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Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

economist.com

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Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#251

Post by britch »

malandrew wrote: post #220
prewett wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minimum wage after all expenses (including depreciation) are subtracted seems like the absolute lowest wage that could be considered "fair". Or maybe whatever McDonald's/Walmart are paying in your area, since that is sometimes higher than minimum wage in urban markets.

this is just punting on the question. how should minimum wage be determined?

If you work 40+ hours a week you should be payed enough to support yourself and a child and live in or very nearby the city in which you work.

This is not how the minimum wage works currently. This is not all Uber/Lyft's feet, it's a broader problem in the economy. I understand this is more complex than Uber flipping a "fair wages" switch.

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#252

Post by mimixco »

SilasX wrote: post #183
mimixco wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. And surprisingly, no one[#] has brought up that there is no such thing as as a national (or even regional) taxi service. And why is that? It's because the economics of fleet ownership don't scale to that size. If they did, we'd have a single nationwide taxi service already. In 100 years of taxis, no one has done that. [#] Except Hubert Horan who destroyed all their BS with his series, "Can Uber Ever Deliver?"

Yeah, but arguably smartphone technology reduced admin costs and raised the size of the economically optimal taxi provider. That has been around for less than a hundred years. Edit: Dangit, I thought my reply got eaten, but I was looking at a different branch. See the rephrasing here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19880565

Smartphones didn't reduce the cost of dispatch. Look what Uber spends on app development! The big costs in taxis are maintaining the fleet, a cost which Uber externalizes to its drivers, some of whom now have to sleep in their cars.

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#253

Post by SilasX »

mimixco wrote: post #252
SilasX wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but arguably smartphone technology reduced admin costs and raised the size of the economically optimal taxi provider. That has been around for less than a hundred years. Edit: Dangit, I thought my reply got eaten, but I was looking at a different branch. See the rephrasing here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19880565

Smartphones didn't reduce the cost of dispatch. Look what Uber spends on app development! The big costs in taxis are maintaining the fleet, a cost which Uber externalizes to its drivers, some of whom now have to sleep in their cars.

They most certainly did. As expensive as that software is, it’s very little when amortized over the rides. It eliminates the overhead of finding a location and transmitting the info, and delivers higher value in that it gives real time data about where the car is, and lets you pay more conveniently.

Also: while the drivers have physically taken over maintenance, Uber can’t push the economic cost on to them, because they have to pay enough that drivers want to continue to work even given those costs. If anything, maintenance is cheaper when handled by a big org.

To the extent they realize a savings, it’s because they’re using the spare hours of existing vehicles and don’t have to take on all the dead ours they’d have from owning the cars not because they’re getting maintenance free in any meaningful sense.

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#254

Post by lozenge »

CPLX wrote: post #64
m_ke wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm convinced that the end goal is being the last one standing. Either one of them failing would guarantee a monopoly for the other and make it easier to play with the margins.

> Either one of them failing would guarantee a monopoly for the other Why? Is there some reason someone else couldn't make a basic app-based service to get taxi rides?

You cant get riders until they know you have drivers, and vice versa. So, you basically have to pay drivers to wait around for potential riders, which gets expensive quickly.

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#255

Post by LifeofPi314 »

racecar789 wrote: post #249
chollida1 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lyft's float can be viewed one of two ways 1) Total Shares of 273Million this is what finviz is using. This includes locked up shares that can't trade right now 2) the Currently tradable float, this is 32 Million and what I, Bloomberg, Markit, and any non budget site will use as these are the only shares that currently matter.

Sorry, trying to reconcile the comments. LifeOfPi mentioned the short float to = 7%. Chollida1 mentioned the 7% figure was using 273mil shares as a base. So wouldn't the total shorted shares equal 19mil? (19mil = 273mil X 7%). However, Chollidal mentioned in the first post that 27mil shares are shorted. Trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between 19mil and 27mil... PS. Not trying to nit-pick. The comments are…

Time of reporting matters here. Some report every 15 days. others with a different time frame. Probably that's the reason for discrepancy?

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#256

Post by LifeofPi314 »

HoyaSaxa wrote: post #107
LifeofPi314 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please tell me how do you find out what the borrow rates are for short shares and how many are being shorted?

Short interest is really an irrelevant number. That number could be largely skewed by derivatives, corporate actions, etc. Additionally, foreign brokers do not have to report short interest to the SEC. In regards to borrow rates, there are some sources that are fairly accurate, but usually only to prime brokers themselves. There is no public exchange. Interactive Brokers is the only retail broker that I know of that…

Even if they're skewed, it's still borrow on the existing floating shares?, no? I mean directionally - can it not mean that - even a small piece of good news will cause exponential movement due to shorts having to be covered.

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#257

Post by jartelt »

unreal37 wrote: post #161
jartelt wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do Delta, United, American Airlines, and Southwest all operate within the same market and not have fare wars constantly leading to bankruptcy? If you were correct, it seems like it would be impossible for several airlines to operate within the US. Yet, several airlines somehow manage to set prices that allow them to operate. I'm not saying Lyft and Uber will ultimately be successful (I don't know), but it wouldn'…

Not sure if you're joking, but the airlines have a long long history of bankruptcy... Even American Airlines declared bankruptcy in 2011 and emerged from it in 2013... Delta in 2005. United in 2002. [0] http://airlines.org/dataset/u-s-bankruptcies-and-services-ce...

Yet AA, Delta, and United are each still operating and each valued at over $10B today. The point is that the airline industry has several players operating and competing and has not totally imploded and fares have not skyrocketed. Many are predicting Uber and lyft will either raise fares a ton or the companies will totally fail and be worthless. I'm saying there is a middle ground where they compete without killing each other.
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