation with Uber is that they have not been able to do that, and have instead generated unprecedented losses without making any progress towards profitability. It makes it incredibly different than typical cases when VC subsidy creates a short term runway to profitability. That is not what's going on.

Re: Ride-hailing’s NYC dominance, and the impact of DeleteUber

#38

Post by mancerayder »

throwaway_80bf3 wrote: post #7

7 years ago you'd have to jump into a yellow cab before telling the rider if you were going from Manhattan to Brooklyn or Brooklyn to Brooklyn. If you told them before you got in, they'd speed off. You used to have to walk to arterial roads in hopes of finding a yellow cab (in the outer boroughs). That is if you lived in neighborhoods that the article points out now skews towards Lyft. Well to do, post gentrification…

Fellow Brooklynite here, and I agree 100%. I can't believe the hubris of these guys, trying to get me to get out of the cab after they hear I live in Brooklyn. And BTW, I'm JUST over the bridge in Brooklyn, about 10 minutes from the E River in traffic! It's the tourists that suffer, or the newbies, who aren't as rude as us New Yorkers - they'll doubtless exit the cabbie who says, "Sorry, not going there." I don't exit cabs when legally they can't ask me to.

But it gets worse with yellow cabs. First of all, they never clean their cars. Half the time it smells like a goat has been freshly transported. Secondly, they don't care about noise - at least half of them use the radio speaker system to conference call in either their wives or their fellow drivers and yap away while you get to hear that, on high volume. Sometimes there's awful music. That's rude and inconsiderate and doesn't often happen with Uber and Lyft.

I'm going to say something mean: the cabbies get what they deserve. They can whine all they want, and I do have some sympathy that these drivers moved to this country only to get stuck in what is a failed monopoly structure. The reason why cabbies were successful before Uber and Lyft and medallions used to cost 1 million dollars was because they operated under a monopolistic environment with no competition.

I remember once the cabbies went on strike because they were mandated to install GPS tracking devices and credit card machines. The machines made them furious, and for a year after a lot would be taped up: "Sorry sir, machine doesn't work."

It makes my blood boil just thinking about some of the awful experiences I've had with yellow cabs.

Glad to see them suffer.

Re: Ride-hailing’s NYC dominance, and the impact of DeleteUber

#39

Post by Spooky23 »

x_throwaway80bf wrote: post #13
throwaway_80bf3 wrote: post #7

7 years ago you'd have to jump into a yellow cab before telling the rider if you were going from Manhattan to Brooklyn or Brooklyn to Brooklyn. If you told them before you got in, they'd speed off. You used to have to walk to arterial roads in hopes of finding a yellow cab (in the outer boroughs). That is if you lived in neighborhoods that the article points out now skews towards Lyft. Well to do, post gentrification…

I had to make a throwaway as well just because I couldn't believe this comment. This is so utterly false. You're essentially claiming that the value of these services is all based on the innovation of the _hailing_ functionality, but there are countless apps that recreate this functionality _exactly_ whether for 'regular' taxis or separately licensed cars. If what you want is for a driver to come to your exact locati…

I disagree but think you make a good point that shouldn't be downvoted.

The issue here is really a fundamental conundrum around providing services that are of general utility to the public. At one point, people in the country couldn't get electricity, because densities were low and profitability low as well.

NYC has the same issue with cabs, which is addressed by regulation but also required savvy consumers willing to complain. Uber/Lyft address this in their apps and via subsidy... and they do this because the promise of universal service is essential. Once you allow exceptions, you get back into the situation where you can't get a ride to a black neighborhood or can't get a ride if you're the wrong ethnic background.

Re: Ride-hailing’s NYC dominance, and the impact of DeleteUber

#40

Post by ghaff »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #28
ghaff wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would seem to be a very urbanite view of the world. A lot of people have good reasons for owning their own personalized vehicle. (Gear, kids, mobile storage locker, etc.) So long as you live somewhere with enough space that storing a vehicle isn't expensive/difficult, given that most of the costs are in mileage, it's hard to see most people giving up ownership. And, in any case, full door to door autonomy, in at…

Urbanization rates continue to rise, what is true yesterday might not be true tomorrow. Also, in much of the world this doesn’t hold even today. The USA (and to a lesser extent Canada and Australia) are unique in private car oriented culture.

The United States is indeed near the top of the list in percentage of car ownership, but it's pretty high in most of the developed world. Arguably, there's less of a "private car oriented culture" elsewhere but most adults still own cars nonetheless.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/16/car-bike-or-...

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