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The Uber Bubble

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Re: The Uber Bubble

#281

Post by the_af »

RicoElectrico wrote: post #102
1over137 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>having to actually call someone on a phone The horror!

You'd think it's a joke but it's like a 2nd or 3rd time that my brother ordered a pizza by phone and got a wrong one. Sure the girl who takes order is absent-minded or hard of hearing. And similarly sounding pizza names don't help. We like their pizzas and try to cut out the middle-man, but our colleagues who order from there suggested we just use Pyszne.pl (i.e. Takeaway.com). Also, many times we tried to order food…

That's valid but also hear this out: the local app in my country, called Rappi, gets things wrong so often I wonder how they do it. I mean, it's written, yet restaurants often send you whatever. And let's not talk about the times the delivery person is completely clueless about my location, and you can just see them circling cluelessly on the map while you desperately send them messages trying to orient them.

My point is: mishaps happen whether by phone or app.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#282

Post by gruez »

lcw wrote: post #241
gruez wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Who are "they"? Be specific. The company. >The shareholders can make a pretty penny while the companies never do. Because they're shareholders, not workers, or customers, or execs, or owners. What are you arguing for here? In the first comment the problem seems to be that the company isn't profitable, but in this comment you the problem seems to be the fact that shareholders are making money but the "workers, or cus…

The way you phrased your opposition made it sound like you think that shareholders care if a company has positive net income. However, the whole point of this discussion is that shareholders have no vested interest in the financials of the company in cases like Uber. There is really no correlation in these companies being more profitable and shareholder wealth. Generally the only money that goes to shareholders from…

>The way you phrased your opposition made it sound like you think that shareholders care if a company has positive net income.

Technically that's true, in the sense that at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is what their shares are worth, not how well the company is doing. However, the value that someone else is willing to pay for the shares can be expected to be based on how well the company is expected to do. There are exceptions to this, of course (eg. GME), but for uber it's at least somewhat plausible that their valuations can be justified by the expectation of future earnings. You don't have to agree with this, but a risky investment isn't evidence for "system in which the success or failure of a company is of no relevance to its "value"".

>However, the whole point of this discussion is that shareholders have no vested interest in the financials of the company in cases like Uber. There is really no correlation in these companies being more profitable and shareholder wealth. Generally the only money that goes to shareholders from a companies financial performance is dividends anyways, which obviously Uber would never do yet it made people rich.

The companies are being valued for their future profits.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#283

Post by the_af »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #242
Sebguer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Gypsy is a slur 2) Both of those things were / are illegal and operated relatively underground, which is exactly the point of the person you're responding to.

>Gypsy is a slur Wow. Someone should probably let the creators of "Big Fat Gypsy Weddings" know this! And all the people that participated in the show. And all of the Travellers that watched it.

Well, it's true the meaning of the word has evolved into a slur. At least some of the people who used to be called gypsies in English don't want to be called that.

As for shows, didn't Netflix's "Gypsy" take flak for the name?

Re: The Uber Bubble

#284

Post by rsanek »

scarface74 wrote: post #234
rsanek wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're not turning a profit now Uber turned a profit in 2021Q2. [0] Twitter now has had many profitable quarters. [1] Of course, cumulatively, they are both money-losing, but I think the perception of these businesses as only having a 'plausibility' of making money is perhaps dated. [0] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/UBER/uber-technolo... [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TWTR/twitter/net-i.…

Your citation says they lost money.

You may be looking at "trailing 12 months" -- take a look at the quarterly charts, which do indeed report profits.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#285

Post by rsanek »

femto113 wrote: post #260
rsanek wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're not turning a profit now Uber turned a profit in 2021Q2. [0] Twitter now has had many profitable quarters. [1] Of course, cumulatively, they are both money-losing, but I think the perception of these businesses as only having a 'plausibility' of making money is perhaps dated. [0] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/UBER/uber-technolo... [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TWTR/twitter/net-i.…

"Turning a profit" has almost no meaning, particularly with mark-to-market investments in the mix. More concretely Uber's business has never generated positive cash flow (i.e. taken in more money in a given period than they spent in that same period) and are projecting they will reach that milestone for the first time in Q4 of this year.

When talking about investments, "profit" is generally a synonym for "net income." Of course, many people may disagree on which specific income measure should really be used to represent the general concept of profit, but there are pretty good arguments for net income being that value. Investopedia [0] has an article that discusses the difference; Motley Fool [1] argues it's the same.

If we want to say that positive cash flow is a better measure here, you can argue that, but that wasn't the claim made in the comment I replied to.

[0] https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/122414/net-income-s...

[1] https://www.fool.com/the-blueprint/net-income-vs-net-profit/

Re: The Uber Bubble

#286

Post by Firmwarrior »

criddell wrote: post #29
jsemrau wrote: post #8

By the measure of growth and market penetration, Uber has been successful. By the measure of establishing a globally operating business that employs thousands of people, Uber has been successful (mostly). By the measure of establishing a profitable business we might argue that they likely will never achieve that. If you look at their SEA competitors who already earlier on introduced financial debt as a tool to create…

> employs thousands of people You made me wonder how many people are actually employed by Uber. I thought thousands sounded like a lot for what they do. First Google result - 29,000 employees. That blows me away. It sounds like Uber itself is ready for disruption.

I've been trying to figure this out for the last few months..

Uber isn't THAT complicated on the technical side. The driver/rider matchmaking is simpler than algorithmic trading code I've worked on, and I'm happy to take 1% on a trade in that space, yet Uber and Lyft are helping themselves to 30% or more.

I was personally thinking it'd be great to offer an Uber competitor that aims for complete transparency with no frills, like the Craigslist to Uber's Amazon/Ebay. Maybe charge $5 + 5% for matchmaking the rider with the driver if they use the app for payment, or free if the passenger pays with cash. I've heard a lot of horror stories about Lyft charging riders surge prices while paying normal prices to drivers, various apps stealing tips, etc.

I haven't tossed my MacBook into my carpet bag and run back to my hometown just yet, though, since I assumed there must be some good reason this hasn't already been done. Maybe it costs Uber $500 to background check and onboard a driver, or they eat 10% in credit card chargebacks, or something else I don't understand since I'm just a code monkey

Re: The Uber Bubble

#287

Post by chupchap »

dfadsadsf wrote: post #266
slfnflctd wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uber charges drivers 25-30 percent You might be a little low there. In my direct experience as a driver pre-covid, it was close to 50%, and many drivers in the relevant subreddits have reported it frequently being more than that since. Imagine hearing a passenger complain about their $15 fare when you only see $6 of it (out of which you still have to cover your gas usage). 25-30 percent seems reasonable in comparis…

That’s not full story though - with incentives Uber cut is much smaller and in many cases drivers actually got more than the customer paid.

That's no longer the case. It was the situation at the beginning, but multiple cab folks have told me that incentives have really reduced in the last four years.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#288

Post by ratww »

alexpotato wrote: post #210
wefarrell wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or during special events. I remember one Super Bowl weekend trying to get home via cab from Tribeca after the game was over. Looking down West Broadway, you could see multiple groups of people at each intersection with their arms up trying to get the first cab to go by. Or during just times in general. When I first moved to NYC, I was my normal polite self when people would say "I hailed it first" and let them take t…

Not in NYC, but I've seen cab drivers auctioning rides by asking "who will pay more" after some events. At airports I've definitely had my share of drivers asking multiple passengers where they're going so they could go to the most advantageous location. Both were obviously illegal in the cities I was.

Remembering those, I can definitely see why everyone started using Uber.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#289

Post by chrischen »

mikeryan wrote: post #270
jmharvey wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First this is just inherently wrong. You’ve been able to call and schedule a cab, even in the burbs, since before the internet was a thing. And maybe the driver would show up on time, or maybe they'd see a street hail en route to picking you up and decide to make you wait an extra 40 minutes. Uber drivers cancel, too, of course, but "automatically fall back to a different driver after a cancellation" is a meaningfu…

And maybe the driver would show up on time, or maybe they'd see a street hail en route to picking you up and decide to make you wait an extra 40 minutes. That’s not how it worked, or works (see Curb). You didn’t schedule a particular cab you call the cab service and the dispatcher sends a cab to you and makes sure they got there. If they didn’t show up you call dispatch back and they call the guy and find out what th…

You’ve clearly never called a cab pre-Uber, or you worked as a dispatcher.

Worse of all not only does the cab company often decide to not show up, if you cancel (such as calling another cab company that does show up or take a bus instead) you get yelled at and cursed to hell for letting them know you are canceling.

Everyone in the system is just an average joe, probably being paid less than they deserve. But the system was terrible and broken.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#290

Post by chrischen »

podviaznikov wrote: post #247
jmyeet wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

5. I don’t think you address issue with cherry picking the price with part timers. Which is I know is the real one, because I realized I did it myself and it’s not very fair. Your answer is more like “what about taxi services, they also have edge cases” 2. But there are also taxi services that allow you too book ahead of time. Many cities in Europe had phone booking of the taxi for specific times at least 20 years ag…

I don’t get why cherry picking is a bad thing? If demand is high why not increase drivers? Should we screw over people who need rides instead?
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