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The Uber Bubble

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Re: The Uber Bubble

#221

Post by JohnTHaller »

bogomipz wrote: post #152

>"Uber is actually a higher cost/less efficient producer of urban car services than the taxi companies it has driven out of business; individual Uber drivers with limited capital cannot acquire, finance, maintain and insure vehicles more economically than Yellow Cab" Ironically enough Uber recently announced a partnership with yellow cabs in NYC whereby you can order taxis via the Uber app[1]. [1] https://www.nytimes…

They did. You can also order them via Curb. Yellow cabs in NYC are often much less expensive than Uber. A recent trip I took via cab cost $29 plus tip. Uber wanted $76 plus tip for the same trip. It wasn't raining and there was no major event going on I was aware of. I hailed a cab in under a minute.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#222

Post by westcort »

jmyeet wrote: post #211
westcort wrote: post #35

My key takeaways: 1. Uber is actually a higher cost/less efficient producer of urban car services than the taxi companies it has driven out of business 2. Individual Uber drivers with limited capital cannot acquire, finance, maintain and insure vehicles more economically than Yellow Cab 3. Expenses other than drivers, vehicles, and fuel account for 15 percent of traditional taxi costs but Uber charges drivers 25-30 p…

I don't disagree with your points but let me give you some counterpoints: 1. Taxi services are balkanized; 2. Many tax services don't allow you to order a taxi ahead of time. You have to flag one down (eg NYC). For ordering a car, you need to otherwise deal with an (expensive) car service; 3. Uber made the payment process seamless and I cannot overstate how important this is as a user. I hate dealing with NYC yellow…

These are valid points and good counterpoints to what the article presents.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#223

Post by joe_guy »

menzoic wrote: post #99
thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uber is effectively an instrument to shift economic gains from labour to capital by atomizing the workforce. This is the entire gig economy/sharing economy in a nutshell. The platform puts most of the financial risk on the labor side (drivers owning the cars if you're driving Uber, owning the house if you're Airbnb'ing it, etc.) and simply taking a cut of each transaction. The platform owns nothing, the workers hav…

>The platform puts most of the financial risk on the labor side (drivers owning the cars if you're driving Uber, owning the house if you're Airbnb'ing it, etc.) Actually people already owned the cars and already owned their houses. How is that a financial risk? These platforms allow people to use their existing resources to make money. That's efficiency gains. If anyone decides to acquire new vehicles or properties t…

> If anyone decides to acquire new vehicles or properties to use on these platforms it's because it's profitable

I don't know why you would make that assumption. See https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-uber-makes-its-drivers-pay-...

> Most Uber drivers seem unaware of how their job costs them when it comes to the value of their cars.

Someone needs money for groceries. A bank will lend them money for a car but not groceries. They use Uber as an inefficient means to turn said loan into cash for groceries.

There's no reason to assume that Uber drivers have priced out devaluation and/or have the long term in mind.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#224

Post by [deleted] »

gruez wrote: post #176
nonrandomstring wrote: post #169

I feel this entire thread has quite missed the point of the question the way a neutrino passes through a solid object and interacts with nothing but empty space. People have talked about microeconomics, gig economies, labour shifting, bad old days, safety, subsidies, licenses.... but we've gotten no closer to understanding; "Why Is a Company That Lost Billions Claimed to Be Successful?" To answer this one must ask "W…

>Under financialised logic it is absolutely immaterial whether Twitter, Uber or whatever make a penny. Ever. Or whether any of the stakeholders are served. The rules of traditional business go out the window. What makes you think that shareholders in Twitter or Uber don't care that they'll never make a penny? They're not turning a profit now, but it seems at least somewhat plausible that they'll make money in the fut…

[deleted]

Re: The Uber Bubble

#225

Post by jrochkind1 »

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…

> Being a taxi driver SUCKS. At least Uber is an improvement

I would be curious to hear stories of former cab drivers who chose to drive for Uber instead because they found it an improvement. I don't feel like I've heard any stories like that, but it must be a thing a lot of people have done if you are right it's an improvement, right? I feel like I've only heard stories of cab drivers complaining that Uber has destroyed their business, which is nevertheless still preferable to driving for uber.

Yes, I know some people are locked into driving a cab because of previous locked in investment etc. But some people aren't, if uber is really an improvement we should be able to find lots of people who chose to move from driving a cab to driving for uber?

Re: The Uber Bubble

#226

Post by micromacrofoot »

axg11 wrote: post #140
cameronh90 wrote: post #118

Do people actually claim Uber is a successful business? In the UK, none of the original companies that built the railroads still exist. Many of the railway companies were never particularly profitable and the railway boom was a stock market bubble. Lots of them were fraudulent or poorly run. Eventually they all either went out of business, or amalgamated and ultimately got nationalised. Nevertheless, they proved the…

An interesting perspective, but I think the key difference is that Uber has built no lasting infrastructure. I do agree that Uber has improved the taxi/private vehicle transport industry in essentially every market it entered. In London (UK) for example, taxis were previously mainly used by tourists, the rich, or the very drunk. Uber changed this completely, making it accessible for many more people. If Uber disappea…

uber let the cat out of the bag… this model might not exist forever, but maybe it’ll last long enough for someone else to capitalize on its ghost

Re: The Uber Bubble

#227

Post by nonrandomstring »

gruez wrote: post #216
upvotepartytime wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think stakeholders , not shareholders, was intentional. Stakeholders (users, advertisers, whatever) might not be well served by a lack of edit button or whatever, but that’s only very tenuously connected to company value. Shareholders care that they make their pennies of course. That seems to be (part of) the observation. (Which as you say isn’t earth shattering but still worth remembering when you start wondering…

>Shareholders care that they make their pennies of course. That seems to be (part of) the observation. I don't get it. The point of a company is to make money for its shareholders. This has been the case forever now, and certainly isn't caused by "financialised logic". I'd be interested to hear what the "rules of traditional business" (which presumably says that the point of a company isn't to make money for its shar…

> The point of a company is to make money for its shareholders

It is from this premise that your other (mis)understandings arise. Returning to the OP question now, what do we mean by "successful"?

Re: The Uber Bubble

#228

Post by MBCook »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #164
lhorie wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s like buying salt at the supermarket. It’s all the same You can say the same about Coca-cola or McDonalds though. They have a ton of competition and are most certainly not dead. I don't really buy the argument that competition is all that problematic for Uber. Worst comes to worst, taxis made money, so IMHO there's no reason to believe Uber couldn't settle at doing what taxis did in terms of profitability, at a…

thats not true, Coke and McDonalds have barriers to entry - supply chains, buildings etc. Even if you're saying the taste of the food is not unique. Uber has no products/supply chains except for their app, its just randos signing up on the internet and driving with their own car. There are three local apps competing with Uber, and fairly successfully.

I was referring to the barrier of entry for the consumer, not the producer.

I think we may be in agreement.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#229

Post by jrochkind1 »

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 several friends and aquaintances who drive for uber (and lyft, etc), who are barely scraping by, and are doing it out of desperation, not because they prefer it to other available jobs that are more "normal".

They are driving for Uber because they can't find/get/keep such a job. Of course everyone driving for uber is doing so because it's the best thing they can find, they wouldn't prefer a job that pays them even less. But the people I know doing it don't love it or prefer it to a "normal" job, they just do it cause it's available and they need to pay the rent.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#230

Post by scarface74 »

nerdponx wrote: post #181
westcort wrote: post #35

My key takeaways: 1. Uber is actually a higher cost/less efficient producer of urban car services than the taxi companies it has driven out of business 2. Individual Uber drivers with limited capital cannot acquire, finance, maintain and insure vehicles more economically than Yellow Cab 3. Expenses other than drivers, vehicles, and fuel account for 15 percent of traditional taxi costs but Uber charges drivers 25-30 p…

With this many billion dollars on the line, one can never be too cynical. One has to wonder if this has been the endgame all along: driving taxi services out of business, replacing them with a monopoly where consumers pay the same price (or higher) and where drivers are paid less. I will say that services like Uber have been very beneficial for areas that were previously underserved by traditional taxi companies. But…

I would gladly “pay” the same price or higher for Uber than for a taxi. A better service should cost more.

Then again, when I’m using Uber it’s either for business travel (someone else’s money) or vacation (not price sensitive).

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