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Can Uber ever make money?

economist.com

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Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#411

Post by plankers »

heyoni wrote: post #389
plankers wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... you're saying that the entire market is currently churning out legal ponzi schemes? Or is it that the entire market is itself currently a ponzi scheme? Either way, I get the distinct impression that I've seen this movie before and I didn't like the ending.

They just finished explaining why it’s not really a Ponzi scheme yet you keep calling it one.

Did we read the same comment? Seems to me they just finished explaining all the ways it's similar to a ponzi scheme.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#412

Post by cududa »

napier wrote: post #151
matchagaucho wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really just about the dynamics of mobile hailing and logistics. Of course it's cheaper than actually calling a Taxi dispatcher, verbally providing a pickup location, and paying cash. But how much cheaper? Uber, Lyft, Grab and others are in the business of figuring out those margins... and riders will pay rate increases as supply and demand equalizes.

You've nailed their single differentiating unique selling point.

Not really. Before Uber I’d say ~50% of the drivers I ordered never showed up. Missed tons of flights this way

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#413

Post by heyoni »

plankers wrote: post #411
heyoni wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just finished explaining why it’s not really a Ponzi scheme yet you keep calling it one.

Did we read the same comment? Seems to me they just finished explaining all the ways it's similar to a ponzi scheme.

> It seems like a Ponzi-like startup is not illegal because it's not as deliberately deceptive nor is it schemed by a single party/person, but rather it's more the creation of the entire market and what is really causing the profits/payouts is more up-for-debate.

In a Ponzi scheme, you’re led to believe that profits are from sales, luring new investors to partake by lying.

Uber is losing money but there’s still hype around it because everyone wants to get in on the ground floor. At the end of the day, they’re going to be releasing truthful quarterly reports rather than fabricating numbers out of thin air.

The difference is pretty massive I would say.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#414

Post by SquishyPanda23 »

repolfx wrote: post #393
SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I wonder if this was the best way for it to happen. Couldn't we have gotten to taxi-hailing apps without allocating a bunch of capital to companies that might never turn a profit? I'm just curious. I don't personally care because my money isn't invested and my rides are subsidized by the people who did invest.

You don't even have a pension? A lot of money finds its way to companies like Uber from sources almost everyone has. Even with no pension, your bank is speculatively investing the money in your account to try and earn interest.

Uber is a private company. If I own any equity indirectly it would be news to me.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#415

Post by Simon_says »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #364
Simon_says wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> very few people would say that a "healthy" labor market has no minimum wage or discrimination protections ... Unfortunately, you're talking to one of those few people. I'm against government mandating minimum wages or mandatory maternity/paternity leave. If you want those things, you can try to negotiate for it. > customers already seem not thrilled with surge pricing This is a true statement, but I wonder about th…

Government mandate minimum wages and mandatory parental leave are the result of people having negotiated for them.

It's a strange negotiation that prevents me from entering into another contract with a third party ...

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#416

Post by Simon_says »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #383
Simon_says wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> very few people would say that a "healthy" labor market has no minimum wage or discrimination protections ... Unfortunately, you're talking to one of those few people. I'm against government mandating minimum wages or mandatory maternity/paternity leave. If you want those things, you can try to negotiate for it. > customers already seem not thrilled with surge pricing This is a true statement, but I wonder about th…

Negotiating for everything is not the most efficient way of conducting business for society as a whole. Negotiating offers the benefit of price discovery, but it also consumes resources in the form of opportunity cost with other things that could have been done with that time and effort. Yes, we can expose the reality that most people aren't economically worth enough right now to demand parental leave or living condi…

> Yes, we can expose the reality that most people aren't economically worth enough right now to demand parental leave or living conditions, but what is the benefit of exposing that?

The benefit would be discouraging people from having kids they can't afford and not forcing employers to pay employees who aren't working.

If you want to get paid for work you're not doing, you should at least have a conversation with your employer about it.

You bring up an interesting point about efficiency, and regarding most other things, I would agree with you, but your employment is one of the most important things in your life, so it's worthwhile to do the work to understand your contract.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#417

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

Simon_says wrote: post #416
lotsofpulp wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Negotiating for everything is not the most efficient way of conducting business for society as a whole. Negotiating offers the benefit of price discovery, but it also consumes resources in the form of opportunity cost with other things that could have been done with that time and effort. Yes, we can expose the reality that most people aren't economically worth enough right now to demand parental leave or living condi…

> Yes, we can expose the reality that most people aren't economically worth enough right now to demand parental leave or living conditions, but what is the benefit of exposing that? The benefit would be discouraging people from having kids they can't afford and not forcing employers to pay employees who aren't working. If you want to get paid for work you're not doing, you should at least have a conversation with you…

The benefit would be discouraging people from having kids they can't afford

Perhaps you haven't noticed, but all the evidence would suggest that that isn't working. You can't just not pay people and they magically stop fucking.

Rather, the framework is broken. When we hyper-individualise everything, we end up with a world people can come to frame thoughts like the one you've expressed.

A world where everyone must own one of everything, and a spare, in order to survive. Where betterment is defined as having more and better things to throw in the garbage heap.

So that future archeologists may dig up our society and find the last of the great cetaceans, beached, with their bellies full of custom gift cards with your face printed on it.

And that is a sad state of affairs.

The more educated people are the fewer children they have. And we continue to price more and more people out of education because they lost the birth lottery.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#418

Post by geofft »

Simon_says wrote: post #416
lotsofpulp wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Negotiating for everything is not the most efficient way of conducting business for society as a whole. Negotiating offers the benefit of price discovery, but it also consumes resources in the form of opportunity cost with other things that could have been done with that time and effort. Yes, we can expose the reality that most people aren't economically worth enough right now to demand parental leave or living condi…

> Yes, we can expose the reality that most people aren't economically worth enough right now to demand parental leave or living conditions, but what is the benefit of exposing that? The benefit would be discouraging people from having kids they can't afford and not forcing employers to pay employees who aren't working. If you want to get paid for work you're not doing, you should at least have a conversation with you…

If biological entities whose entire purpose is to have kids can't afford to have kids, that's an indictment of the system that charges so much to have kids, not of the organisms fulfilling their biological imperative.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#419

Post by infinite8s »

Simon_says wrote: post #415
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government mandate minimum wages and mandatory parental leave are the result of people having negotiated for them.

It's a strange negotiation that prevents me from entering into another contract with a third party ...

You can - move to a country that doesn't provide those.

Re: Can Uber ever make money?

#420

Post by dwild »

freyr wrote: post #333
nospitate wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are just fundamentally wrong. There is a cost associated with operating the “dispatch,” operating the car and paying the employees/contractors. Take that cost, distribute it over the number of rides you expect to give to your customers and then add a little on top. The question is whether or not the customers will engage in that transaction or is the cost too high? Uber has plenty of fat to cut. If it were runnin…

There's making money, and there's making enough money to justify an $84B valuation.

> to justify an $84B valuation

He wasn't arguing that the investor were going to make money out of it. He was arguing that as a dispatcher, they can be more efficient than the current dispatcher, thus can make money.

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