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Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#261

Post by xster »

ilaksh wrote: post #247
xster wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is what worries me about the "mainstream" debate that might be incorrectly framing the whole problem altogether. Here, the rise of the gig economy came from automation. Not in the caricature sense that there are robot automatons that serve your plates in a restaurant, but in a sense that scalable automated processes replaced human dispatchers that answers your phone calls at the taxi companies and radios…

The solution is to replace the monopoly companies with public decentralized protocols that will enable a large shared network of customers to be serviced by a competing field of companies that plug into it.

That's still a classic Sanders vs Yang mentality to the problem. I'm not saying that the public forcing more competition isn't good, but it's orthogonal.

If we broke Uber into 1000 Uberlets, it still doesn't change that their only path out is still to be first in replacing all drivers with AI. As pro union, pro minimum wage, pro health benefit, pro 3 day weekend as I am, taxi driver jobs are still not coming back. There just aren't going to be sustainable mining towns or fishing towns or trucker stop towns.

This doesn't answer the humanity in 2050 question. And we need to start answering that question now.

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#262

Post by VintageLight »

xyzzyz wrote: post #180
lacker wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the part where Uber let you get a cab through an app rather than hoping a taxi was driving by and waving your hands at them. It really is a far, far better product when you can get a cab wherever you want, instead of just in a few areas.

Did you know that in most places where cab are operating, you could order a cab to pick you up at your house by calling a cab company and talking to the operator? Flagging down a cab as it drives by is a New York City thing.

I recently spent a weekend in a major city without Uber/Lyft. Trying to call a cab company was terrible, relative to the user experience of Uber or Lyft.

After making my request, a few cab companies simply answered "Ok" before hanging up. I called them back to get an ETA, and their dispatchers would give me answers like "30 to 40 minutes" or "I don't know".

I wasn't out in the boonies or anything. I was downtown.

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#263

Post by ohazi »

xyzzyz wrote: post #180
lacker wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the part where Uber let you get a cab through an app rather than hoping a taxi was driving by and waving your hands at them. It really is a far, far better product when you can get a cab wherever you want, instead of just in a few areas.

Did you know that in most places where cab are operating, you could order a cab to pick you up at your house by calling a cab company and talking to the operator? Flagging down a cab as it drives by is a New York City thing.

You've clearly never missed a flight due to said cab not showing up. Never again.

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#264

Post by dmix »

coldtea wrote: post #95

Glad they're down, and hope the whole "gig economy" burns down too. Where gig economy = padding the loss of decent jobs by replacing the bottom end with desperate deals where "non employed" employees, without regular salary, benefits, company provided work tools, etc., make a pittance, while the organizing company gets a cut from millions of transactions. In some cases, no jobs is better than subsistence/dead-end/exp…

Most taxi drivers were already contractors before smartphones and they won't stop being independent even if Uber dies.

The solution is improving contractor employment laws and services to reflect new reality of the economy (technology lowering the barrier to join a contractor or temp jobs increasing their quantity). Not trying to end something that's not going away and many people find useful but making being a contractor not being treat as the bastard child of employment but a standard means of work.

In Canada you can't get proper unemployment benefits if you're a contractor (and you don't have an option to volunteer into one, you'd have to do it yourself), so if you get seriously sick, as what happened to me, you're S.O.L. for even basic money and have to depend on family. Between that, universal healthcare coverage, and stricter rules on what's defined as a 'full-time job' and you'd eliminate most problems.

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#265

Post by DantesKite »

ensmartha wrote: post #146
coldtea wrote: post #95

Glad they're down, and hope the whole "gig economy" burns down too. Where gig economy = padding the loss of decent jobs by replacing the bottom end with desperate deals where "non employed" employees, without regular salary, benefits, company provided work tools, etc., make a pittance, while the organizing company gets a cut from millions of transactions. In some cases, no jobs is better than subsistence/dead-end/exp…

Not all gig companies are the same. Uber is not a real business. Nothing about hiring a driver or maintaining or running a car is cheaper now than before Uber. Uber will never be profitable unless people are willing to pay the same amount as for regular taxis or for a private driver (i.e. expensive). Airbnb on the other hand is a real and vastly profitable business. Yes there need to be tighter regulations because we…

Yes there need to be tighter regulations because we don’t want Airbnb everywhere.

How come? It seems like a great company to me.

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#266

Post by JoeAltmaier »

core-questions wrote: post #255
xster wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is what worries me about the "mainstream" debate that might be incorrectly framing the whole problem altogether. Here, the rise of the gig economy came from automation. Not in the caricature sense that there are robot automatons that serve your plates in a restaurant, but in a sense that scalable automated processes replaced human dispatchers that answers your phone calls at the taxi companies and radios…

> more and more of this planet's 'productivity' is concentrating more and more in the hands of those who produce the AI automations. Sometimes I think folks who think like this really need to get outside more. Yes, a lot of things are being automated, but (a) consider the janky quality of automation, because it's really not mature yet even in purely-software environments where everything can be controlled, and (b) co…

And exactly how is the output of an automated system "your output"? The output of setting up an automated system is, the automated system. The output of that system is, surely an interesting question at least.

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#267

Post by kmlx »

coldtea wrote: post #95

Glad they're down, and hope the whole "gig economy" burns down too. Where gig economy = padding the loss of decent jobs by replacing the bottom end with desperate deals where "non employed" employees, without regular salary, benefits, company provided work tools, etc., make a pittance, while the organizing company gets a cut from millions of transactions. In some cases, no jobs is better than subsistence/dead-end/exp…

“without regular salary, benefits, company provided work tools, etc.,” so you’re against contractors in general? honestly your whole post reads like a naive rant against something you don’t really understand.

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#268

Post by Udik »

paxys wrote: post #107
kgwgk wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They booked an expense of $3.1bn in R&D last quarter. Even excluding the $2.6bn linked to stock-based compensation it’s $0.5bn per quarter. But of course that includes useful R&D and not just the flying-cars kind.

"R&D" usually includes all engineering expenses on financial reports, which for a company like Uber is the vast majority of operating expenses.

Can I ask something that will sound incredibly naive?

How complicated needs to be an IT infrastructure that lets you book a taxi via an app and pay the driver? Is it really something to throw billions at each year? Sometimes I feel these companies are throwing billions in IT simply because they're expected to be disruptive technology companies, and not for real technical reasons.

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#269

Post by ensmartha »

Barrin92 wrote: post #154
ensmartha wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all gig companies are the same. Uber is not a real business. Nothing about hiring a driver or maintaining or running a car is cheaper now than before Uber. Uber will never be profitable unless people are willing to pay the same amount as for regular taxis or for a private driver (i.e. expensive). Airbnb on the other hand is a real and vastly profitable business. Yes there need to be tighter regulations because we…

>Uber is not a real business. Nothing about hiring a driver or maintaining or running a car is cheaper now than before Uber. It's even worse, outsourcing maintenance, insurance, upkeep and whatnot to individuals is on the aggregate more expensive and time consuming than having a division of labour and a company who can manage these costs in bulk.

Yup. Uber is essentially in the business of selling $10 bills for $5. Certainly there is growth, but...

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#270

Post by colinmhayes »

xyzzyz wrote: post #180
lacker wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the part where Uber let you get a cab through an app rather than hoping a taxi was driving by and waving your hands at them. It really is a far, far better product when you can get a cab wherever you want, instead of just in a few areas.

Did you know that in most places where cab are operating, you could order a cab to pick you up at your house by calling a cab company and talking to the operator? Flagging down a cab as it drives by is a New York City thing.

That system was incredibly awful.I don't believe there is a single person who used that system and was happy with it.
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