Uber made 997 million in profit in 2018. Read the S1. ️ #fakenews
Where do you get this from? They lost $3B in 2018. Uber's S1 clearly states as one of their risk factors to maybe never make a profit.
Can Uber ever make money?
321–330 of 430 posts
Re: Can Uber ever make money?
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
> cheaper than actually calling a Taxi dispatcher But we have apps for hailing Taxis...? These do all the automated hailing, tracking the taxi for pickup (got my anxiety levels down quite a bit, I've had taxis not come for important trips), as well as payment and ratings (optional).
> payment and ratings Underrated, never felt cheated out of a lyft or uber. I've even tipped.
You should be tipping nearly every single time you take Uber/Lyft/taxi.
Re: Can Uber ever make money?
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm left feeling like the fare - strictly from the perspective of a consumer - is actually too high. Not to mention personal risk if you consider how dangerous some Uber drivers are. However if you consider the cost of car maintenance, annual depreciation on a taxi-like vehicle, and petrol the fares are actually very low. I would be willing to bet that a lot of Uber drivers are wavering around breaking even on the…
The beauty of the uber model is that drivers don't even need to break even. Very few I speak to are doing it full time to make money. Most are doing it as a side hustle for a little extra cash before or after work. Or they're using the money to justify spending more on their dream car. They don't need to break even, they needed the car anyway, it would depreciate roughly the same amount anyway. Or at least the extra…
> Very few I speak to are doing it full time to make money.
Interesting. Anecdotally, in Sydney it seems almost all Uber drivers I meet are doing it full-time now. A few years ago, it was just a side-gig for most but I think the demographics have shifted quite a lot.
> They don't need to break even, they needed the car anyway, it would depreciate roughly the same amount anyway.
Not if you're driving it 10x more than you normally would. Mileage affects the resale value and increases the likelihood of additional maintenance work (especially if you're doing city driving which is substantially more stressful on cars).
Re: Can Uber ever make money?
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd rather pass on 90s-era safety tech
Such as?
Well, in the 90s pretty much the entire car was the crumple zone. (That may be a slight exaggeration.) ABS wasn’t as common.
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/watch-terrifyingly-bad-car-saf...
Re: Can Uber ever make money?
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
...the innovation is a consistent more reliable and timely experience, consistent across geographies, where it did not exist before. McDonalds didn’t have the first burger franchise, the innovation is very much in the reliability of an experience that is a better fit for the needs of the consumer than the alternatives. I too avoided booking taxis due to bad dispatchers, even though I’m sure some good dispatchers exis…
> McDonalds didn’t have the first burger franchise, So saying "the innovation is in the franchise" wouldn't make sense, right? > That doesn’t really do you any good when the use case for a taxi is generally that you need a car in a place that is not your home, and so you are unfamiliar with the area. The use case for a taxi is surely dominated by when you need a car but can't or don't want to drive? I've definitely t…
Innovate means to make changes in a thing that is established. The innovation here is that the thing is the same everywhere, you don’t need to know the local errata to rely on it.
I say this as someone who was downright flabbergasted that the iPhone was described as “innovative.” After all, I had been using a handheld PC with full Windows installed for years when the original iPhone came out, and it could make VoIP calls just fine! It took me awhile to accept that the incremental “new” people are talking about when they talk about innovation is distinctly NOT novelty. It’s a shuffling of the already existing puzzle-pieces in a way that, in the cases it is successful, we call innovative, and when it fails, it was simply “ahead of its time.”
Re: Can Uber ever make money?
#326There 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…
> 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.
Confident brash nonsensical statement with no factual argument to back it up.
The fact that it is voted top comment on HN says some unflattering things about this place.
Re: Can Uber ever make money?
#327There 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…
I find local taxi companies have started making their own 'Uber' apps that accept card and it's fantastic.
And you don't have to deal with the awful rating system Uber have. Whoever thought it was a good idea to have drivers rate their customers really doesn't understand customer service. If you're out with some friends on a night out for example, of course you're going to get a bad rating (because your friends are drunk and probably a bit rowdy) which affects you during the working day or just solo.
Local taxi services are usually cheaper too as they don't do the surge pricing like Uber do. Uber have really driven me away as a customer to the local services.
Also local taxis don't cancel so they can abuse the surge system.
Re: Can Uber ever make money?
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
The beauty of the uber model is that drivers don't even need to break even. Very few I speak to are doing it full time to make money. Most are doing it as a side hustle for a little extra cash before or after work. Or they're using the money to justify spending more on their dream car. They don't need to break even, they needed the car anyway, it would depreciate roughly the same amount anyway. Or at least the extra…
> Very few I speak to are doing it full time to make money. Interesting. Anecdotally, in Sydney it seems almost all Uber drivers I meet are doing it full-time now. A few years ago, it was just a side-gig for most but I think the demographics have shifted quite a lot. > They don't need to break even, they needed the car anyway, it would depreciate roughly the same amount anyway. Not if you're driving it 10x more than…
In LA, Uber drivers seem to be more like former shitty taxi drivers. Lyft drivers are for more likely to be part-time hoi polloi.
Re: Can Uber ever make money?
#329Uber's plan is to own every car once self-driving cars are realized.
Re: Can Uber ever make money?
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A driver who doesn't talk to me I wish "Quiet Ride, Please" was an option in the app.
I always thought this should be a "swipe left / swipe right" thing for both driver & passenger. If they both indicate they want to chat, talk away.
Or you can use the voice activated option with the driver. You just need to say “I’m feeling pretty tired right now and don’t feel like chatting”