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The Uber Bubble

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Re: The Uber Bubble

#421

Post by projektfu »

lelanthran wrote: post #363
nerdponx wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Only works if you manage to get a govt monopoly and exclusive access tot he drivers. If you don't have those two things there's no point in trying to landgrab under cost and price-gouge later. For something lik…

I think they were hoping for network lock-in. Drivers might carry 2 phones but probably not 3. Riders will check 2-3 apps at most. Incumbents end up in a prisoner's dilemma where raising prices in concert usually pays off and defection is actually costly.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#422

Post by lozenge »

lelanthran wrote: post #363
nerdponx wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Only works if you manage to get a govt monopoly and exclusive access tot he drivers. If you don't have those two things there's no point in trying to landgrab under cost and price-gouge later. For something lik…

The barrier to entry is not small.

To offer low wait times you need drivers idling ready to pick up customers. Meaning you need to pay drivers in excess of what you will earn from riders. Until you reach critical mass. This is what has lost Uber so much money.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#423

Post by projektfu »

faller wrote: post #347
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…

> 1. Uber is actually a higher cost/less efficient producer of urban car services than the taxi companies it has driven out of business This doesn't seem to be true, given that in some countries you have taxi companies providing services through Uber, as well as their own ride hailing platforms. > 2. Individual Uber drivers with limited capital cannot acquire, finance, maintain and insure vehicles more economically t…

It's a one time charge and also can be resold if needed.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#424

Post by AussieWog93 »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #409
meowtimemania wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, hiring them to shine your shoes would not have helped, it only perpetuates the system. What is needed is a social change that eliminates the need. Sadly this sometimes only happens when the oppressed party suffers enough to elicit real sympathetic action or in extreme cases an uprising. As you didn't hire them, presumably your shoes didn't need shining so they were not really performing a necessary function anywa…

>No, hiring them to shine your shoes would not have helped, it only perpetuates the system. What is needed is a social change that eliminates the need.

While you're right that the system needs to change, giving the shoeshine boy a peso might be the best help that someone in GP's position could have given.

Their life is still terrible, but at least they're not hungry for a night.

>Sadly this sometimes only happens when the oppressed party suffers enough to elicit real sympathetic action or in extreme cases an uprising.

That's really dark, man, and I don't think it's true. Plenty of groups have won their rights without being deliberately ground into the dirt by another section of society.

>This suggests that the system continues to exist partly because some people like the idea of paying a pittance to someone to perform a menial job simply because it makes them feel good or superior

I run a retail business, and much of what we sell is like this. Even for things that have utility (e.g. a washing machine), the price you'd pay at a retail store is often (but not always) significantly higher than the value of the good itself sold on, say, Facebook Marketplace. A "$2000 washing machine" is often just a $600 washing machine plus $1400 worth of making the customer feel special.

You can say this is wrong or wasteful, but it's part of human nature and exists across all cultures.

>donating that money to an effort to eliminate the poverty in question.

Steve Hughes argues against this better than I ever could:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm6kl17HH9s

Re: The Uber Bubble

#425

Post by bradleyjg »

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…

The drivers have definitely learned how to game the system in some cases. I was once at LAX airport and the local drivers had somehow figured out how to create a surge fare that only kicked in after you matched with a driver. The app would offer you the higher price and if you turned it down you’d find that there were no cars available. If you canceled and tried again the lower fare would once again show.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#426

Post by Macha »

matwood wrote: post #400
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 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 Ube…

How small are we talking? My parents live in a town of ~2-3k, you aren't getting a taxi from there without arranging in advice, app or not.

Or my hometown of ~60k, I can't say availability of app based taxis is better or worse than availability at a taxi rank, though obviously there is the benefit of not having to get to a taxi rank.

The city I live in now of 1 million, app based taxis are a clear win, mainly because most taxi ranks fit ~5-6 taxis max and so at busy times there would be a queue simply because of that fact. That said, you're going to be waiting as long for a pickup at closing time via an app as for someone to show up a rank.

(Extending to app based services in general as actual Uber is a niche player in my country, basically only used by tourists so hard to get rides that aren't going to or from the airport or a couple of tourist hot spots)

Re: The Uber Bubble

#427

Post by Jochim »

chrischen wrote: post #290
podviaznikov wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The surge pricing model sounds like a great incentive but it's also very easily exploited. Drivers that would otherwise have chosen to work full time might choose to only work during surges, ultimately reducing the total capacity of the system and increasing prices.

There are also reports of groups of drivers working together to manipulate the surge price in order to increase earnings[0].

[0] https://www.distractify.com/p/uber-surge-pricing-hack

Re: The Uber Bubble

#428

Post by AniseAbyss »

vadym909 wrote: post #395
qeternity wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

No post body was provided.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#429

Post by phil21 »

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…

> That’s not how it worked

It's precisely how it worked everywhere I've lived. What you describe sounds like a low density suburb or smaller town. Yeah, social pressure in those situations still works.

The only time I've seen things work as you describe were small/vacation towns when I was visiting for a wedding or whatnot. The type of places where there are a dozen total cabs for the entire county.

Any major (call it NFL tier) city scheduling a pickup was a laughable joke. You quickly learn when you move to such places the first time you schedule a cab how totally unreliable it is.

Even the overly chatty cabbies would be happy to tell you how much of a scam it was, and go on to describe how every driver but them does X, Y, and Z to avoid taking such calls. This is the sole reason Uber got its foothold in my household.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#430

Post by cromka »

parineum wrote: post #343
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…

> drivers are taken advantage of / not making profit and also not getting proper benefits. I hear people say this all the time. None of those people are Uber drivers. I can't speak to Europe but that's been my experience in California. This kind of "we know what's good for you" elitism is that turns people off from the left and why I don't want to be associated with the democratic party despite my voting history.

I spoke to Uber drivers last time I was in Miami and they are being squeezed there: ride fees went up as with pretty much anywhere, but they also lowered their share %. So Uber making more money and everyone else is screwed. I can definitely attest to the ride cost hike: what used to be a $10-15 ride from the Airport to the Beach is now $40.
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