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How Uber Got Lost

nytimes.com

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Re: How Uber Got Lost

#21

Post by adjkant »

YeahSureWhyNot wrote: post #14

uber is making money from almost all of the rides and they keep around 35% to themselves. uber has 22000 people (not including drivers) working for it while facebook has 37000. all of Facebook's apps and underlying tech have been tremendously evolving and developing for years which can't be said about uber's app or their tech in general. uber will become profitable when they shed at least half of their employees at w…

> uber is making money from almost all of the rides and they keep around 35% to themselves

Is this documented anywhere?

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#22

Post by dhnsmakala »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #15

I think NYT misses the point. The problem with Uber isn't some cultural issue, it's that they're in an extremely tough and competitive business. It's really a race to the bottom. The logic I kept hearing repeated is ride-sharing is a winner take all market. Like once you have a network of drivers setup giving people the lowest times for rides, you can force other competitors out and raise prices. Time has proven how…

This makes a lot of sense. A large business doesn't rely on the average employee. The employee relies on the business for food, shelter, healthcare...everything.

It's just an inherently large imbalance, and the only way it doesn't exist is if there is a shortage of employees in the sector and the ROI per employee is high. This is a pretty small percentage of jobs.

Unions are one way to try to curb exploitation, but I don't know how effective they are in practice. If retail workers tried to unionize what is to prevent the millions of people who are equally qualified from replacing the entire union?

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#24

Post by _hardwaregeek »

seibelj wrote: post #17
_hardwaregeek wrote: post #9

I feel deeply uncomfortable taking Ubers, especially in Seattle. The drivers are inevitably working class folk, just trying to scrape by. They inevitably mention the increasing rent and cost of living. They inevitably ask what I do and I have to respond that I'm one of the asshole carpetbagging tech people who come in and raise the cost of living, raise the rent. Services like Uber are placing the class barrier front…

Do you do the same complex class calculation every time you interact with a cashier, talk to a receptionist, or pass a janitor? People do honest work and earn a living, no shame in that. Your life must be exhausting if you have a class-based panic attack when you hop in an Uber!

Uber feels different for some reason. Maybe it's the lack of transparency with salary. With a regular job, you get paid x dollars an hour. That's it. You may get paid minimum wage, but at least you know it's minimum wage. With Uber, a lot of people come in with expectations of a high salary (falsely perpetuated by Uber), then end up making a whole lot less. Sometimes less than minimum wage.

Maybe it's the semi-predatory loans program. These drivers take out loans for cars, thinking they're gonna get paid a good salary, but then they make minimum wage and get locked into payments.

I can't shake the feeling that Uber is conning its drivers. And that we're culpable.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#25

Post by _hardwaregeek »

epistasis wrote: post #16
_hardwaregeek wrote: post #9

I feel deeply uncomfortable taking Ubers, especially in Seattle. The drivers are inevitably working class folk, just trying to scrape by. They inevitably mention the increasing rent and cost of living. They inevitably ask what I do and I have to respond that I'm one of the asshole carpetbagging tech people who come in and raise the cost of living, raise the rent. Services like Uber are placing the class barrier front…

You didn't do that. It's not tech that's increasing housing prices in Seattle, it's the people that have houses and don't want to have to share their city that are causing rising prices. The US is a nation of immigrants and migrants, and the cities that have decided "no we are full and only care about current residents" are the ones who have created this situation, not you. Do you have a paid off house, own land and…

That's a good point that Uber raise awareness of class difference. But I'm not sure the best vehicle (heh) is having a member of the proletariat drive you around.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#26

Post by _hardwaregeek »

kazinator wrote: post #10
_hardwaregeek wrote: post #9

I feel deeply uncomfortable taking Ubers, especially in Seattle. The drivers are inevitably working class folk, just trying to scrape by. They inevitably mention the increasing rent and cost of living. They inevitably ask what I do and I have to respond that I'm one of the asshole carpetbagging tech people who come in and raise the cost of living, raise the rent. Services like Uber are placing the class barrier front…

> I have to respond that ... Says who?

Well, politeness dictates. I suppose I could lie. Or just refuse to answer.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#27

Post by linkregister »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #15

I think NYT misses the point. The problem with Uber isn't some cultural issue, it's that they're in an extremely tough and competitive business. It's really a race to the bottom. The logic I kept hearing repeated is ride-sharing is a winner take all market. Like once you have a network of drivers setup giving people the lowest times for rides, you can force other competitors out and raise prices. Time has proven how…

This isn't necessarily "The NYT." It's an excerpt from the book that Mike Isaac (https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac) wrote about Uber for the past 3 years.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#28

Post by troquerre »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #18
todd3834 wrote: post #5

I feel like Uber became a gamble on self driving technology. It will be interesting to see if they can last long enough to see it happen. I could see them running out of money before that happens but I kind of hope they make it.

Uber really has no advantage to self-driving. A customer network doesn't mean much if you cannot finance actually building the cars. They also don't any training data to give them a tech advantage. It'd make way more sense for an existing car company to build the features into the car and let the owner rent out the car when they don't need it. (Telsa, GM/Cruise). Another option is to simply build the best technology…

Uber has an advantage bc the transition to fully autonomous self-driving will take years to decades to realize, not only on a technological level but on a political level. In the meantime we’ll introduce self-driving more and more with humans-in-the-look, and uber is in a great position to take advantage of that.
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