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Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

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Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#231

Post by wyattpeak »

manigandham wrote: post #194
anigbrowl wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the driver doesn't want to charge a fee and is happy to just circle the block and drop the item off to a thankful customer, as described in this episode? Maybe things won't be as convenient for some drivers, in which case a fee is appropriate. But imposing a fee without asking the driver or allowing the driver an easy way to notify the customer of the lost item is dishonest; Uber is not doing it on the driver…

The driver chooses to return the item in the first place (and they know the fee), and they can notify riders about lost items via their app. Uber avoids price negotiation, and considering that it takes time and effort to resolve your mistake, it's likely much better to just charge a standard fee instead of planning for every single case.

It feels like you're only acknowledging the part of the story which is comparatively easy to argue against.

If my driver is a block away but can't contact me until ops gets back to them and they're miles away, that's an indisputable failure.

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#232

Post by wingworks »

A few weeks back I booked an Uber after a concert, then the Uber driver called me saying to come to him (he was way out + the GPS location of the taxis seems terribly inaccurate whenever I've used it, so who knows where he really was), we were by the official Uber pickup location. He said he didn't know how to get to where we were... Obviously some bad planning by someone. He said he could try, and not to cancel the trip. Then he cancelled it a few minutes later.

Then Uber connected us to a new Uber driver, we found the car in the official Uber road queue, but there were people already in the car. This was about a min after we were connected with this new driver, we asked if he could cancel as we can't wait for him to drop off his current passengers, but he didn't seem to know how to (or unwilling to). My question is, are Uber drivers just accepting people while they have people in the car, while stuck in concert traffic and obviously won't be done with there current fair for ages, then forcing the new passengers to cancel and get a MUCH higher rate.

Anyway, since we then had to force the cancel, we now had a HUGE uber fare quoted, like 3-4x our last price to try get a new cab. We tried it, but the guy was miles away, so we ended up giving up on Uber and taking public transport way out, then taking an Uber.

In hindsight, probably should have gone with public transport option first. Lesson learnt I guess. I just assumed, since there was an official Uber tent setup and people with official looking Uber vests on that they'd have a system set up to get people to there Uber's fast... or some system to just link up each person with the first uber car in the queue. Was nothing like that, it was chaos.

// end of rant

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#233

Post by jpatokal »

prostoalex wrote: post #168
Ftuuky wrote: post #17

Speaking as a infrequent user (1-3 times per month) in Lisbon, Portugal, I can't choose Uber anymore. There are so many other apps providing the same service with cheaper prices (some of them such as Taxify do not have surge pricing) and better drivers. The drivers' quality declined a lot: sometimes they don't speak portuguese or english and if they notice you're drunk they try to scam you (leave you in some random s…

This ringed true to me in Tokyo and Barcelona - local taxi apps were significantly cheaper and had better availability than Uber. When they were competing with Grab in most southeast Asian markets, Grab would usually out-compete on both parameters, too.

UberX doesn't operate in Tokyo, if you use Uber there you get a regular taxi with a surcharge on top. (Which may still be worth paying if you're not up to communicating in Japanese with GPS-less regular cabbies, mind you...)

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#234

Post by jakegarelick »

RL_Quine wrote: post #228
jbhatab wrote: post #226

Nothing reminds me how out of loop the Hacker News and Silicone Valley is from the rest of the America like an Uber post. It always degrades into an anecdotal competition on who had the worst experience with Uber and how amazing Lyft has been. The fact that they are growing 38% in a quarter at their scale and we're calling that 'slow' is pretty nuts. Personally I've had good and bad experiences with both, but almost…

I think you mean silicon valley. Silicone valley is something else entirely.

That’s in Southern California :)

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#235

Post by [deleted] »

wingworks wrote: post #232

A few weeks back I booked an Uber after a concert, then the Uber driver called me saying to come to him (he was way out + the GPS location of the taxis seems terribly inaccurate whenever I've used it, so who knows where he really was), we were by the official Uber pickup location. He said he didn't know how to get to where we were... Obviously some bad planning by someone. He said he could try, and not to cancel the…

[deleted]

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#236

Post by manigandham »

wyattpeak wrote: post #231
manigandham wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The driver chooses to return the item in the first place (and they know the fee), and they can notify riders about lost items via their app. Uber avoids price negotiation, and considering that it takes time and effort to resolve your mistake, it's likely much better to just charge a standard fee instead of planning for every single case.

It feels like you're only acknowledging the part of the story which is comparatively easy to argue against. If my driver is a block away but can't contact me until ops gets back to them and they're miles away, that's an indisputable failure.

Failure in what exactly? It's a standard process with a standard fee.

This comment thread shows just how much contention there would be otherwise, which is probably what encouraged these changes.

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#237

Post by manigandham »

PakG1 wrote: post #227
manigandham wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's with the moral judgements? Uber is a service. You forgot your item. Most people are good, but still want to be paid. Expecting everyone else should be generous of their time for your mistake is definitely not good.

Would you have preferred it if parent wrote that sometimes people are nice? I didn't read into parent's statement as much as you did. Sometimes communication is messy.

I have no preference on other's comments. Changing that word doesn't change the implication that some people are good/nice because they did it for free, in the context of a discussion about fees.

Can you describe what other meaning there would be in that statement?

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#238

Post by anoncoward111 »

DenisM wrote: post #210
ChuckMcM wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Critically though it isn't retail investors who would bear the cost of a failure, that would be born by the folks like Softbank and the hedge funds who have invested. Of course the employees are also victims. I have been in the situation of holding untradeable (by me) stock being valued a high number (woohoo! I'm rich) only to watch helplessly as it became worthless (uh, I'm not rich). While the value of things chang…

It's somewhat Marxist, don't you think? The capital from the capitalists is "redistributed", spent by Uber on salaries and various purchases (more salaries). The working class collects their salaries, roughly commensurate with the cost of living (aka "according to their needs").

The only problem is that the original seed loans were created out of thin air through inflationary monetary policy :)

And maybe that a better activity should have subsidized.

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#239

Post by 8note »

Androider wrote: post #30

Uber doesn't have much of a moat or lock-in effect. I just switched one day from being a frequent Uber rider to 100% using Lyft, simply because I don't like Uber's behavior as a company. The prices are so close it doesn't make any practical difference to me. Anecdotally, among my friends I also see Lyft becoming the default, and sometimes price-checking with Uber. If Waymo or whoever came out tomorrow with a cheaper/…

I switched pretty easily because suddenly Uber stopped accepting my credit card

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#240

Post by prostoalex »

icebraining wrote: post #230
prostoalex wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ringed true to me in Tokyo and Barcelona - local taxi apps were significantly cheaper and had better availability than Uber. When they were competing with Grab in most southeast Asian markets, Grab would usually out-compete on both parameters, too.

Taxify, despite the name, doesn't actually call regular taxis, they have their own drivers like Uber. They're also not local, they're from Estonia, and operate in dozens of countries.

I think for Spain the app of choice was Cabify.
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