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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

#301

Post by pault »

kbenson wrote: post #172
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…

Uber and Lyft did the hard work of making ride-sharing mainstream, but there's really very little they have to offer other than name recognition) over any other player that tries to enter this play. I still strongly believe that some aggregating service like Expedia, Travelocity or Kayak for ride sharing the treats Uber, Lyft or any other player in the market as the equivalent of an airline would work fine in the vas…

In Austin we have smaller ride share services that were able to thrive when Uber and Lyft got kicked out temporarily. They only charged the drivers $1.00 per ride instead of 25%. Such a deal can only be dreamed of since Uber and Lyft came back and crushed all the small players like flies. In my opinion this is not a service that requires billion dollar companies to exist. I would love to see an open source suite of software that allows local companies and municipalities to easily start a ride share service. At least then all of that economic activity would stay in the region instead of getting hoovered up into the pockets of millionaires in San Francisco (nothing against San Francisco or millionaires, I would just rather the local economy benefit).

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

#302

Post by stale2002 »

logfromblammo wrote: post #284
core-questions wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Okay, Mr. Galt. You owe a massive amount of your economic output to others because you stand on the shoulders of people who are standing on the shoulders of people who are standing on the shoulders of people... and it's not a simple pyramid, but one giant ball of interdependence that will be thrown into chaos if a critical mass of people try to buck off their riders. You can't pay the guy specifically holding you up,…

> I pay freeloaders, because I don't want to fall off the ball, onto my fat ass, and fend for myself, using only what I had on hand when I dropped.

Ok, fine, but if taxes get high enough, along with the benefits, you can expect some people to stop caring and start becoming freeloaders themselves.

Don't be surprised when people just say "screw it, this isn't worth it anymore, I am going to become a freeloader myself".

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

#303

Post by cryptozeus »

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…

“Uber, which aspires to become an Amazon-like store for all forms of transportation, is also investing in the development of autonomous cars, public transit deals, the expansion of its bicycle and scooter business, and in its freight delivery platform.”

Remember how amazon was never profitable for years and everyone missed the boat on crazy upside. Remember Tesla ? Remember facebook and twitter before they started making money on ads ? Just because of 2 quarter loss you can’t expect uber to shut down. Not even close, their product teams are already figuring out where to get more money from.

Its a different deal If you hate uber and want it to shut down but otherwise this is business as usual. I can’t imagine my life without uber.

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

#304

Post by kart23 »

burkaman wrote: post #243
kart23 wrote: post #207

I only like uber/lyft for one very important reason. Drinking. I truly believe its saved a ton of lives thanks to its ease of use. I'm in college right now, and I couldn't even imagine trying to get home without lyft or uber in many circumstances. Its made it so convenient to get a ride at any time, anywhere, that nobody even thinks about driving home anymore. Public transport simply isnt an option at 2am where I liv…

Evidence is mixed: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/07/business/uber-drunk-drivi... Most people who drive drunk aren't doing it because they're desperate and have no other option, they're doing it because they're drunk assholes. They will still do it even when they could get a Lyft for $8. They're drunk. > I couldn't even imagine trying to get home without lyft or uber in many circumstances. Ok, but people must have m…

I agree with you on the drunk driving part, but it just makes a lot of situations way easier. A group of 4 friends can go out without having a car, have fun, and not have any anxiety about how they are gonna get home at the end of the night.

My college and the city actually has changed a lot in the past 10 years, it's seen acceptance rates go down 20%, 2 deaths in Greek life, tuition rise by $10,000, and major companies move into the area. My school also has developed a parking shortage, so many students living on campus are not allowed to bring cars. Uber/Lyft is a godsend for many students.

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

#305

Post by CJefferson »

colinmhayes wrote: post #270
xyzzyz wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I just I want to say, I was super happy with that system, much happier than with Uber.

I used a small family taxi company. I had to book in advance, or be prepared for a short wait, but they understood my father in law needed some extra time and understood his requirements. Ubers on the other hand are awful with disabled people in my experience.

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

#306

Post by eanzenberg »

chucksmash wrote: post #282
core-questions wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> At what point do I simply say "fuck it" and stop working too, because some ridiculous percentage of my income has to be applied towards feeding those who won't/can't/don't do anything productive? Econ 101 opinion here, so I'm ignoring totally reasonable things like "people work for reasons other than monetary compensation" and assuming you're a rational participant in the economy, but I'd say there is no percentage…

This is incorrect as the time-value of money is different for different people. If the choice is between a high pressure job with ~$100k after tax earnings or a mid pressure job with ~$70k after tax earnings, where the high pressure one is at a 90% bracket vs. the 50% bracket of the lower one, rational people may decide on the lower impact job.

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

#307

Post by themagician »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #69
themagician wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The service also turned to total shit. I took my first Uber in 2011. It was amazing. Expensive, to be sure, but the service was amazing. Black Sedan, extremely professional, shows up wherever you want, drops you off wherever you want, never really had to look at GPS. Just amazing. It was so good I figured I'd never need car again. But it was expensive, so I used it sparingly. I'd take public transit or walk most of t…

...Uber when it first started was a Black Car service... you can still call a black car service and it will be a certified livery driver. There are also still plenty of black car services around if you are concerned about loss of quality in more affordable offerings (where did you think the tradeoff was going to be for a more affordable solution? Purely scale?)

You can still choose a black sedan, but that doesn't mean anything. It's just a random guy with a more expensive car.

I didn't think there was going to be a tradeoff. There was never supposed to be. The idea that random people would drive others around was never part of Uber's business plan, that's why it was called "Uber" to begin with. It was never part of anyone's business plan—it was illegal.

Lyft came along and just started hiring random people with no passenger carrier permit and no insurance, and then Uber had to compete with that nonsense and that nonsense somehow just became legal because "it's an app" was a valid defense and the CPUC went along with it because it became too big to ignore or outright ban.

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

#308

Post by eanzenberg »

stale2002 wrote: post #302
logfromblammo wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, Mr. Galt. You owe a massive amount of your economic output to others because you stand on the shoulders of people who are standing on the shoulders of people who are standing on the shoulders of people... and it's not a simple pyramid, but one giant ball of interdependence that will be thrown into chaos if a critical mass of people try to buck off their riders. You can't pay the guy specifically holding you up,…

> I pay freeloaders, because I don't want to fall off the ball, onto my fat ass, and fend for myself, using only what I had on hand when I dropped. Ok, fine, but if taxes get high enough, along with the benefits, you can expect some people to stop caring and start becoming freeloaders themselves. Don't be surprised when people just say "screw it, this isn't worth it anymore, I am going to become a freeloader myself".

People are already starting to do this, in a time of immense economic prosperity. Look around at the "able-homeless" in the SF bay area.

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

#309

Post by patcon »

buildzr wrote: post #215
patcon wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great question. I mean that. But maybe put differently: > What is happen ing to personal responsibility? It sure as heck is changing a lot when powerful players derive algorithmic insight that allows them to know/predict us better than we can ourselves and our communities, plus three things: 1. we can't keep up as individuals, 2. our governments (the last invention that helped us keep up,) can't keep up, and 3. we ha…

Interesting, I feel it's actually getting even easier to make responsible decisions, without the advice I got from the internet I'd probably be picking individual stocks and my mortgage structure would look a lot worse. Carrying a calculator in your pocket even helps make those little decisions at the store easier.

Ah I can see that. But it feels like a red herring to me...?

As in, those gains aren't accruing equally. Even among people, tech savvy monetizable upper-middle class people get tech sic'd on their dilemmas first. But between orgs and people, I worry it's an even bigger chasm. It's Piketty's "Capital in the 21st Century" in recursion, where accrual of knowledge capital (specifically about individuals, and their probability space of actions accessible through newfound data streams), not financial capital.

Anyhow, thanks for engaging :)

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

#310

Post by coldtea »

Thorentis wrote: post #285
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…

Yep, this is a fascinating (and scary) thing to think about. What will happen to a society where every single person has their basic needs met by some form of automation, and nobody needs to work? I would say most first world countries are already in this scenario if so much money wasn't spent on non essentials. Industrial scale farming, mass produced pharmaceuticals, rapid house construction etc. mean that if a soci…

>What will happen to a society where every single person has their basic needs met by some form of automation, and nobody needs to work?

Those who control the "means of automation" (robot factories, power stations, etc) --let's say 0.01%--, will rule over the rest, in gated communities and closed enclaves.

A small percentage of the population will live alongside them, in B-rated residences, to provide them services that, either still need humans or are better done by humans (e.g. sex), or its considered "classier" to have humans do for you (e.g. cooking). Let's say that's a 10%.

The rest 90% will be left to rot in urban and suburban slums, develop their own black economy, and shot on sight when they dare enter the rich areas.

https://www.amazon.com/Planet-Slums-Mike-Davis/dp/1784786616

https://www.amazon.com/City-Quartz-Excavating-Future-Angeles...

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