Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Uber Bubble

braveneweurope.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 556 posts

Re: The Uber Bubble

#81

Post by 1over137 »

rzz3 wrote: post #43
Barrin92 wrote: post #22

The piece is exactly right. Uber is effectively an instrument to shift economic gains from labour to capital by atomizing the workforce. From a macroeconomic perspective this is terrible because turning taxi firms into countless of one man businesses provides no efficiency gains, it's basically reverse economic development. There is a version of Uber that actually makes sense. As a lean SaaS company that sells its so…

Despite all of the negatives, many of which I agree with, the legacy taxi industry really sucked for riders. Riding in a taxi feels dirty to me, to be honest. Old, ugly cars that never seem well maintained, having to actually call someone on a phone and tell them where to pick you up, often not accepting Apple Pay, Android Pay, credit cards. Rude drivers with no rating system to disincentivize it… It’s sad that Uber…

>having to actually call someone on a phone

The horror!

Re: The Uber Bubble

#82

Post by JumpCrisscross »

sbarre wrote: post #63
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but "private citizens operating unregulated hotels/taxis" seemed impossible/illegal just a decade ago Every city has had gypsy cabs and Craigslist hotels since forever.

Sure but that's not what I'm talking about and you know it. I mean large well-known and easily accessible versions of those.

> that's not what I'm talking about and you know it. I mean large well-known and easily accessible versions of those

Not particularly.

They existed at a small scale. Always. Smartphones let them knit together. That scale produced efficiencies. Authorities tried to clamp down but consumers loved them and policy adapted. The path from point A to point B looks linear and altogether unsurprising, albeit ex post facto.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#83

Post by menzoic »

Barrin92 wrote: post #22

The piece is exactly right. Uber is effectively an instrument to shift economic gains from labour to capital by atomizing the workforce. From a macroeconomic perspective this is terrible because turning taxi firms into countless of one man businesses provides no efficiency gains, it's basically reverse economic development. There is a version of Uber that actually makes sense. As a lean SaaS company that sells its so…

There's massive efficiency gains. The countless one man businesses have no overhead side from owning a car they already have. They don't need to do anything else besides install and run an app. No need for marketing, managing payment systems, customer acquisition...etc Millions of drivers globally have the business side of things taken care of by a single company. Fragmentation across tens of thousands of taxi companies is inefficient.

In the US many neighborhoods and entire cities didn't have access to reliable taxis or any taxi at all. There's significantly more coverage with Uber and ride sharing in general. The same is probably true of other countries.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#84

Post by vt240 »

emteycz wrote: post #39
avs733 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be curious to see independent citations of these claims.

Talk with the driver few times? I never had a Uber driver who said they would rather have a normal job. 500+ rides.

I have a good friend, ex-Navy submariner, and highly competent industrial technician. He's been driving for Doordash since 2019 now, because he just can't ever make it work with any kind of management in a typical corporate or small-business environment. I'm sure he'd be much more productive as a consultant, in his field of expertise if there were an app for that, but for him, the gig-econonmy, accepting all its down sides, is the preferable way to earn money. I've found it really interesting, that he would accept 2-4x pay reduction, just to be relieved of certain areas of responsibility and accountability.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#85

Post by PaulHoule »

rzz3 wrote: post #43
Barrin92 wrote: post #22

The piece is exactly right. Uber is effectively an instrument to shift economic gains from labour to capital by atomizing the workforce. From a macroeconomic perspective this is terrible because turning taxi firms into countless of one man businesses provides no efficiency gains, it's basically reverse economic development. There is a version of Uber that actually makes sense. As a lean SaaS company that sells its so…

Despite all of the negatives, many of which I agree with, the legacy taxi industry really sucked for riders. Riding in a taxi feels dirty to me, to be honest. Old, ugly cars that never seem well maintained, having to actually call someone on a phone and tell them where to pick you up, often not accepting Apple Pay, Android Pay, credit cards. Rude drivers with no rating system to disincentivize it… It’s sad that Uber…

At risk of sounding like Margaret Thatcher I'd say that the Taxi industry was politically organized to get a good deal for itself but that the riders were not organized and had no voice.

Uber bypassed that and certainly got lower prices and better service for riders; however the old business was sustainable and the new one isn't.

Between growing up in the suburbs in a family that thought it was poor, living on a farm where a car is necessary, and having a public transport habit it's been rare for me to ride an Taxi or Uber. (in Montreal I would ride the 747 bus to/from the Trudeau airport unless it was crazy late or early, I'd take the express bus from LAX to downtown LA and then the subway to Hollywood, etc.) Often I haven't had a cell phone so I usually wind up flagging a taxi or ordering a taxi on the web or over Skype and I don't complain about the service or price.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#86

Post by wefarrell »

darth_avocado wrote: post #71
rzz3 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite all of the negatives, many of which I agree with, the legacy taxi industry really sucked for riders. Riding in a taxi feels dirty to me, to be honest. Old, ugly cars that never seem well maintained, having to actually call someone on a phone and tell them where to pick you up, often not accepting Apple Pay, Android Pay, credit cards. Rude drivers with no rating system to disincentivize it… It’s sad that Uber…

Legacy taxis were and still are a more expensive and inefficient business. Outside of airports and maybe cities like New York, hailing a taxi was a terrible experience. The scale of Uber despite their shitty business model, allows them to have a lot more drivers constantly on the road than traditional companies. This allows for an quicker availability of a cab at a moment’s notice. Anyone remember leaving a party bef…

Even in NYC hailing a taxi was a terrible experience if you were a minority or were traveling outside of Manhattan or North of 125th.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#87

Post by thematrixturtle »

novok wrote: post #72
thematrixturtle wrote: post #9

The real magic of Uber is that it allows drivers to convert the depreciation of their car into cash at a time and schedule of their own choosing. For the reasons discussed in the story, this may still technically be a net negative in the long term compared to driving a regular cab fulltime, but a) drivers find it far preferable to/cheaper than alternatives like payday loans, and b) many Uber drivers have multiple job…

Have you driven a cab before? Do you know for north america at least, the standard model is drivers are independent contractors and rent out the cars or the medallion license from medallion owners? Many medallion owners are not drivers themselves. Taxi companies are generally a collection of licenses, car rental, some branding and advertising and dispatch services. The angry taxi people you see protesting Uber or equ…

Yes, I think we're actually on the same side of the argument here. TL;DR of what I was trying to say is that Uber may be exploiting drivers, but it's still meaningfully better for them than the alternatives.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#88

Post by anyfoo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #57
anyfoo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They really, really don't suck in Germany. Taxis there are mostly clean, comfortable Mercedes (E-Class usually, Mercedes has a long history and special contracts for that), and Taxi drivers are massively trained. Up until recently, part of the extensive examination was being quizzed about how to get to obscure streets (and remember that Germany does not have a grid system like in the US). That has been abolished, bec…

> Uber has nothing on that Travel extensively in Germany. I can hail Uber from an app that works in Frankfurt, Paris and New York. Uber is often cheaper. And it is far more ubiquitous, particularly outside the major metropolitan areas. I still take taxis e.g. from the airport, but pretending there is convenience parity in all situations is false. (Agree that Frankfurt and London cabbies are good.)

> I can hail Uber from an app that works in Frankfurt, Paris and New York.

That matters to travelers (and skewed towards business travelers, too), i.e. people who visit only for a short time, but not much to anyone else.

> And it is far more ubiquitous, particularly outside the major metropolitan areas.

Not my experience. I can be far outside the city and call (through the App nowadays) a taxi and I know it's going to be there and reliable. Uber was hit and miss, tends to cancel suddenly etc... I don't think I've ever had a german taxi cancel on me, in decades. If something happened to impede my assigned Taxi, the driver would contact the central and they'd dispatch another one.

Uber does not have a proper "central". They only have an app and dispatch servers, no humans to sort things out to guarantee service.

> Uber is often cheaper.

And you get what you pay for... A german taxi gives you trained people and dedicated, specially maintained cars.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#89

Post by yywwbbn »

belter wrote: post #31
lurquer wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words don’t redefine themselves. Describing low-paying jobs as “slavery” is a metaphor. Saying “certain aspects of X are like Y” does not mean Y ‘is’ X. But, of course, that is often why rhetoricians use metaphors and similes… to dupe and confuse people into a false equivalence. There are slaves in this world… diluting the meaning of the word to include Uber drivers does not help them.

That is not the argument. The argument is that Uber business model is more cost-effective than Slavery. (And without trying to sound insensitive here)...the "slave owner" still bears the costs of his "slaves".

But it’s still not profitable, unlike slavery which was extremely profitable. So how can it be more effective?

Re: The Uber Bubble

#90

Post by danamit »

All the complains in this thread seem like they can be solved by Uber easily, mainly by allowing drivers to set their price by themselves.

Taxies in my country are so bad, it feels like you are asking them for a favor by using their service, not to mention they pick and choose if they wanna take you or no based on how profitable for them it is.

Post reply on HN