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Can Uber ever make money?

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Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#241

Post by kelnos »

dewitt wrote: post #195
monsieurbanana wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News about Dropbox (2007): "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem" Hacker News about Uber (2019): "It's really not much of a shift from a phone call either"

Hasn't Dropbox lost market value every quarter since they went public while growth has been flat and operating at a loss? I'm not saying the HN crowd didn't miss a $10B opportunity, but they also weren't exactly wrong.

Dropbox's weakening position isn't necessarily an indictment of the idea, just that they're in a tough market when you consider both Google and Apple offer (comparatively cheap) cloud storage that is well-integrated into their smartphone platforms. Also consider that the success of Google's and Apple's offerings has proved out the value of the idea many times over.

Also, Dropbox was an early mover. That worked well for them in their early days, but the consumer space is saturated by better options. Dropbox (and Box) are often better suited to enterprise use, where some of the more advanced features (that regular consumers mostly don't care about) are important.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#242

Post by clhodapp »

rubicon33 wrote: post #97
Skunkleton wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Call me a snob, but Uber's criteria for what qualifies as an acceptable car has dramatically declined to the point where even Taxis are sometimes "nicer". Combine that with the fact that the drivers often don't know the neighborhood and rely exclusively on GPS (so tend to be worse drivers than a taxi). I'm left feeling like the fare - strictly from the perspective of a consumer - is actually too high.

I'm with you right until the line break. The thing is: even for the quality-declined cars, we are not paying enough to cover the costs. Those are simply the economics of using a phone app to hire a person to come and pick you up in their car and then drive you somewhere.

The truth is that if you want to pay less for transport then you need to not be taking human-driven taxis.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#243

Post by IanCal »

lnanek2 wrote: post #203
reverend_gonzo wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wtf? It is completely different. Before Uber, you had to call dispatch, give them your location or your closest estimate of it: dispatch would then manually try to find a car that was available and send them to you. This usually took at least 30-40m, if they arrived at all. With Uber, I open the app, it looks at all available cars, finds the closest one available, and sends that car to my GPS location. Oh, and if tha…

Agreed. In SF whenever I called cabs they often wouldn't show up at all. I suppose they found a fare before they got to me. So features like ratings and assigned cars and ability to check the status added by Uber are all huge improvements for my usage.

I've not anywhere argued that it hasn't been beneficial for people, but simply that it is not innovative.

Here, Uber is just another private hire taxi. They cannot pick up random people from the street (and be insured, anyway), so they would not be picking up random other fares on the way unless the dispatcher told them to. This is what has existed for a long time before Uber appeared, so replicating that elsewhere is not innovative surely?

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#244

Post by lenzm »

IanCal wrote: post #219
monsieurbanana wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News about Dropbox (2007): "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem" Hacker News about Uber (2019): "It's really not much of a shift from a phone call either"

You have conveniently missed that there was already an app for ordering taxis before Uber for me. Also, yes, it's not much of a shift. I'm not arguing people rebuild it or have something together but the shift from: Call cab firm and say where you are to App calls cab firm and says where you are is not massively innovative. (edit - particularly when it has been done before) I know it's fun and cool to be snarky, but…

Call a cab and wait and pray. Get a call 30 minutes later asking if you still want a cab. Wait 20 more minutes for a cab to actually show up.

This is in a major metro. Calling for a cab sucked if you weren't in a busy area, in which case you could just walk to a major street and hail one.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#245

Post by kelnos »

IanCal wrote: post #226
reverend_gonzo wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wtf? It is completely different. Before Uber, you had to call dispatch, give them your location or your closest estimate of it: dispatch would then manually try to find a car that was available and send them to you. This usually took at least 30-40m, if they arrived at all. With Uber, I open the app, it looks at all available cars, finds the closest one available, and sends that car to my GPS location. Oh, and if tha…

Before Uber there was an app I could use to book a taxi. That's one of the main reasons I don't think their app was innovative. > This usually took at least 30-40m, if they arrived at all. Not for me, I would and still do get cars faster using other firms. Uber says they're two minutes away and they come ten minutes later. The only reason I use Uber is I get receipts I can push to my expenses.

That's fair, but understand that your city's taxi experience isn't necessarily typical, and also that Uber has the ability to make the experience nearly identical in all markets where they operate (that alone has value). For most markets, that turns out to be higher quality than the local option, but every now and then (like in your case), the reverse is true.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#246

Post by IanCal »

kelnos wrote: post #240
IanCal wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have conveniently missed that there was already an app for ordering taxis before Uber for me. Also, yes, it's not much of a shift. I'm not arguing people rebuild it or have something together but the shift from: Call cab firm and say where you are to App calls cab firm and says where you are is not massively innovative. (edit - particularly when it has been done before) I know it's fun and cool to be snarky, but…

To me, the innovation isn't using an app instead of a phone call, it's the accountability and reliability. Before Uber, I'd have to call a taxi company at least a half hour before I want to leave. If they even answer the call, the response is always "20 minutes", regardless of how long you have to wait. At least a quarter of the time, the taxi will never show up. As a result, I'd barely ever take taxis anywhere. Inst…

So the innovation for you is something that has existed elsewhere before? Why is that innovative?

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#247

Post by jtlienwis »

Re Competition Taxis or Uber are not always the cheapest way. One of my friends used to do a lot of travelling to Tokyo on work assignments. The others from the company always hailed a cab and ended up paying $100 for a trip from the airport to the downtown hotels. My friend would jump onto the Tokyo subway and was always there at the hotel to greet the rest of them when their cabs would arrive. He usually paid just a few bucks for the subway token. Myself, I would sometimes get rides in the day from people I just met on the plane. But then it was a more trusting time. But maybe there is an app there that pairs people arriving in the same town. Those that have their cars in the airport parking lot and are willing to share a ride and those that are willing to pay a few bucks.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#248

Post by temp99990 »

basementcat wrote: post #143
temp99990 wrote: post #126

I would love an all you can ride monthly subscription. I know Uber/Lyft have done limited trials but nothing truly an unlimited subscription.

I would totally Moviepass the crap out of this. Road trips across Utah and the Colorado Rockies, Pacific Coast Highway, etc. Amtrak used to have a similar pass arrangement.

There would be limits for this to work, like a geofence

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#249

Post by IanCal »

lenzm wrote: post #244
IanCal wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have conveniently missed that there was already an app for ordering taxis before Uber for me. Also, yes, it's not much of a shift. I'm not arguing people rebuild it or have something together but the shift from: Call cab firm and say where you are to App calls cab firm and says where you are is not massively innovative. (edit - particularly when it has been done before) I know it's fun and cool to be snarky, but…

Call a cab and wait and pray. Get a call 30 minutes later asking if you still want a cab. Wait 20 more minutes for a cab to actually show up. This is in a major metro. Calling for a cab sucked if you weren't in a busy area, in which case you could just walk to a major street and hail one.

They said the app was innovative, it was not to me because I already had something similar, and what you're describing has nothing to do with the app. You're just describing a not terrible taxi company, which has existed in many places far before Uber.

It seems the main thing they did was be big enough to ignore the rules that kept taxis in some parts of the US so terrible.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#250

Post by IanCal »

kelnos wrote: post #245
IanCal wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before Uber there was an app I could use to book a taxi. That's one of the main reasons I don't think their app was innovative. > This usually took at least 30-40m, if they arrived at all. Not for me, I would and still do get cars faster using other firms. Uber says they're two minutes away and they come ten minutes later. The only reason I use Uber is I get receipts I can push to my expenses.

That's fair, but understand that your city's taxi experience isn't necessarily typical, and also that Uber has the ability to make the experience nearly identical in all markets where they operate (that alone has value). For most markets, that turns out to be higher quality than the local option, but every now and then (like in your case), the reverse is true.

I've not said they don't have value, what I've said was the app wasn't innovative. To me it cannot be because something almost identical existed before, and it isn't a huge shift from telling someone where I am.

If the innovation is being a non-terrible taxi firm, then I think I stand by my point that it's because they were big enough to ignore the local rules

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