151–160 of 559 posts
I can't wait to see how a SDC deals with a passenger puking and passing out while getting a ride home from the club...
Or do you not expect the car to detect puke and/or a passed-out passenger? Seems like a trivial problem compared to all the recognition software that would be needed for self-driving.
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"We have incurred significant losses since inception and may never achieve profitability" is pretty standard in S-1s. Nothing particularly interesting in these sentences.
This exact comment chain seemingly occurs in every S1 post.
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> It takes tremendous capital expenditure to build that network, and it will take tremendous capital expenditure to neutralize it. Does it, though? Every driver I've talked to basically drives for "all of them". Several told me they try to find whatever apps are local for driving and they setup those alone with Uber and Lyft and simply take whatever pays the most / is more frequent. Uber's software and network are so…
> literally drives for "all of them". But how many have they _stopped_ driving for?
So... Let me see if I have this straight: 1. Uber is unprofitable and the only way it can become profitable is to get SDC's 2. Uber is significantly (years) behind Waymo in the SDC space. 3. Waymo will launch SDC taxi services first meaning: - When it puts in an order for SDC components no one else is going to be buying in bulk and thus it can have effectively 100% of capacity of these specialized equipment makers -…
There's a difference between making it work for a small suburb area in Phoenix some of the times and making it work everywhere all the time. And the problem with ride-sharing applications is that unless it works everywhere nobody is going to use it.
Making it work everywhere for all circumstances is hard. Like really hard. There's a difference between an intervention-free ride and an actual ride that's both safe and comfortable. You could rack up your miles per safety intervention by programming a paranoid robot that sits at a highway ramp for hours without merging.
Is it possible? Maybe. It's nice that some deep models can magically (with no theoretical explanation) recognize a pedestrian, a vehicle, a bike. But would you trust it with your life? There's no theoretical safety guarantee unlike aviation where you can actually read and understand the proofs. I mean yes it could certainly work somewhere some of the time, but believing that it will eventually work everywhere all of the time is rather naive.
So... Let me see if I have this straight: 1. Uber is unprofitable and the only way it can become profitable is to get SDC's 2. Uber is significantly (years) behind Waymo in the SDC space. 3. Waymo will launch SDC taxi services first meaning: - When it puts in an order for SDC components no one else is going to be buying in bulk and thus it can have effectively 100% of capacity of these specialized equipment makers -…
The cost of entry into this space is much greater than I think most people realize. It's not "building an app". It's building a balanced, efficient marketplace. This means complex matching, pricing and routing algorithms that have been developed for almost a decade. It's also about working with regulations at the city level and building a reliable labor force of contractors to supply the marketplace in every new city…
Of course, Uber and Lyft right now ARE so big because of all the advantages you mention, but a lot of that is still due to boatloads of VC money that allow them to operate unprofitably.
As always, the most interesting place to start is "Risks to our business": https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1543151/000119312519...
> Maintaining and enhancing our brand and reputation is critical to our business prospects. We have previously received significant media coverage and negative publicity, particularly in 2017, regarding our brand and reputation, and failure to rehabilitate our brand and reputation will cause our business to suffer.
In detail, they state:
> Our brand and reputation might also be harmed by events outside of our control. For example, we faced negative press related to suicides of taxi drivers in New York City reportedly related to the impact of ridesharing on the taxi cab industry.
Yikes, I never heard about that until reading it now. I could totally see how some people may have placed the bulk of their money into a NYC Taxi medallion, which have more than halved in value since 2015. https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-a9d6f8a78e9c6e899cd886...
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> can't imagine how Uber is worth anything If the operation doesn't make an economic profit, and if there isn't sufficient moat to defend the operation until it can become profitable, then I agree with you it's not worth anything. But in fact, Uber does have a massive moat -- its network of drivers and riders in thousands of cities around the world. No competitor is even close. It takes tremendous capital expenditure…
> It takes tremendous capital expenditure to build that network, and it will take tremendous capital expenditure to neutralize it. Does it, though? Every driver I've talked to basically drives for "all of them". Several told me they try to find whatever apps are local for driving and they setup those alone with Uber and Lyft and simply take whatever pays the most / is more frequent. Uber's software and network are so…
I just don't see how Uber can maintain said network on the long run and still be profitable, not something I'd put my money in.
What Uber is doing would generally be described as predatory pricing on other sectors. On sufficiently unregulated markets such is Uber's it's extremely risky, no anti-trust legislation is needed to trump it, just a continuously low entry barrier, including lax regulation. For a more concrete, though only related example (rather than speculation as to Uber's future) see Dow's history.
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it's economically unreasonable to drive for more than one apps simultaneously. Now, it could be economically reasonable to drive for more than one apps at many points in the past. If Lyft and Uber are so easily exchangeable, why is Lyft is still a minority in the US while spending more money? There's something more interesting here.
It's not unreasonable, people do it all the time. Look at the window stickers in a rideshare, if they've got one they've got four, all around Seattle.