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Uber opens at $42 per share

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Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#391
post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Uber even want to encourage people to take more rides if each single one is at a loss? It's hard to envision the strategy going forward.

Yes, they want to eat up the whole market until all the competitors die. Then they can raise prices.

Sure but there are quite significant competitors around. Lyft is a major one in the US. But countries like India and China, Uber can't even survive as the competition is beating them to it.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very good point too which I missed. People don't care about whether their friends are using Uber or some other app. They care about whether the ride is cheaper. It's a bottom of the barrel pricing game in ride sharing apps.

They also care about wait times. And drivers care about utilization. "Taxi apps" definitely have network effects from the two sided market, though not as strong as a social network.

From what I have found personally, the wait times on Uber and Lyft are the exact same in my area in Canada. Every driver which is on Uber is also on Lyft. So I don't think the network effect is helping them much as riders aren't really getting anything different in terms of wait times. Also this is even after Lyft barely being about 1 year old in my city while Uber has been around for many years.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#393
post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they want to eat up the whole market until all the competitors die. Then they can raise prices.

With that strategy, Uber might run out of cash before the competition is crushed.

> Uber might run out of cash before the competition is crushed.

True, but time scales matter. Given their current position, it might take 20 years for that to happen. By then, who knows where they or the market will be.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that Uber is betting on driverless cars to lower the cost per mile. But I think Tesla will beat them to market much much before them considering Tesla already has the tech. Elon even hinted on the Tesla taxi fleet in the next couple years. Now I realize Elon's got poor judgement on timing but I still think they will be able to achieve that much earlier than Uber. And if they do, I honestly don't see Uber surv…

There's no evidence that Tesla has any distance on Uber, other than Elon's word which means jack. Waymo is thought to be the leader in this space.

> Elon's word which means jack

He has proved his words countless times now. I have no idea what you are talking about. Only criticism I have about Elon would be his estimations on the time but I work in the tech field too and I can relate to issues coming up which postpone the deadlines.

How exactly is Waymo thought to be the leader? It's like the same argument short sellers have been making for years that Tesla electric cars will be overtaken by other car manufacturers. Come back to me when Waymo has overtaken Tesla in actual and on the market product.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#395
To add insult to injury for Uber's rank and file equity-holding employees: the terms of Uber's stock offers (at least since 2016 if not earlier) say that you cannot sell your shares until one year after they officially vest. That's right, they tack on an additional one-year waiting period for each block of shares awarded. So if you had shares that vested today, e.g., you can't sell those even when the regular six-month lockup period expires... you have to wait until May 2020.

(source: turned down offer in 2016 because of employee-unfriendly terms)

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#396

Given this price (and the likely downward trend to come if Lyft is any predictor), I wonder if Uber and Lyft are really just an act of philanthropy from SF VCs + SA to hungry/drunk/tired city-dwelling folk. If so, thanks guys! (* and you mostly are guys). Next ones on me!

It is never VC money... VCs get paid back few times over. It's our 401Ks that would be automatically funding these IPOs via index funds. So you can say that this is some weird form of socialism enabled by capitalism.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#397
post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how the UX thing is so revolutionary. I live in a city with 120k people, and the app of the local taxi company here does all of those things as well.

But did they do that before Uber?

Not OP, but if they weren't doing it before, and just copied Uber, doesn't that show how weak their moat is? The same could happen with autonomous vehicles as well then.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#399

Only a moron buys public shares from this company. They are not profitable now, have never been, will not be in the forseeable future, it's employees hate the company, customers will shift to any competitor that comes along.

Please don't post shallow dismissals and name-calling rants to HN. We're trying for better than that here, such as comments with information we can learn from.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#400
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the burn rate uber has, it'll be bankrupt in < 2 years. There are no other suckers to buy in after the public.

I've never understood why so many people were/are so bullish on Uber. I understand that ride hailing is a big deal, but it doesn't feel like it's that hard to launch a new ride hailing company. I'm basing that opinion on what I've seen in my city. When Uber and Lyft left Austin, there were lots of alternatives that had existed or popped up to fill the space. Aside from brand recognition, what does Uber have that the…

Here in brazil the most popular is Uber and 99 (which Didi, from China, is basically in charge). The price on both is basically the same here in my city, but I still use Uber because one little thing: Uber has fixed price. I know how much I'll pay for that ride. Simple as that.
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