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Can Uber ever make money?

economist.com

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Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#401

Post by imtringued »

tyopiuy wrote: post #352
URSpider94 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of drivers are acting irrationally (in the economic sense). The number of miles you put on driving for a car service will almost certainly be consequential to your car’s service life, if you are making any money at it. But, new drivers see cash in their bank account every week, and it’s hard to link that to having to splash out $25k for a new car down the road. I expect a lot of these drivers will bow out when…

Not exactly. This theory applies steady state analysis to a transient problem. Those drivers need money now. And are willing to trade off miles for money, in some sense. They are able to leverage their time and mileage to get income, which they might not otherwise have. They may already have invested in buying the car so that is a sunk cost. In some sense they are just extracting the value of the car combined with th…

What exactly are you disagreeing with? The comment you're replying to basically says: "it is unsustainable in the long term" and your response is basically: "it is sustainable in the short term" which is effectively equivalent.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#402

Post by rossenberg79 »

kelnos wrote: post #381
rossenberg79 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having to do fares in the bad part of town is the reason my brother carries a loaded gun under his seat while driving for Uber.

I'm going to guess that if someone in a bad part of town is pulling a gun or even a knife on your brother, they're not going to just lazily stand there staring at him as he fumbles to find a gun under his seat to defend himself.

I think the idea is if someone gets into his car and holds him at knife point or gunpoint he could grab their weapon and pull the gun to shoot them quickly. At some point he would be coerced into reaching for his “wallet”. It’s all situational though.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#403

Post by tyopiuy »

imtringued wrote: post #401
tyopiuy wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly. This theory applies steady state analysis to a transient problem. Those drivers need money now. And are willing to trade off miles for money, in some sense. They are able to leverage their time and mileage to get income, which they might not otherwise have. They may already have invested in buying the car so that is a sunk cost. In some sense they are just extracting the value of the car combined with th…

What exactly are you disagreeing with? The comment you're replying to basically says: "it is unsustainable in the long term" and your response is basically: "it is sustainable in the short term" which is effectively equivalent.

I think my comment explains that. Think about it a little more

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#404

Post by GordonS »

astrodust wrote: post #222
GordonS wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Combine that with the fact that the drivers often don't know the neighborhood I used to travel to Houston quite a lot. Not sure if this is representative of taxis in general in the US, but the taxi drivers never knew the neighbourhood. I couldn't say "I want to go to Acme Stuff in X district", I had to give a "Cross road" (a very US thing, that) and the driver would use satnav based on that. It did seem that a lot…

That's probably because becoming a taxi driver in places like London is extremely hard ( https://www.theknowledgetaxi.co.uk ), while becoming a taxi driver in Houston is probably as simple as "do you have a license?"

I'm not in London, or even England. AFAIK, it's relatively straightforward to get a taxi license anywhere in the UK but London.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#405

Post by giancarlostoro »

fwip wrote: post #315
rossenberg79 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having to do fares in the bad part of town is the reason my brother carries a loaded gun under his seat while driving for Uber.

Bringing a loaded gun with you is a good way to end up dead.

It all depends on what the situation is. Some people get mugged by people without weapons or who only have a knife or are bluffing about having a gun. But yeah I wouldnt have it somewhere I couldnt reach for the gun immediately.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#406

Post by FiddlyPack »

IanCal wrote: post #278
FiddlyPack wrote: post #277

Earlier 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…

Regarding McDonalds, correct, the innovation was not in the franchise. The innovation was in creating the corporate and logistic structures necessary that every single McDonalds, everywhere, even though owned by franchisees, would deliver pretty much the same experience.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#407

Post by thatoneuser »

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…

Autonomous driving is "decades" away? How do you figure?

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#408

Post by scarface74 »

xenospn wrote: post #263
connorcodes wrote: post #194

Well, this may drive a crowd away, but maybe the best way for monetization is to make Uber a subscription based thing. Obviously, it would have to be cheap though.

Moviepass tried do so the subscription thing on a very large scale and that didn't really work. Netflix pulls it off since they own most of the content and some of the distribution network.

It didn’t work for Moviepass because they were trying to sell a subscription at a price that was less than one movie a month.

AMC is doing it quite successfully. The difference?

- they made a deal with the movie distributors to account for all shows to be sold for $8.99. AMC keeps 50-70%. Worse case, AMC pays $6.30 per movie. Movie Pass had to pay the full retail price.

- AMC has crazy margins on concessions. Add to that the theatres with bars and full restaurants.

- They make money on pre movie advertising.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#409

Post by scarface74 »

askafriend wrote: post #276
micael_dias wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their expenses are higher than their revenue.

If I bought 10 McDonald's franchises today, my expenses would be higher than my revenue for probably the entire first year if not more. If things are going well, and I make another bet by buying 10 more, my expenses would continue being higher than my revenue (even if the first 10 stores become profitable). If I keep doing this, I may not show a profit on my balance sheet for a long time. This example illustrates why…

What would it reveal if your marginal costs were greater than your marginal revenue? Has anyone done a cohort analysis?

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#410

Post by MuffinFlavored »

ape4 wrote: post #228
cabaalis wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> drivers often don't know the neighborhood and rely exclusively on GPS I drove for Uber about 3 years ago for a couple of months when getting my consultancy off the ground, which led to my current gig. If I had a way to tell Uber "Don't give me rides that require me to leave a given geofence--we'll all have a bad time." Then I'd have been much, much happier. Everyone wanted a ride from my suburban town to the metro…

It's odd that this still isn't available. If you just want to drive for Uber for a couple hours you don't want to be taken to the other side of town

How profitable is "just driving Uber for a couple of hours"?
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