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The Uber Bubble

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Re: The Uber Bubble

#321

Post by kanbara »

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…

in europe there are many taxi companies that have started to do uber app features and prepayment and all the jazz that make uber so great.

the main issues i have with uber are that it's now almost more expensive than taxis, there's almost no regulation, the drivers are taken advantage of / not making profit and also not getting proper benefits. just because taxis suck doesn't mean uber should replace them.

government should invest in better public transit, more livable and walkable cities, and less car ownership instead of propping up either taxis or uber.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#322

Post by escot »

I always thought Uber Pool was their main advantage over traditional cabs that couldnt coordinate sharing rides with multiple users. It was an actual productivity gain, like the article complains about them not having.

I remember getting across SF for 3 bucks. I think it only shut down because of covid, so if they restart the program it could make them more interesting than paying for the whole route.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#323

Post by meowtimemania »

arthurofbabylon wrote: post #268

When traveling in India, I foolishly took a cycle rickshaw. It was gross/shameful. A man far less fortunate than I was sweating, working hard, barely getting paid, and breathing horribly polluted New Delhi air while I just sat there. When Uber started to squeeze its drivers, I again felt just like this. I hated hearing drivers complain about their life problems. I hated doing the math and seeing how little these peop…

I used to live in Latin America and I would avoid hiring shoe-shiner kids in spite of them following me each day. I thought it was sad to see these kids working at such an early age and thought hiring them would be me exploiting them. In hindsight I should’ve just hired them, they need the money. it’s horrible people live in poverty and have to work such jobs, but IMO hiring them helps them more than not hiring them.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#324

Post by farmerstan »

smilespray wrote: post #315
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 dat…

The vast majority of Uber drivers are part time by choice. You don’t have that option with taxi driving. One driver I had would wake up early and drive people to the airport before work and that helped him pay off his car sooner. Uber is extremely flexible and the engagement model isn’t predatory. You make money from your first trip and everything is clearly spelled out. You can even work for Lyft and Uber at the same time.

Flexibility is the key for most drivers. Is every driver happy? No. Is every google software engineer happy? No. Some would accuse google of being predatory but just because some people say that doesn’t make it real. Go ask most of the drivers and you will see that it’s a part time job to them and for what it is it’s fine. They don’t look to it like some career and they shouldn’t.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#325

Post by xeromal »

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…

Uber didn't win because Yellow Cabs we're a better deal or more consistent.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#326

Post by xeromal »

chrischen wrote: post #299
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…

If Uber can’t turn a profit then how did cab companies (essentially Uber but with a worse product, no software efficiencies, and bad UX) turn a profit for over a century?

Because in a lot of locations, they had regulatory capture that ensure their success.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#327

Post by xeromal »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #286
criddell wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 f…

The one thing that might make it harder to figure out the scale is that literally every market (city, state, country) has different regulations and that is not simple to manage.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#328

Post by yibg »

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…

It's exactly how it worked. Half the time they would either not show up or show up 30+ minutes late.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#329

Post by gnicholas »

mikeryan wrote: post #259
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…

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 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. Second there’s now services like Curb (in NYC) or Flywheel which allow you to use an Uber/Lyft style…

This is not my experience living near Palo Alto. I have had to drive my wife to the airport multiple times because her cab never arrived. Uber/Lyft aren't perfect, but they are 90/10 as opposed to 30/70 for cabs.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#330

Post by hattmall »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #278
mikeryan wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's definitely how it **ing worked, man. I came so close to missing so many damn flights before Uber came around, because I'd book a car the day before and it would just ghost me. I had to aim to get to the airport 4 hours early because half the time I had to reorder a fresh cab and hope for the best. Cabs had a 45+ minute lead time in the evenings and at night too, when I could order them by phone at all. It was…

It was a big thing for competing cab companies to call each other and schedule bogus pick ups. So much of the time they just disregarded calls until the 3rd or 4th time you call back, then they finally send someone.
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