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The Uber Bubble

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Re: The Uber Bubble

#391

Post by Ekaros »

lhorie wrote: post #165
amelius wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Last year, a lot of drivers were taking home 6 digit gross income due to driver shortages. That's pretty significant for what is effectively a unskilled job. Source needed. Might just as well be a publicity stunt by Uber.

One source is just an acquaintance of mine. A couple of others are people on youtube. Mind you, the caveat is these people worked 50+ hours per week. If you want something that looks less anecdotal, google "uber salary". Glassdoor lists a range from 18k-93k/yr.

Is that the take home after all cost, maintenance, depreciation and so on?

Re: The Uber Bubble

#392

Post by Ekaros »

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 wonder if the Uber drivers aren't lying, so they get better ratings. Would seem logical, after all making customer feel bad might affect their rating and in future their income. So I would call the unreliable source in context...

Re: The Uber Bubble

#393

Post by kubanczyk »

blackhaz wrote: post #378
cjbgkagh wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely agree. Nowadays I have Uber drivers sit around the corner refusing to show up and calling me to tell me I should cancel so that I have to pay the $5 fine. Sure I can contact support to get that $5 back but it has happened to me so many times there really should be a button for it. It’s hard for me to believe Uber is not aware of this behavior.

That's very common in Prague. Uber in Prague is a disaster. About 5% of my rides are probably ending up with having to pay a cancellation fee for a driver who never showed up. Contacting support to resolve this is pain indeed. Most of the Uber rides in Prague are owned by limited liability companies (s r.o.). I guess there's some kind of an alliance between Uber and those local companies. Another 5-10% or so of my Ub…

Exactly the same experience in Warsaw.

There is some hidden benefit for Uber drivers in creating barriers for the passengers. Also, the platform does not allow downvotes until you get on the car.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#394

Post by Ekaros »

lhorie wrote: post #93
MBCook wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they have a clear path to profitability What is it? The problem I see is that there’s zero switching cost. It’s like buying salt at the supermarket. It’s all the same. They have nothing to differentiate them except their brand. Sure they can charge a little more because of that. National brands charge a bit more than generic. But you can’t raise prices 50+% and hope people will just stick with you so that you aren’…

> 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…

But could either of those raise their prices by 25-50% and still keep their market share? Probably not. They are different from Uber that they are making money and have for very long time... While remaining price competitive compared to other players on market. Uber can't afford that in long run.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#395

Post by vadym909 »

qeternity wrote: post #373
samastur wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what kanbara said. Most people are bad at calculating financial implications of decisions before them. There are lots of reasons for this (limited finance/math knowledge, impenetrable language in which conditions are layed out...) or actually don't have better options so they can literally be taken advantage of. Some may be even stupid, but there's no need or reason to reach for that as an explanation.

> Most people are bad at calculating financial implications of decisions before them. This is such a horrible take and reeks of nanny state oversight. Millions of small business owners make these decisions all the time. Markets have a way of quickly rooting out those who aren’t making good decisions. Government has proven itself to be far less financially competent.

This may be true in some cases- lots of drivers -many of who are new immigrants-see this as the quickest way to get a job and don’t realize they have no worker protections like paid sick leave, worker’s compensation, that employees get or the tax implications of being a contractor vs employee

Re: The Uber Bubble

#396

Post by Spooky23 »

randyrand wrote: post #351
kanbara wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

are you saying the drivers are too stupid to calculate they are making net money? that’s quite the (insulting) claim!

Not insulting at all. I don’t expect someone hard up enough to drive Uber for minimum wage to understand how to calculate depreciation, etc.

They are focused on cash flow.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#397

Post by bydlocoder »

blackhaz wrote: post #378
cjbgkagh wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely agree. Nowadays I have Uber drivers sit around the corner refusing to show up and calling me to tell me I should cancel so that I have to pay the $5 fine. Sure I can contact support to get that $5 back but it has happened to me so many times there really should be a button for it. It’s hard for me to believe Uber is not aware of this behavior.

That's very common in Prague. Uber in Prague is a disaster. About 5% of my rides are probably ending up with having to pay a cancellation fee for a driver who never showed up. Contacting support to resolve this is pain indeed. Most of the Uber rides in Prague are owned by limited liability companies (s r.o.). I guess there's some kind of an alliance between Uber and those local companies. Another 5-10% or so of my Ub…

Try Uber in Stambul. The driver will send a message asking where are you going and ask for double the Uber fare or will cancel the order. They don't care about their ratings.

Uber in California and Russia (it's actually Yandex.Taxi for quite some time here) works great.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#398

Post by vadym909 »

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…

I didn’t think the article debated the ‘goodness’ of Uber. I thought they were debating the inflated market cap (valuation) compared to the business model. It’s an old argument- should you value it like a tech company where costs are minute portion of revenue and price/earnings multiples are high 30-100 or as a staffing company where you’ll always only make a small cut of the driver fees- where valuation multiples Are usually 3-5 times earnings

Re: The Uber Bubble

#399

Post by samastur »

qeternity wrote: post #373
samastur wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what kanbara said. Most people are bad at calculating financial implications of decisions before them. There are lots of reasons for this (limited finance/math knowledge, impenetrable language in which conditions are layed out...) or actually don't have better options so they can literally be taken advantage of. Some may be even stupid, but there's no need or reason to reach for that as an explanation.

> Most people are bad at calculating financial implications of decisions before them. This is such a horrible take and reeks of nanny state oversight. Millions of small business owners make these decisions all the time. Markets have a way of quickly rooting out those who aren’t making good decisions. Government has proven itself to be far less financially competent.

I said absolutely nothing about government.

Millions of small business owners, me including, make these kind (and other) mistakes all the time for various reasons. We are all very much fallible and don't go out of business because most of the time our mistakes don't have huge consequences and everyone else makes their own mistakes too.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#400

Post by matwood »

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…

> Taxis died because it's a horrible user experience

And in small cities/towns, getting a taxi was nearly impossible a lot of the times. And if you did get one, you had to have cash. In my 20s I had the personal phone numbers of a couple who ran a car service. I would only ride with them after another taxi home (probably unlicensed) where the driver was drinking smh.

I wonder how many DUIs have been avoided since Uber came about.

People always point out big cities, but forget how abysmal taxis were in small towns.

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