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The Uber Bubble

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Re: The Uber Bubble

#311

Post by xapata »

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…

In some countries, taxis are so often criminal that tourists are warned to avoid them. In some less extreme places, drivers simply never use the meter and the passengers must negotiate every ride. Uber and its competitors have been wonderful for hailing rides in these places.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#312

Post by shostack »

omegalulw wrote: post #240
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…

> Taxis died because it's a horrible user experience that was propped up by a government-enforced monopoly. This cannot be understated. Also, as an introvert, negotiating with drivers, especially those that don't drive by the meter was always stressful, I mostly ended up overpaying.

"credit card machine is broken."

Things I don't ever have to hear or put up with ever again #623.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#313

Post by thebigman433 »

slfnflctd wrote: post #159
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…

> 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…

I just ordered a Lyft the other day and was talking to the driver on the way to the airport, he said a common route he drives is from Bozeman (MT) to Big Sky (for the ski tourists), the price is over 150$ on Lyft/Uber, and he ends up getting about 60-70$ from it max.

This type of cut, plus the massive false advertising that Uber/Lyft does via their apps in smaller towns, like telling you that your ride will be booked soon when there are literally no drivers available, have led to me just using prebooked car services when I can now. It costs a bit more, but they are 100% reliable in my experiences, more money is going directly to the drivers, and it supports the local economy.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#314

Post by [deleted] »

chrischen wrote: post #297
gruez wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 expecte…

Actually GME is a perfect example of how the future profits expectations keeps stocks grounded in reality, otherwise GME would have kept going up. It was just a few gamblers that put it as high as it went, but ultimately forces brought it back down. Just like gravity, you cannot escape the fundamental forces grounding all objects.

[deleted]

Re: The Uber Bubble

#315

Post by smilespray »

farmerstan wrote: post #256

Only in hacker news do you find people who think the taxi industry is some bastion of freedom and some poor victim of Uber. Does no one know how the taxi industry works and the insane levels of corruption involved? Most taxi drivers start their shift IN DEBT, every single shift. They owe the taxi company $100 at the beginning of their shift to rent the taxi and then have to work to pay off this debt every shift. Once…

I haven't seen many people defending the cab industry, which is clearly broken in many markets, including mine. I get that you hate cab companies. I do, too.

However, I'm just not sure that I like Uber any better. Most of the issues you describe with taxi drivers apply to Uber drivers as well.

As for your happiness metric, I'm not so sure about what you call facts. Asking your driver isn't going to provide useful data.

One type of dysfunctional business just got replaced with another.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#317

Post by smilespray »

psyc wrote: post #305
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #300

> Oracle founder Larry Ellison noted that Uber’s app was less sophisticated than something his cat could have developed. That is the equivalent of "I could build that in a weekend" that you often hear from inexperienced devs that have no idea what they're talking about. In fact, we had the perfect experiment in Austin, TX, where a couple years ago the city essentially voted to kick out Uber and Lyft (required fingerp…

Didn't I read somewhere that all of Uber's complexity is in making it work correctly in every jurisdiction that it works in?

That's a link I'd be willing to spend some time reading. Please?

Re: The Uber Bubble

#318

Post by dmitriid »

rsanek wrote: post #284
scarface74 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They lost over 20 billion dollars and made a meagre profit in one quarter of one year thanks to Uber Eats during the pandemic.

Ah, healthy business.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#319

Post by abandonliberty »

UncleEntity wrote: post #274
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…

I refuse to use Uber but I’ll take Lyft since it is impossible to get an actual taxi anymore. My last ride I was talking to the driver about someone canceling a $50 fare and her getting it instead which lead to the discovery of her getting $22 of the $48 (minus tip) I was charged. It amazes me people are still driving for them.

I agree that Uber is using VC cash to outcompete more effective businesses. It's not sustainable, but in many cases those businesses were predatory either to their employees or the public. This isn't the case everywhere.

I talked with some ex-cabbie Uber drivers. With cabs, they had to pay back the owner each shift for use of the vehicle and license. About half of the shift would be worked free. If they were new and got weekday graveyard, it was particularly bad. They seemed much happier with Uber. I'm a bit concerned about hard to quantify costs like vehicle wear ultimately making it worse, though.

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