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Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all

economist.com

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Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all

#51

Post by nixpulvis »

roystonvassey wrote: post #38

If there was any time to be skeptical of Uber's longevity, it is now (at least for me). My experience is anecdotal but I visit my home country every year for a few months and I can clearly notice the declining quality of Uber's services: 1. Vehicles, on average, take at least 10-15 mins longer to get 2. Even if you find a vehicle, 60% of these rides are canceled (either by the driver because they call me and find out…

Not to be overly cynical, but I've noticed the same degraded quality and service across the board. I wouldn't think this is unique to Uber.

We've simply built systems we cannot maintain as well anymore, under new resource constraints.

Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all

#52

Post by lostcolony »

bdcravens wrote: post #32
coldcode wrote: post #23

All of these companies may have a functional business and can stick around, but they are not worth the valuation present in their stock. Even Tesla is not worth anywhere near $1T. In the end you have to eventually earn enough to support the price (once all the Fed support goes away from the market) but none of these companies will ever make enough revenue or profit. For now unreality keeps the market high.

Tesla is profitable. The profit is propped up a bit by subsidies, but it seems strange to include the company in a discussion about service providers that are battling in a war of attrition.

Tesla is profitable; so are some small mom and pop stores. The valuation isn't a boolean "isProfitable ? trillion dollars : worthless".

Compare Tesla's revenues against other trillion dollar companies and it clearly seems overvalued. Here's Bloomberg's analysis - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-26/tesla-is-...

Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all

#53

Post by Jasper_ »

fumar wrote: post #41
xyzzy21 wrote: post #30

Ultimately you can NOT "magically" negate "Last Mile Costs" in cities and towns where the Last Mile path distance is enormous. Did my MBA thesis on this subject with the benefit of 20 years of engineering experience. The numbers simply do not work unless you change how cities and residences are built, which would cost far more than you'd ever gain from solving Last Mile costs - the breakeven time is of the order of 1…

What do you think about last mile delivery robots? https://www.kiwibot.com These little bots don't require the same level of human physical presence as Uber or DoorDash.

They faked the bots. They require human physical presence, and a remote controller.

> The Kiwibots do not figure out their own routes. Instead, people in Colombia, the home country of Chavez and his two co-founders, plot “waypoints” for the bots to follow, sending them instructions every five to 10 seconds on where to go.

> On the ground in Berkeley, people also do a lot of robot support. Traveling at 1 to 1½ mph, the bots would take too long to chug to local restaurants, so Kiwi workers pick up the food at restaurants and take it via bikes or scooters to meeting spots around campus to insert into an insulated bag in the bots’ storage compartment.

> The average distance a robot covers for a delivery is about 200 meters (656 feet, or one-eighth of a mile) which makes them fall short of a “last-mile” solution.

From https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Kiwibots-win-fa...

Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all

#54

Post by amelius »

nabla9 wrote: post #26

summary: Platform economy can create huge profits if you can lock in the markets. Create moat that keeps competition away. Uber, DoorDash have none of that. Uber's global brand recognition can help with tourists and business travelers who just want familiar, but they are small fraction of the market Uber needs to lock in to justify their market cap. Uber is not like Amazon with returns to scale.

Uber built their castle in Apple's and Google's kingdom.

E.g. nothing is stopping Google from offering a competing service, right from within Google Maps, or Android.

Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all

#55

Post by airstrike »

xyzzy21 wrote: post #30

Ultimately you can NOT "magically" negate "Last Mile Costs" in cities and towns where the Last Mile path distance is enormous. Did my MBA thesis on this subject with the benefit of 20 years of engineering experience. The numbers simply do not work unless you change how cities and residences are built, which would cost far more than you'd ever gain from solving Last Mile costs - the breakeven time is of the order of 1…

As a fellow MBA, would also love to read your thesis.

Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all

#56

Post by kn100 »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #13

If you are dumping to own the market as a monopoly, and so is your competitor, and both of you are buoyed up by seemingly limitless investor finance, then all that happens is that investors' money moves into the customers' pockets.

I have been thinking about this every now and then - I, and many others, hold no loyalty to any particular ride sharing or food delivery app, and the cost to switch to the one that is offering deep discounts is almost zero. I know people who are constantly exploiting these sign up offers across many businesses that are pulling the same sort of ridiculous discounting that Uber pulled - and therefore are effectively living off investor cash.

I've always wondered what the extreme end of this could look like. It seems like here in London companies in this same area are popping up almost weekly in areas like grocery delivery, food delivery, ride-sharing, etc, and they almost all have absolutely crazy initial sign up discounts. I suspect there is an entire class of people that are effectively taking advantage of this and I wonder how much they manage to save.

Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all

#57

Post by rvense »

moolcool wrote: post #22
alphabettsy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The companies exist because there’s a value in a middle-man handling things like vetting drivers, tax and regulatory compliance, and handling disputes like “my food is partially eaten”. You could use the blockchain in some ways, but I don’t see how the companies themselves could be easily replaced.

It would serve as a neutral platform on which clients could be built though. Like instead of a restaurant listing on the existing apps, they'd list their menus on the blockchain and third party clients could exist and race-for-the-bottom in terms of fees. It's like the difference between Twitter and Email

> they'd list their menus on the blockchain

Why does that need a blockchain? Wouldn't that just be an API?

Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all

#58

Post by compiler-guy »

batshit_beaver wrote: post #28
mstipetic wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And previous well functioning economies get destroyed in the process

If pervious economies were so well functioning, why couldn't I easily order pretty much any food from any restaurant within a 50 mile radius with a click of a button before Uber and DoorDash came along?

Because those economies functioned in a relatively closed system of finance, and the actual cost of delivery was covered within that system. The actual cost of delivery is reflected in the price of getting the delivery. Or, if no delivery was easily available, it was because the cost of keeping such a system up, running, and easily available was higher than could be managed profitably.

Doordash works today because venture capitalists are throwing millions of dollars at it, and dramatically subsidizing the cost of the delivery.

In other words, you can do that today because someone else is willing to pay. The VC's money won't last forever though. The question is if the economies of scale it creates will be enough to reduce the cost of delivery such that it is a sustainable business.

Most available data says "Probably not."

Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all

#59

Post by Marazan »

batshit_beaver wrote: post #28
mstipetic wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And previous well functioning economies get destroyed in the process

If pervious economies were so well functioning, why couldn't I easily order pretty much any food from any restaurant within a 50 mile radius with a click of a button before Uber and DoorDash came along?

Concierge services have always existed.

You weren't willing to pay the unsubsidised price.

Re: Uber, DoorDash and similar firms can’t defy the laws of capitalism after all

#60

Post by bogota »

bostonsre wrote: post #49
roystonvassey wrote: post #38

If there was any time to be skeptical of Uber's longevity, it is now (at least for me). My experience is anecdotal but I visit my home country every year for a few months and I can clearly notice the declining quality of Uber's services: 1. Vehicles, on average, take at least 10-15 mins longer to get 2. Even if you find a vehicle, 60% of these rides are canceled (either by the driver because they call me and find out…

Do they still lose money on every ride they give? I've been skeptical for a while now, it's a ponzi scheme.

Please explain what you think a ponzi scheme is. Because losing money on something isn’t close to the definition
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