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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

#501

Post by areyousure »

orbifold wrote: post #485
dcchambers wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me it was never about the cost. It was about the ability to easily/instantly schedule a ride without having to call a phone number and wait for a ride which was notoriously unreliable, and not having to deal with cash or the classic line "my credit card machine doesn't work." Virtually all of the cab companies still around now have mobile apps and many of them have all the features…

It‘s super easy to call a cab in Germany and they arrive within 5-10 minutes. A lot of them are nice Mercedes. I really don’t see how doing a call that takes ~30 seconds and paying by cash that you carry around anyways (~100€ in cash on hand is super normal in Germany) is any worse than booking a ride through Über.

Maybe you don't speak German?

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

#502

Post by kart23 »

burkaman wrote: post #493
kart23 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 compan…

I agree that it makes things easier for people who use it. I used it a lot in college because my school basically told us that if we walked more than 3 blocks outside campus we would get shot. My point is that it's a marginal improvement, and there are so many downsides. In my city, 8% of cars on the road are Ubers and Lyfts, and half of them are just drivers cruising around looking for passengers. [1] That's terribl…

I agree. You bring up some great points.

It's kind of ironic, at my school we have a great (all electric!) bus system transporting people around campus, and half the time when the bus pulls up to the cutlet, there's an uber there either waiting or dropping off a passenger. Which then slows down the bus while it honks at the clueless driver who doesn't even know there's a bus stop there.

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

#503

Post by clairity »

xster wrote: post #420
clairity wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

first, while long-haul interstate driving is probably the easiest type of driving to automate, it's pretty audacious to assume that automated trucks will take over the industry any time soon. there are still many social, political and legal issues to wade through, never mind the economic and technical. but to follow your line of reasoning, what you do is walk up to him and say, "hey, in the next 10 years, your job is…

Ah, I see where you're coming from. I mean retraining just seems to make sense and we all want it to work, but pragmatically, they just don't https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/01/the-fa... . Our mental plasticity just has age related limits. I'd also debate the conclusion you're making on which approach is more patronizing. I'd assume giving you (and everyone) the means to make your own choices with…

the point wasn't that retraining is "the answer" (or appointing of jobs) but that owners/managers/leaders should talk to the people involved to find solutions. it's otherwise patronizing and arrogant to bestow solutions from on high.

also, on people's intrinsic motivations: people don't want money in and of itself. people want esteem (e.g., status) and influence (e.g., power). jobs and careers provide those things; handouts do not.

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

#504

Post by xyzzyz »

CydeWeys wrote: post #496
Pyxl101 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is that vehicles in general cause negative externalities that the people driving them don't pay for, namely: Traffic congestion, localized pollution, and global pollution (CO2). FHVs are definitely susceptible to this phenomenon. Here in NYC we're having to implement a congestion tax in Manhattan to reduce the number of vehicles on the roads. Admittedly, it is probably better to charge all vehicles for en…

What does this have to do with taxis vs Uber? Did you mean to post this comment in some other thread?

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

#505

Post by ttul »

refurb wrote: post #239
ttul wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a distance of 32km. Assuming a fully loaded $0.50 per km cost to operate a private vehicle, the cost should be $16.00 each way assuming that you are the driver. By charging $4.00 more than the cost, you’re freeing yourself up to do other things during that time. Is your time really not worth $4.00?

Fully loaded cost is assumed to be $0.55 (or something close) by the IRS. That's $0.33 per km or $10.56 for his trip, saving $10 (or $20 return) each day.

LoL it’s $0.50 in Canada, but I forgot to do the currency conversion. Touché.

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

#506

Post by CydeWeys »

xyzzyz wrote: post #504
CydeWeys wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that vehicles in general cause negative externalities that the people driving them don't pay for, namely: Traffic congestion, localized pollution, and global pollution (CO2). FHVs are definitely susceptible to this phenomenon. Here in NYC we're having to implement a congestion tax in Manhattan to reduce the number of vehicles on the roads. Admittedly, it is probably better to charge all vehicles for en…

What does this have to do with taxis vs Uber? Did you mean to post this comment in some other thread?

The point is that you can't just let the market sort it out because the market doesn't care about negative externalities. There are legitimate reasons to artificially constrain the supply, i.e. implement a medallion system. This comment thread which you've wandered into is about the taxi medallion system.

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

#507

Post by chris123 »

malandrew wrote: post #500
piva00 wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really relevant as Uber's main market and revenue center is definitely not Brazil...

The important thing is what impact that recession has on the business model. Is the business model counter-cyclical or at least recession resistant? Not all business models perform the same in a recession.

During a recession: On the demand side, people cut back on spending (on Ubers, for example). On the supply side, some laid-off workers will turn to the gig economy.

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

#508

Post by chris123 »

hboon wrote: post #467
goatinaboat wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if autonomous vehicles are ever a thing, where does Uber actually add value? Wouldn’t Tesla etc just “cut out the middleman” and capture that value themselves? Also Uber as a company has zero experience of owning and maintaining a fleet of vehicles. They’ve entirely sidestepped that problem. What evidence is there they can do it better than anyone who does do it, like say Hertz?

Autonomous vehicles replace the drivers, not Uber. The vehicles get told to go from point A to point B and does safely and effectively. Uber still plays the role of interacting with the customers, "booking" a car for them, collecting payments, etc.

DACs need to disrupt Uber and all the other P2P marketplaces. Eventually they will, IMHO (maybe starting with P2P rides?).

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

#510

Post by mpweiher »

davinic wrote: post #240
mpweiher wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really the case in the US? At least in Germany, my standard way of getting a cab (wherever I want) was calling one of the dispatch centres. Taxi-hailing apps made this slightly more convenient, and displaying the cab's route to you removed some stress, but it didn't fundamentally alter the service. And Uber really doesn't add any value except for undercutting prices by subsidising the rides via investors and…

In my area of the US, calling dispatch would get you a ride only when things are not busy whatsoever. Once there is any level of demand, the service will send the call to the fleet but no one is required to fulfill it.

Wow! That makes Taxis largely useless, IMHO.

I think about 99.9% of my taxi use has been call-ahead, often a day before ("I need a cab to the airport at 9am tomorrow").

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