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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

#141

Post by dang »

mmazing wrote: post #120
dang wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments to HN? You've been doing it repeatedly, unfortunately, and it goes against what we're trying for here. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

I genuinely thought it would spark an interesting discussion about how certain businesses are run, that is related to this article. Can you please clarify what is wrong with that exactly? I've been a part of this site for like 10 years, and I think that any site that invites public comments is bound to have controversial topics come up. Further, I do my damn best to be respectful on this website, so your blanket char…

It's just that the comment was a generic, shallow dismissal with no actual information in it. Also arguably name-calling, since "ponzi scheme" has morphed a pretty generic pejorative.

I appreciate that you put effort into being respectful on this website! That of course counts for a lot, in fact it's the most important thing. It's just that generic/unsubstantive comments are a separate issue.

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

#142

Post by [deleted] »

jesussaves wrote: post #137
dang wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments to HN? You've been doing it repeatedly, unfortunately, and it goes against what we're trying for here. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Can you stop trying to be Big Brother? This sort of moderation is just a guy with a stick. Really lame Dan G.

[deleted]

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

#143

Post by lhorie »

Zanfa wrote: post #127
lhorie wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2B "loss" was a downswing of Didi stock, which Uber has a big stake on; AFAIK Uber didn't actually liquidate that position, so it's more of a paper money loss. See [0] As for "creative accounting", pretty much everyone in this industry segment uses EBITDA. That's the language investors and media use to talk about earnings calls for not just Uber, but also Lyft, Doordash, etc. If you want to make a case for why GA…

I'll admit, I should've checked their Q3 numbers before, regarding the write-off, but they're nowhere near profitability even if you ignore that. For example, in the table linked above, they've accounted for all revenues, but not attributed all of their expenses by segment. According to their filing their total loss from operations across all segments was $572M, however if you add up all their segments in the table,…

Yeah, that's actually a pretty good point. Personally, I don't really pay that much attention to profitability of individual verticals because I hold similar opinions on cost attribution, but then again, I'm no accounting expert, so I don't know if my opinions are actually correct.

I think the narrative people are pushing about bleeding money on every ride is too simplistic though. I could definitely get behind an argument that, for example, driver incentives ought to be bucketed under mobility, but on the other hand, attributing a Didi valuation fluctuation to a business vertical is obviously silly. Personally, I'm not convinced that there are enough "hidden" losses in misc categories that are "rightfully" attributable to mobility to offset the Q3 performance, and my understanding is that many analysts are bullish on Uber right now because they see the trend in these metrics, adjusted as the metrics may be. I guess we'll see what happens next year.

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

#144

Post by mmazing »

dang wrote: post #141
mmazing wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I genuinely thought it would spark an interesting discussion about how certain businesses are run, that is related to this article. Can you please clarify what is wrong with that exactly? I've been a part of this site for like 10 years, and I think that any site that invites public comments is bound to have controversial topics come up. Further, I do my damn best to be respectful on this website, so your blanket char…

It's just that the comment was a generic, shallow dismissal with no actual information in it. Also arguably name-calling, since "ponzi scheme" has morphed a pretty generic pejorative. I appreciate that you put effort into being respectful on this website! That of course counts for a lot, in fact it's the most important thing. It's just that generic/unsubstantive comments are a separate issue.

I get it, it's a problem that I have where I tend to rely on responses to fully flesh out my ideas.

I would love to have a bullet proof fully reasoned human readable argument, but many times it's hard to translate abstract thoughts into text.

Will try to do better, I really enjoy this site and the content/discussion in comments.

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

#145

Post by mmazing »

dang wrote: post #141
mmazing wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I genuinely thought it would spark an interesting discussion about how certain businesses are run, that is related to this article. Can you please clarify what is wrong with that exactly? I've been a part of this site for like 10 years, and I think that any site that invites public comments is bound to have controversial topics come up. Further, I do my damn best to be respectful on this website, so your blanket char…

It's just that the comment was a generic, shallow dismissal with no actual information in it. Also arguably name-calling, since "ponzi scheme" has morphed a pretty generic pejorative. I appreciate that you put effort into being respectful on this website! That of course counts for a lot, in fact it's the most important thing. It's just that generic/unsubstantive comments are a separate issue.

Also, my comment was definitely not a dismissal of the person I was replying to, it was intended to agree with them.

Clearly, that wasn't clear. Text is hard to convey tone and context. :)

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

#146

Post by bostonsre »

hervature wrote: post #89
dktoao wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they mean it is sort of a ponzi scheme for those invested. It requires more and more investor money to operate and will eventually collapse leaving the last round of investors holding the bag while those that got in early may get out fine. I think the ponzi scheme is more an apt metaphor than the actual structure of the company?

A Ponzi scheme requires an element of fraud. Very difficult to tell me that building a global fleet of ride hailing and being transparent with the financials is a Ponzi scheme. The outcome might be similar (later investors bearing most of the losses) but that's more of an investor problem and not fraud.

It seems plausible that those leading the company thought there was no chance to turn a profit but we'll never really know. They have a vested interest in saying "everything is going great and the future looks great" no matter what.

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

#147

Post by goodpoint »

gwright wrote: post #109
WitCanStain wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But all that is the natural and inevitable consequence of capitalism. It's baked into the structure of the system.

>rent-seeking, Unfortunately "capitalism" is a pretty ill-defined term. I wouldn't include "rent-seeking" as a characteristic of "capitalism" but apparently you do. This makes it very difficult to have coherent discussions. For what it is worth, I think "rent-seeking" is probably a characteristic of all economic systems and therefore isn't something peculiar to "capitalism" and so shouldn't be used as a criticism of…

> I wouldn't include "rent-seeking" as a characteristic of "capitalism"

According to what theory?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking fits squarely into capitalism.

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

#148

Post by winterplace »

moolcool wrote: post #8

This may be a hot take, but I think the gig economy is one thing which could be a pretty solid use of the blockchain. Uber/DoorDash/Lyft are all pretty simple CRUD apps at their core, and the companies themselves do very little actual work. Unfortunately, due to the Silicon Valley cult of growth, they are still either unprofitable or barely profitable while also taking a pretty massive cut away from actual workers on…

Regarding Lyft and Uber, they are not just CRUD apps in the technology.

There is a lot of technical work behind the scenes whenever there is payment involved and whenever there is real time matching between two changing positions that also needs efficient routing for the matched driver to arrive in under 5 minutes.

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

#149

Post by SkyPuncher »

agentdrtran wrote: post #80
Jasper_ wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, th…

This seems comically complex and wasteful compared to the extremely old fashioned "restaurant hires person with a bike" solution.

IMO, it's an incredibly valuable "lean" approach.

They know that the path finding algorithm isn't the important part right now. The most important thing is proving that the robots can provide the service.

These types of path finding algorithms already exist, so it's just a matter of automating and improving margins.

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

#150

Post by 3finmunchousen »

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…

I would also like to read your thesis.
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