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The Drivers Cooperative

drivers.coop

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Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#141

Post by tacostakohashi »

This website is very scant on details like their bylaws and financial statements.

What often happens with these kinds of things is that there's a co-operative or charity that is worker/member owned / tax exempt and stuff, and they have an agreement with a "management company" or license some white label product from a separate, privately owned, for-profit company.

There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, but depending on the relative size and negotiating power of the co-op vs the vendor(s), at some point the co-op ends up being a front for some for-profit entity.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#142

Post by gher-shyu3i »

foepys wrote: post #87
gher-shyu3i wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software is one of the least capital intensive industry I can think of Software runs on hardware, and it's not cheap.

Everytime I hear this, I have to laugh. Setting up a car workshop, carpenter workshop, a bakery, a hair salon etc. will set you back a few ten if not hundred thousand dollars for equipment and/or inventory alone. Meanwhile you can rent servers for low double digits dollars a month and a decent laptop costs $2,000. The only thing expensive about software development is labor cost. Hardware is ridiculously cheap compar…

We're talking about infrastructure costs to run a platform like Uber or Lyft. Do you think that's cheap?

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#143

Post by andrepd »

n4r9 wrote: post #136
agloeregrets wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I never got how Uber was still unprofitable for so long. Sure you have a bunch of Silicon Valley salaries to pay but realistically speaking, one could build an Uber/Lyft for under $1M and basically can operate with two or so devs fixing issues. Yet, they are blowing hundreds of millions of dollars yearly all over the place while shorting drivers who can’t make a living wage and are basically trading vehicle exp…

I subscribe to an email newsletter called BIG by Matt Stoller. It's all about US monopolies and he's very interested in exactly what you describe. His response is that both ride-hailing and delivery apps are taking a gamble on establishing a monopoly in several years time, at which point the profits will pay off the current losses.

This is evident. We're at such a crazy level of capitalism/neoliberalism that it's a regular occurrence to see large businesses operating at a loss for 5 or 10 years.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#144

Post by gher-shyu3i »

Draiken wrote: post #137
gher-shyu3i wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software is one of the least capital intensive industry I can think of Software runs on hardware, and it's not cheap.

Compared to what? Cheap is not an absolute term. I agree with another comment here, it's absurdly cheap compared to almost anything else.

If the goal is to run infrastructure like Uber or Lyft (or any other big company), it's going to be in the tens or even hundreds of thousands USD per month at least.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#145

Post by nabla9 »

drrotmos wrote: post #130
nabla9 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

App provides value, global brand has some value. There is absolutely no reason for ride hailing app to get 10-20% markup per ride. I suspect that after the competition really kicks in, Uber/Lyft must settle for 1-3% per ride or less.

Global brand definitely provides value. Whenever I'm traveling (or rather, back when travel was possible) I always use Uber because I know that I can pay buy credit card (rather than cash) and if the driver takes a huge detour or some other common taxi scam, I can just contact Uber's customer service, and they'll refund me.

That's true, but most rides are local by wide margin. And 10-20% per ride is too much. Maybe $20 per month/car or so.

It's only question of time until the margins from riding app start to go down. Someone builds competing app with similar bells and whistles and sells it to locals as a service without branding for example.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#146

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

m_ke wrote: post #128
beaconstudios wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers are well paid in the US because of VC and monopoly backed business models. To go coop is to abandon those options, one explicitly and one implicitly.

What I meant by well paid was that most engineers who spent a few years at FAANGs have 6 figures in savings and can use some of that capital to kickstart a cooperative without needing venture funding. A coop could absolutely become a monopoly in a market. The reason developers in the US make so much is because they live in a large wealthy English speaking country that’s the launching point for most ventures before gl…

Yeah, a lot of the constraints around software services are a function of market size and legal changes. It's intensely profitable to have a large market with the same regulation, and one would imagine that software professionals would be paid a lot in such a place.

And interestingly enough, in both China and the US, software professionals make a lot of money.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#147

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

gher-shyu3i wrote: post #142
foepys wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everytime I hear this, I have to laugh. Setting up a car workshop, carpenter workshop, a bakery, a hair salon etc. will set you back a few ten if not hundred thousand dollars for equipment and/or inventory alone. Meanwhile you can rent servers for low double digits dollars a month and a decent laptop costs $2,000. The only thing expensive about software development is labor cost. Hardware is ridiculously cheap compar…

We're talking about infrastructure costs to run a platform like Uber or Lyft. Do you think that's cheap?

It's a hell of a lot cheaper than serving the same number of customers with physical products.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#148

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

cwyers wrote: post #38
christiansakai wrote: post #4

Wow, I wonder how do they manage to cover the expenses of running a tech startup? We know that software business is capital and intellectual property heavy. How do these people do it?

It seems like this only works in New York, which is probably a much smaller scale than Uber has to serve.

Which is fine, they could probably franchise the tech out to other cities.

In fact, this is how Hailo (an Uber like service headquartered in the UK) used to work, until they were driven out of business by VC backed competitors.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#149

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

Ekaros wrote: post #21
christiansakai wrote: post #4

Wow, I wonder how do they manage to cover the expenses of running a tech startup? We know that software business is capital and intellectual property heavy. How do these people do it?

Taxi apps really aren't very complex and expensive pieces of work. The unicorn start-up scaling up model is just what makes them so. There are already plenty of examples of pretty okay taxi-apps. And the industry itself is much more capital-to-revenue intensive and tech...

I would argue that it's Uber's marketing costs that make their business much less profitable than it could be.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#150

Post by killbot5000 »

agloeregrets wrote: post #123
nabla9 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

App provides value, global brand has some value. There is absolutely no reason for ride hailing app to get 10-20% markup per ride. I suspect that after the competition really kicks in, Uber/Lyft must settle for 1-3% per ride or less.

This. I never got how Uber was still unprofitable for so long. Sure you have a bunch of Silicon Valley salaries to pay but realistically speaking, one could build an Uber/Lyft for under $1M and basically can operate with two or so devs fixing issues. Yet, they are blowing hundreds of millions of dollars yearly all over the place while shorting drivers who can’t make a living wage and are basically trading vehicle exp…

The Uber business model is:

Undercut competition. Use borrowed money to sell rides under cost. Wait for all competitors to die. Jack up prices.

AFAIK they’re still living on borrowed money.

It reminds me of the airline deregulation of the 90s. New airlines would use borrowed money to sell seats at below cost to attract customers, driving established carriers out of business.

The funny thing is that this smells a lot like “the tragedy of the commons”. Everyone wants to use this amazing infrastructure for flying, but no one wants to pay for it. New firms undermine the stability of the system by charging less than cost in order to starve established competitors whose business model is focused on being profitable.

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