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Can Uber ever make money?

economist.com

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Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#111

Post by scrooched_moose »

dcolkitt wrote: post #26
TruthSHIFT wrote: post #7

Keep in mind that this may not change when driverless cars become widely available. Maintaining a fleet thousands of driverless cars may prove to be more expensive than crowdsourcing a vehicle fleet.

There's either two possibilities for the self-driving future. 1) Hardly anybody owns cars anymore. When we want to get from point A to point B, we just call a driverless car from the network. But this type of service is a natural monopoly. When people are ridesharing everywhere, the network with the biggest fleet, becomes the stochastically fastest and cheapest option. Plus add in the fact that they're collecting a l…

Possibility 3) The self-driving future is decades farther out than Uber/Tesla/Waymo's marketing suggestiosn and the rest of the business drags them under before it matters.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#112

Post by smelendez »

lalos wrote: post #96
hannasanarion wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine there's that much data to sell. I don't think a lot of people use uber on a daily basis, the takeaways are gonna be "people travel to and from airports close to them".

They can deduce a lot and not to mention Foursquare profits on selling check-in info to fin companies. Also, check this blog from Uber http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/blog/ubers-deleted-rides-of-gl... where they (with some confidence) deduce when someone was involved in one night stand. Not to mention they have valuable information about you on how sensitive you are to price changes, who you interact with (sharing ride…

Is that data worth enough to subsidize taxi rides, though?

And again, they only have that comprehensive level of data for heavy users. Lots of people only use Uber when they're going to the airport, as others said, or maybe when they plan on drinking.

I use it when I'm running late or public transit is messed up so it's very skewed data for me.

There's also a real risk that Congress or the states could ban them from selling that data.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#113

Post by jv22222 »

hammock wrote: post #110
jv22222 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with huge barriers to entry that requires a ton of money to get started Just a note that the proof of concept stage was very cheaply done. Travis hired someone to make an app and the "dispatch" system was just a single php page. He then tested it out with his friends. That said, I agree that ultimately to get to the position they are today required a ton of cash - just the getting started was pretty cheap. Actually…

Hustle recognize hustle but which podcast episode is it dude? There are 300+ eps at that link.

Well it's A LOT of them.

Because we spoke about the Uber stuff as Jason lived it in real time ;)

A fun one was when Jason turned down the CTO position and of course we had no idea at the time what that really meant.

I guess in the latest episode 321 (Quick & Dirty) Jason does give an overview of the Uber story and how he got involved if you want a TL;DR version.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#114

Post by aglavine »

Skunkleton wrote: post #79
parksy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in a way, that's the beauty of disruptive use of technology. Without the innovation of the Uber app, the traditional taxi cartels would have no incentive to improve their services and the fact that they have been forced to do so in order to compete benefits the consumer. They're not quite there yet, and are still catching up. The next logical step is a lift aggregation service that creates a marketplace. I want a…

As it stands the price you pay for a ride in an uber is unfairly low. Driving it even lower would be irresponsible.

The way to change it is affordable EV cars ===> less fuel costs

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#115

Post by stale2002 »

Skunkleton wrote: post #79
parksy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in a way, that's the beauty of disruptive use of technology. Without the innovation of the Uber app, the traditional taxi cartels would have no incentive to improve their services and the fact that they have been forced to do so in order to compete benefits the consumer. They're not quite there yet, and are still catching up. The next logical step is a lift aggregation service that creates a marketplace. I want a…

As it stands the price you pay for a ride in an uber is unfairly low. Driving it even lower would be irresponsible.

Says you. That sounds awesome to me!

How about we let consumers decide what the right "price" is? If you don't like it, then you should feel free to use the higher priced/quality alternatives!

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#116

Post by jfim »

TuringNYC wrote: post #53
bryanlarsen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxis made money because the medallion situation limited competition, and because fare prices were fixed by the city at levels that ensured a profit.

I see your point, in theory, but the increasing medallion investment/rent just lowered profit further and further until the profit to drivers was some very low wage. The driver is not usually the medallion owner, and hence the rent for the medallion goes elsewhere. The driver just ends up with the metered fare net of medallion costs. Similarly, Uber leads to a sort of perfect competition equilibrium ( https://en.wiki…

Economically, it does lead to a competition equilibrium, but it does not take into account the cost of externalities such as additional traffic and pollution generated by having more drivers.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#117

Post by WhompingWindows »

skywhopper wrote: post #15

There is literally no way for a mass-market taxi service to make money unless they have a monopoly, or some unexpected disruptive technology comes along that gives one company an unassailable advantage in lowering costs. The Uber app was the original innovation, but it's not particularly innovative anymore. Besides Lyft, traditional taxi companies have similar apps in some markets. Skirting regulation and good labor…

Your last point is the most salient. Solving autonomy is a much harder problem than making an app. Anyone who solves autonomy can easily make their own app, or can partner with any upstart in the ride-hailing world, who would be desperate to get that autonomy software. Hard to see how Uber or Lyft truly profits unless they're the ones who own the autonomy code.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#118

Post by fullshark »

TruthSHIFT wrote: post #7

Keep in mind that this may not change when driverless cars become widely available. Maintaining a fleet thousands of driverless cars may prove to be more expensive than crowdsourcing a vehicle fleet.

Or you can have both, if car owners send their self driving cars out to make money on your platform.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#119

Post by AnimalMuppet »

amelius wrote: post #73
tjpaudio wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both rideshares subsidize about half of what they pay drivers, but their deficit is not nearly half of their total revenue. Take out the drivers, profit tomorrow. Patent good for 20 years. That's about as juicy as it ever gets.

The patent may last for 20 years, but that might also be the time required to develop driverless cars and get them approved.

Well... the last patent that makes driverless actually feasible in the real world will last for 20 years, and for most of that time the development will already be done.

Approval? That's another matter.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#120

Post by jsloss »

bobthepanda wrote: post #88
jsloss wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about the future profitability of this space, but I think you're disregarding a few key points. 1. The innovation was less the app and more solving supply problems. No app will be able to change that for the taxi business. 2. Competitive advantage in this space is having more drivers and less wait time. That drives folks to use one provider over another. The lock in isn't the tech, but the availability o…

1. The regulations that Uber skirted around and then loosened up to provide more drivers can also be used by other companies. The gates are open, but not only to Uber. 2. Drivers and customers are fickle. My market used to be mostly Uber and is now mostly Lyft because all the drivers hate Uber. When Uber and Lyft run out of cash to blow on subsidies, they don't really have much of a selling point. The problem with Ub…

All great points. I guess we'll see where the chips land.
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