Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is the Ride over for Uber?

smartcompany.com.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 304 posts

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#161

Post by bergenty »

voz_ wrote: 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…

Who is DD and what do you mean they crushed them in food? Uber Eats is king in every major city I’ve been in.

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#162

Post by Teever »

menzoic wrote: post #129
Teever wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people don't care about it because at the end of the day all this mind bogglingly complex stuff just exists skim money off a transaction that should ideally be done between two individuals -- a buyer and a seller. Uber is nothing more than a rent-seeking middle man and no one cares about how complicated their rent-seeking activities are behind the curtain. Why can my ISP string up fiber optic all over my city…

>Uber is nothing more than a rent-seeking middle man and no one cares about how complicated their rent-seeking activities are behind the curtain The term rent-seeking gets thrown around a lot more lately, mostly from the web3 crowd. Most times its not used right. It's only rent seeking if the middleman isn't providing any value. Otherwise they're just getting paid for providing a service that people value.... Think a…

> reduced economic efficiency through misallocation of resources

Uber and Lyft generate 70 percent more pollution than trips they displace[0]

>reduced wealth creation

Uber and Lyft are pushing drivers into poverty[1]

> lost government revenue

How Uber dodges paying tax in Canada[2]

I don't care about the complexity of the the black box algorithm that Uber implements because I know what purpose it serves. The whole purpose of Uber is to make people entirely dependent on it by driving out alternatives like local cab companies and public transit through low prices subsidizes by Saudi money.

I think it's great that Uber has forced cab companies to modernize and make their services more convenient but we both know what will happen if Uber gets a stranglehold on this market. You'll see jacked up prices for the captive market and declining service.

This is how it always goes.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/25/21152512/uber-lyft-climat...

[1] https://www.nj.com/opinion/2020/03/uber-and-lyft-are-pushing...

[2] https://troymedia.com/technology/how-uber-dodges-paying-taxe...

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#163

Post by sen »

jlmorton wrote: post #157

> This writer, previously an avid Uber Eats user, now avoids it in almost all cases and instead, orders directly from restaurants, which have mostly built an online ordering systems. Going direct means your food isn’t ruined I don't know if this is confirmation bias, or just a lie to add weight to the thesis, but it's obviously absurd, as anyone who has ever worked for, or even ordered directly from a local restauran…

I actually agree completely with this part of the post, and even came here to quote that part.

I've gone completely off Uber since about a year ago due to their ridiculous price increases (per item fee + delivery fee + service fee), and I order direct from my half dozen favourite local places now, who absolutely do deliver personally and directly and usually for free if it's over a certain order size. They usually rock up on an e-bike or e-scooter just with my order. It's faster, way cheaper, and always fresher.

I'm not sure if it's just certain parts of Australia that I and the OP have in common, or what the reason is for the different experiences, but our happiness with the experience of ordering food has gone higher than it's been in many years. I won't miss Uber at all.

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#164

Post by xeromal »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #20
aetherson wrote: post #9

The problem with Uber Eats is exactly the same as the problem with Uber's rideshare: there's no difficult-to-copy element of it. It's been clear for at least seven years that it's easy to spin up a food delivery service, just the same way it's easy to spin up a rideshare service. The basic technology is something a small team can conjure up out of nowhere in a few months, the two sided marketplace is heavily incented…

Food delivery also isn’t very practical in developed country markets without a huge increase in productivity vs labor costs. It’s just too expensive compared to a country like China where it is cheap enough to be ubiquitous. Automation could be disruptive here…someday in the form of food delivery land and/or air drones. It really is the same with ride share: it just isn’t economical considering how much human labor i…

Here in LA in some areas, little trucks drive around on sidewalks delivering food driving remotely by an assumably low-paid driver.

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#165

Post by xeromal »

zonotope wrote: post #123
greatpostman wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter point: I just got rejected for a short ride from a cab at the airport in nyc. Dude was very angry I was only going a few miles. Hopped out, ordered a Lyft, got a great ride from a dude with a wife and kids.

It's illegal for a taxi at NYC to reject a fare to any part of NYC. He might huff and puff if you're going out of his way, but he has to take you. You shouldn't have gotten out.

Sounds like a great idea to force someone who doesn't want to take you somewhere to take you somewhere. I'm not letting someone make me an asshole. I'd rather use the app.

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#166

Post by Teever »

al_mandi wrote: post #145
Teever wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people don't care about it because at the end of the day all this mind bogglingly complex stuff just exists skim money off a transaction that should ideally be done between two individuals -- a buyer and a seller. Uber is nothing more than a rent-seeking middle man and no one cares about how complicated their rent-seeking activities are behind the curtain. Why can my ISP string up fiber optic all over my city…

Uber facilitates matching and routing and many other things. Don't you think that those features are worthy of paying for them?

Sure, but that's money that is being taken out of my community and I would prefer that it stay here.

Why do I need to involve a middle man from another country to facilitate a trip across town?

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#167

Post by dreamcompiler »

hackernewds wrote: post #80
vladf wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Okay granted it's a hard problem. It's a two-dimensional elevator scheduling problem with stochastic servers as well as stochastic customers.

But does that really justify 30 thousand employees?

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#168

Post by jlmorton »

mech422 wrote: post #160
jlmorton wrote: post #157

> This writer, previously an avid Uber Eats user, now avoids it in almost all cases and instead, orders directly from restaurants, which have mostly built an online ordering systems. Going direct means your food isn’t ruined I don't know if this is confirmation bias, or just a lie to add weight to the thesis, but it's obviously absurd, as anyone who has ever worked for, or even ordered directly from a local restauran…

The key difference for me, is actual pizzeria drivers usually have hot bags.. Whereas, 75% of the time 'app' drivers dont. Doesn't matter if I'm first or last in line, if the food is cold either way. Its gotten so bad, we're actually surprised when we order straight from say..dominos, and get hot food, instead of cold.

Yeah I agree with that. Uber Eats is really hurting their business by requiring drivers to buy the hot bags, assuming they're still doing that.

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#169

Post by bobthepanda »

aetherson wrote: post #144
bobthepanda wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Restaurants would do it to increase sales, of course. There simply is demand for delivered food; there always has been, and in a world where more and more families are dual-income and have more money than time, there always will be. During the pandemic, there was certainly more pressure on the restaurants. After it, the restaurants may get a better deal -- none of that is a particular reason not to comply with the se…

Right, but every additional sales channel is also work, and so the sales need to be large enough to actually justify doing this.

If they're not, in a world where some mix of users and restaurants get charged the true costs of delivery service, then you're left with a service that gets people to order things for you, which is basically just Postmates, and they're also not doing hot.

Re: Is the Ride over for Uber?

#170

Post by Nick87633 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #74
aetherson wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I would guess that restaurants would get bigger checks on higher margin (less effort to cook) items in-person due to drinks and appetizers.
Post reply on HN