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Is the Ride over for Uber?

smartcompany.com.au

71–80 of 304 posts

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#71
post #25

Uber is an example of a company that wants to be a tech company, but (1) really shouldn't (2) kinda lacks the technical leadership to really be one. It feels like the right call, around 2017, was to either: (A) double down and build a platform for every kind of physical multisided marketplace (matching as a service, maps+routing+locations+geofences as a service, physical product ops as a service, etc) Where Amazon we…

I mean you’re saying it, and they’re clearly starting to offer it in ny and other places, but perhaps there’s a reason that didn’t work? I can see a million logistical and practical reasons why you couldn’t just make a generic “app for both sides” and let other market owners embrace it. Uber succeeded initially by actually doing the “dirty and unethical” ground work beyond software. I really doubt their tech stack had anything to do with their success.

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#72

Food delivery is, in my opinion, an expensive, almost always disappointing and ultimately unhealthy habit. I can see why it might seem to be an attractive business, food addiction is legal, socially accepted and the harmful side is slow enough that most people don’t notice. But this is not a “service”, it does not add value for the customer, same category as cigarettes. I don’t think that businesses riding on addicti…

There is nothing wrong with food delivery when used in moderation. I use DoorDash once a week to get a lunch delivered on a day where I have meetings running through lunchtime. It saves me time and hassle, and is a fun change of pace. It also came in very handy when a family member of mine was very ill and I wasn’t in the same city. I could order food and have it delivered to them. The service is nothing like cigarettes, where the only point of the product is to get you addicted enough to keep buying more, and eventually give you cancer.

That’s not to say that DoorDash et al. aren’t enabling people with food addiction problems, just to point out that there are very many real good uses for the service.

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#73
post #25

Uber is an example of a company that wants to be a tech company, but (1) really shouldn't (2) kinda lacks the technical leadership to really be one. It feels like the right call, around 2017, was to either: (A) double down and build a platform for every kind of physical multisided marketplace (matching as a service, maps+routing+locations+geofences as a service, physical product ops as a service, etc) Where Amazon we…

Uber crushed themselves in food. As a customer, I would get the wrong food about half the time in NYC even pre-pandemic. I complained and got a refund the first couple of times but then they stopped refunding me when it kept happening. Clearly thought I was fraudulently trying to get meals for free. Thing is, I’ve been a customer since the black car only days. Been Uber VIP for my high rating as a customer. Problem w…

Most restaurants are horrendously incompetent when dealing with delivery apps.

I know because I once drove delivery for a few apps for about 6 months. The vast majority of restaurants treat delivery apps as easy side cash and don't take it very seriously. Depending on the restaurant, since the employees don't see you as a real customer, they'll rush things and miss items. They almost never report orders as being ready through the app, which would make it easier for drivers to schedule their drives and get in and out faster. The result is drivers show up and end up waiting because even after 30 minutes the food still isn't ready when they arrive. The tablet the restaurant is using could be completely off or dead but they won't bother signing on to the GrubHub/Doordash website to stop taking orders. Most of the time, restaurant staff doesn't give a fuck, which is stupid because restaurant staff also tends to hate delivery drivers. Why the hell would you not get the manager to sign in to the website and prevent drivers from coming in and wasting your time?

On the other side of the coin, these delivery apps also don't give a fuck. I was way above average in terms of the effort I put in as a delivery driver, but no matter what you're gonna get customers blaming you for things you couldn't have prevented. A bunch of times the customer opened the bag at the door (this was before the pandemic), find an item missing, then scowl at me while telling me they're gonna complain to the app. Not once did I ever get reprimanded by an app or receive fewer orders. I kept in touch with a bunch of other delivery drivers, many of which were far lazier than I was and admitted to screwing things up, and none of them every got so much as an email for forgetting drinks too many times or being way too late. The only way you can really get fired from these apps, absent doing something illegal, is if the area the driver is in just doesn't have enough people ordering food to make it worth paying the driver.

Oh yeah, I did a little driving for Uber Eats, btw. Most delivery drivers I knew at the time looked at Uber Eats as the "slut" of delivery apps. It paid the worst, the customers were cheapskates, but you also got lots of McDonalds and KFC orders through it, so it was only really good for if you could fit one of those orders in on the way to another delivery. I stopped doing it pretty early on because Uber Eats effectively had no meaningful driver support. At least GrubHub could be reached, even if it wasn't always helpful. Good luck reaching Uber as a driver in 2018. IMO, Uber had no business competing in the food delivery space.

I think people overlooked all these issues because we've been in the honeymoon phase of the post-2008 economy with all these "innovative" mobile apps doing amazing things, so we largely overlooked both the bad customer service and ridiculous pricing. Gradually, the rest of the economy will adapt to not rely so much on the likes of Uber unless something changes. And I would say the same thing about a lot of other aspects of the food economy as a whole. Much of it is of underwhelming quality and the customer service tends to suck, and now it's more expensive than it's worth. If you're gonna eat a bunch of carbs and glorified dog meat with some fake cheez product, you might as well do it at home for a third of the price, if not less than that.

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s say there was just 1 delivery service. Could they charge enough delivery fees to actually build a sustainable business? How much fees would you need to charge? $4/delivery means having to make a delivery in 15 mins to be able to pay the delivery person minimum wage. Plus Uber’s profit, plus the cost of the car and maintenance expenses + tickets, accidents, etc, It’s hard to see how a monopoly can also make mone…

I think that if there was just one delivery service, they could absolutely make a good business. Now, I mean, would it be a good business that was used by 80% of the population multiple times per week? No. As you point out, it's intractably expensive. But there's nothing wrong with a business that sells a relatively expensive luxury, and it's not sooo expensive to have a meal delivered that only a tiny fraction of th…

The question is why restaurants would sign up to a niche boutique service. They are super unhappy about the cut UberEats and friends charge, and the only real impetus to get them on was a pandemic that shut down restaurants totally.

Nowadays, I see restaurants charging easily $5-10 above their in-person list price on delivery apps, and some have left entirely now that normalcy has returned and they don’t have to put up with it.

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#75
post #25

Uber is an example of a company that wants to be a tech company, but (1) really shouldn't (2) kinda lacks the technical leadership to really be one. It feels like the right call, around 2017, was to either: (A) double down and build a platform for every kind of physical multisided marketplace (matching as a service, maps+routing+locations+geofences as a service, physical product ops as a service, etc) Where Amazon we…

I love the "small team of focused engineers" trope for apps like uber. It's so easy to blow past that number. Website? That's a team. iPhone app? That's a team. Android? Another team. Data collection and A/B testing platform for all the front ends? Another team. Backend? A team. Infrastructure? Another team. AI solutions for problems like delivery time estimation? Another very expensive team. BI for the executives? You guessed it, another team!

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#76
post #25

Uber is an example of a company that wants to be a tech company, but (1) really shouldn't (2) kinda lacks the technical leadership to really be one. It feels like the right call, around 2017, was to either: (A) double down and build a platform for every kind of physical multisided marketplace (matching as a service, maps+routing+locations+geofences as a service, physical product ops as a service, etc) Where Amazon we…

Wow, strong disagree. Having interviewed a couple of candidates from this space, even for just rideshare pricing for both demand and supply sides is an incredibly sophisticated statistics and economics problem, where appropriate modeling can have long term revenue impact.

Even within this vertical it seems you’d need a lot more than 15 engineers.

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#77

Uber started out well as your "personal chauffeur" with premium cars and polite, professional drivers. Then they started chasing numbers and valuation, and it was all downhill from there.

You can still get the premium cars if you pay extra for it. But most people (including me) just opt for the cheapest option.

I find in most markets uber black is no longer licensed black car. Just a normal person with a somewhat nicer car.

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#78
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food delivery is practical, mainstream and has been for 40+ years in the West. It works great "inhouse". They tend to know all their regular customers and area and know exactly how to get there, where to park, which bell to press etc. They will also know if there is bad traffic or an accident closing a major road and adjust wait times and order frequency accordingly. The person that runs the delivery joint can also w…

> Food delivery... works great "inhouse". but > Plus they also want to take 30-50% commission for the privilege. If food delivery works great in house then why do restaurants pay Uber so much? I'd wager employing drivers is impractical for a lot of restaurants.

It doesn't work great in house. It works great with economies of scale. I don't know the history of pizza delivery, so this is speculation, but I imagine that pizzas travel well, and people became accustomed to ordering them for delivery. So a driver can load up on pizzas, make a whole bunch of deliveries (and people are generally satisfied with the quality), rinse, and repeat. That's economical. Delivering a handful of orders at a time (maybe even 1) is obviously a terrible value proposition. But if it's incremental revenue, and covers your cost of goods sold, you may as well let Uber lose money to do it.

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#79
I wish Uber transitioned into being something more like Sabre or the MLS and could be whitelabeled to multiple companies, and created an open marketplace for rides - traditional yellowcabs or independents in their own car or whatever is coming in the future. I get that they kind of already are, it'd be nice if there was just one "network" that everyone used.

(Where we really need a Sabre is for takeout ordering. If you go to any restaurant these days there are like 5 iPads at each of them, one for each delivery service. This is bonkers!)

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#80
post #76
post #25

Uber is an example of a company that wants to be a tech company, but (1) really shouldn't (2) kinda lacks the technical leadership to really be one. It feels like the right call, around 2017, was to either: (A) double down and build a platform for every kind of physical multisided marketplace (matching as a service, maps+routing+locations+geofences as a service, physical product ops as a service, etc) Where Amazon we…

Wow, strong disagree. Having interviewed a couple of candidates from this space, even for just rideshare pricing for both demand and supply sides is an incredibly sophisticated statistics and economics problem, where appropriate modeling can have long term revenue impact. Even within this vertical it seems you’d need a lot more than 15 engineers.

It's mind boggling how most people think it's a simple matching FIFO matching algorithm, instead of how mind bogglingly complex making ride-sharing happen at scale is

I would know.

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