Car-sharing apps will eventually prove to be a better solution than Uber and its peers. Having a private driver at your disposal, even for a short time, is expensive and always will be. And right now, thanks to subsidies, Uber can compete with mass transit in many cities.
Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate
451–460 of 516 posts
Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate
#452Earlier quoted context omitted.
I found that if I used my corp card, transit stuff was automatically categorized just fine.
It’s getting your taxi driver to take your card in the first place that can be an issue. I guess they’re high risk merchants and pay high rates? Then you may require the actual receipt for your expense. Sometimes the Corp wants more than a credit card invoice for their accounting.
It’s getting your taxi driver to take your card in the first place that can be an issue. I guess they’re high risk merchants and pay high rates?
The only place I've seen acceptance be a problem is San Francisco (although I've certainly heard it's a problem in other American cities). I can't speak to other cities but in San Francisco the cabbies are required to pay pretty hefty fees for credit card usage. But Uber and Lyft take a big chunk of the pie and leave no cash option so there's that.
I've been to a couple cities where credit cards were not accepted as a general rule (cabbies didn't even have the equipment). But in cities where I've used a card I've asked and generally been told they'd never do anything that ridiculous. Of course I typically have a strong preference for public transit so cab rides are the exception rather than the rule for me.
As for accounting, merchants already get a category assigned to them by their credit card processor. Generally there's enough specificity that something like a few cab rides shouldn't need much more clarification (although receipts may be required if you cross a threshold or exhibit some suspicious pattern).
Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate
#453Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, but I have to disagree. R&D is the life blood of a tech company. Some problems are hard. Hard problems take a lot of time and money to solve. If they spend $2B solving a problem that allows them to make $10B in revenue long term, I would say that is a worthwhile investment, wouldn't you? Frankly, the R&D spend is the least of their worries. They recently trimmed some fat from their marketing department[1] but…
I'm suggesting that ride sharing doesn't have to be a tech company. I just want to get across town, there's no requirement that the company that does this has to fund flying car research or have fancy offices around the globe.
I travel across Asia Pacific for work. The global nature of ride hailing apps are convenient in this context in a similar way to MacDonalds (fast, convenient and you kind of know what you’re going to get).
Try hailing a cab in Thailand, Indonesia or Malaysia. They will ask your destination and quote you 5-10x meter fare. Use a ride hailing app and you get approximately the meter fare.
Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate
#454Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate
#455Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to take Uber pools at around 4-5$ in San Francisco. Now it rarely is below 10$, which is too expensive for a service that is essentially very slow. Most of the time I go faster by walking or taking one of those electrical scooters.
Over what distance, may I ask?
I do ocean beach (richmond) to fidi (~7 miles) and vice-versa at rush hours and it's usually around $7-10. Up from $5-8 a few months ago.
Getting out of fidi at 5pm can sometimes be slow w/ pool (20+ min wait), especially if the driver gets stuck in traffic e.g. on bush leading to market because of some rando accident on 101. Taking an uber at any other time or location has mostly been fine for me (5 min wait times tops), and it's not that uncommon to have 5 min wait times even out of fidi at 5pm.
Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate
#456Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I imagine a driver-passenger matchmaking system could be craigslist level of simplicity, but Uber and Lyft want to suck up every piece of data: ingesting and analyzing where people are when they open the app, how many people give up on finding a driver, how long every driver is idling on the side of the road, whether a user is probably a cop, etc etc They use this data to update their surge pricing by the minute for…
At a minimum drivers need to be tracked in real time from the point they respond to the point passengers are picked up, and preferably tracked throughout trips due to various concerns, so it definitely can’t be Craigslist level of simplicity.
Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate
#457Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference between taxi fares and Uber/Lyft fares has all but vanished. People were willing to pay taxi rates all along, now they are doing so and getting what is arguably a much better service.
I agree with this. Even if rates went up to what cabs were (still cheaper in SF in my experience), I wouldn't switch back to cabs. I'd still user Uber/Lyft for the convenience and higher quality product.
Not many people were using cabs for regular travel before Uber and Lyft though.
Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate
#458Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with this. Even if rates went up to what cabs were (still cheaper in SF in my experience), I wouldn't switch back to cabs. I'd still user Uber/Lyft for the convenience and higher quality product.
I'm confused about people mentioning "higher quality product" and others sharing stories about riding in cars with big holes in the floor, drivers peeing in bottles, etc. Are those stories very uncommon, or does the cab market in SF etc. manage to be even less quality? Round here, a cab is at worst an 8 year old Toyota Prius, at best a new Mercedes or a Tesla, and the cab companies all have apps that let you book rid…
I still see some Crown Vics rolling around in El Paso
Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate
#459Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the past month, I and friends/family have experienced the following with Uber: - Accusations of racism - Dangerous driving - Detours/no idea where they're going - Being held hostage (took 4 very strong demands to be let out) - Given a lecture because the driver couldn't find the address and told if you don't like the service to get out. The grass isn't always greener
Sure, those problems can still exist with Uber - but drivers who cause problems are systematically weeded out over time. I've had my fair share of issues, but it makes a big difference to me that once I give a driver a bad rating/report them to Uber they will never be matched with me again, and if they consistently deliver bad experiences they will eventually be removed altogether. A taxi driver can exhibit the same…
Unless Uber keeps its drivers to account, this is unacceptable. Nobody should have to be scared of their own taxi driver.
Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate
#460Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's more the massive amount of spending they do with little to nothing to show for it. They spent $457m last year on autonomous and flying cars with $0 in revenue from those projects. Maybe that will work out, but I bet every penny was ultimately wasted. Not spending billions a year on R&D certainly makes the financials look nicer. It might not attract as nice of a multiple, but it's not the ride prices that…
R&D is the only way that they survive in the long term. Uber's entire plan is just to keep hemorrhaging money until autonomous vehicles come online. They just did not expect that to be as hard of a problem as it has turned out to be.
Yeah, that's not going to happen in large parts of the world.
Autonomous vehicles will never work in the chaos of Delhi or Jakarta's traffic