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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

#381

Post by Pyxl101 »

malandrew wrote: post #283
chillacy wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet... higher than taxis?

The only reason that taxis have been able to achieve any decent utilization at all is the medallion system which greatly restricts supply. Without artificially constraining supply at the expense of consumer demand, taxi utilization would be abysmal.

It doesn't really make sense to assume that utilization would be abysmal without constraining supply. The people who operate taxis are rational actors. People who operate taxis will simply exit (or not enter) the business if they're sitting around idle and not making money.

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

#382

Post by quaquaqua1 »

pembrook wrote: post #376
TrackerFF wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Must be a US thing - in Scandinavia you always call the taxi company, and they'll send you a taxi - with time and price estimate. It's been like that since forever.

In Scandinavia though (at least in the big cities), you'll be picked up in an unnecessarily top-of-the-line Mercedes Sedan and expected to pay $75 for a 20 minute ride. Also be sure to call the night before if you're trying to catch a flight in the morning! Otherwise you might find yourself on hold. Luckily the excellent public transport makes up for it. But there are still many scenarios where Uber is a welcome addi…

I had some car trouble this week so I was ubering to work. 20 minute ride was usually about $13.

The drivers were always nice and friendly. Their vehicles were clean. They arrived on time and got me to work when otherwise I would have been biking or walking for hours.

Those guys earn their money. I tipped them well. I wouldn't Uber to work forever because it is costly, but I absolutely loved ubering while my car was in the shop.

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

#383

Post by munk-a »

adventured wrote: post #246
berberous wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People disagree on this. Warren Buffet for example famously argues that SBC is a real expense even if non-cash, just like depreciation. More to the OPs point, I'm guessing Uber had FB-style RSUs that don't settle until an IPO or Change of Control. I'm not sure how this all gets accounted for, but given the recent IPO, it sounds like they booked a very large SBC charge this quarter to account for the immediate hit of…

> People disagree on this. Warren Buffet for example famously argues that SBC is a real expense even if non-cash, just like depreciation. There isn't much to disagree about. It's a real cost against shareholders (that's what Buffett is talking about) and it is not an expense against the business operations such that it depletes your cash or harms cash flow (the point a parent comment was making). Putting it broadly,…

> it is not an expense against the business operations

Except it is, you're borrowing money from the future if your company would ever consider issuing more stock in a followup round - it also may damage your ability to court private investors, not just because you lowered your share price but because you're more likely to dilute it more in the future.

The stock market is a generally viewed today as an absurd concept composed of abstract financial wizardry - but it is grounded in the concept of partial ownership in a company and the assets of that company.

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

#384

Post by [deleted] »

sharadov wrote: post #360
Decathect wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth is accruing to people with power and capital. The people who produce automations are laborers like the rest of society, just with a temporarily elevated standard of living. As writing software is deskilled and supplanted, it'll be increasingly apparent that we were just a midterm necessary evil to the people signing our paychecks. To me, the central problem is wealth disparity as a proxy for power disparity: o…

How is Sander's solution different from Yang's? Asking, since I don't know?

[deleted]

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

#385

Post by hos234 »

JauntyHatAngle wrote: post #374
hos234 wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> change the purpose of life We are not sophisticated enough to get roads fixed and keep the water supply clean. Long way to go. Don't fall for people who tell you it can happen faster, until they have fixed the roads and cleaned the water in one town.

If the economic incentive was there, we would have fixed roads and clean water supply, it's a solved problem, it's just not scaled across all of society because it costs $$$. The argument being made is that the drivers of loss of jobs are progress, and the jobs being created as a result of this are not going equitably towards the people displaced. The purpose of life argument isn't saying that you will have clean wat…

If it's a solved problem show me the fixed roads and clean water and I will buy what you are selling. Do it in one town.

There is no need to debate and discuss anything more if you have proof for the simplest case.

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

#386

Post by Thorentis »

coldtea wrote: post #310
Thorentis wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The other bleaker outcome is that anybody who doesn't support the needs of the 0.01% will just be wiped out since they no longer serve a purpose. Think about it: sweatshops will be replaced by robots, menial healthcare tasks performed by robots, garbage collectors, janitors etc. None of them needed. So why give them food provided by the robotic farms? The only thing stopping a mass population wipe out by the technocracy is altruism.

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

#387

Post by xster »

scarmig wrote: post #368
sharadov wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Sander's solution different from Yang's? Asking, since I don't know?

Fundamentally, Yang suggests a technocratic approach: pass a certain policy (UBI) that would likely fix lots of things if passed, and then observe it work and adjust as necessary. Sanders doesn't AFAIK support a UBI, but on top of a slew of left-wing policies, his perspective is that you need a mass movement of people to build institutions that can challenge corporate power.

Right. Using perhaps right-wing friendly terminologies, Yang is closer to the equality of opportunity end of the spectrum and Sanders is closer to the equality of outcome end.

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

#388

Post by elihu »

sharadov wrote: post #360
Decathect wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth is accruing to people with power and capital. The people who produce automations are laborers like the rest of society, just with a temporarily elevated standard of living. As writing software is deskilled and supplanted, it'll be increasingly apparent that we were just a midterm necessary evil to the people signing our paychecks. To me, the central problem is wealth disparity as a proxy for power disparity: o…

How is Sander's solution different from Yang's? Asking, since I don't know?

Sanders is more focused on New-Deal style policies: expand Medicare to cover everyone, make public colleges tuition-free, and that sort of thing. His approach is more-or-less to shore up or expand the institutions we have and make sure everyone can get the education they need to compete.

Yang's approach is UBI: basically, give everyone monthly income with no strings attached and no means testing.

In both cases, the cost of the policies is offset by various forms of taxes.

Bernie's approach rests on the assumption that there are and will be enough jobs for everyone (if they have adequate access to the education, health care, and child care services they need), whereas Yang's is based on the assumption that there won't be.

In the long run, I figure that Yang is right (though we could also deal with the problem by transitioning to 30 or 20 hour work weeks), though Sanders' policy proposals better address the major problems we're dealing with right now.

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

#389

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

anon1m0us wrote: post #346
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…

Adam Smith addressed this in "The Wealth of Nations." The coal furnace door opening children all got fired when one of them discovered they could tie the door handle to the piston and open the door automatically for the coal shovelers. This isn't an AI problem. This is an owner vs. employee problem. Advances in technology accrue to the owners at the expense of the employee. This always happens because employees sign…

Whatever your opinion of college is, last I checked people are still treating it as an investment in themselves.

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

#390

Post by cryptozeus »

Marsymars wrote: post #358
cryptozeus wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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 ma…

> I can’t imagine my life without uber. You literally can't imagine your life, if say, you lived in Vancouver?

I have never been there so really I cannot imagine :)...joking aside, I meant it in my current context. This can change in 10 years but honestly I do not enjoy driving in traffic so I am thankful for uber.
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