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

Uber's Still Not Profitable

pluralistic.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 105 posts

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#61

Post by slaw »

shreyshnaccount wrote: post #20

I don't get the endgame here. Uber provides super cheap cab rides by going into a loss so competitors don't spring up. then eventually when they've dominated the market they do what? increase prices? so competitors spring up again? makes no sense

Uber is not profitable and DiDi which takes less cut as middle man is profitable. In Central and South America, I prefer to use DiDi as it is cheaper and app experience is about the same.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2021/02/04/didi-m...

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#62

Post by yccs27 »

fleventynine wrote: post #46
alkonaut wrote: post #12

Predatory pricing should be made more illegal than it is. No one wins when a company operates at a loss to kill incumbents in a market. At least for markets where the incumbents have no other protections (unregulated taxi markets). This is very few of Uber’s markets and probably not those where they do best, but the principle of not being allowed to operate at a loss with investor money year after year feels sound.

Wouldn't such a law stop Google from releasing Android as open source? AOSP cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop, but it doesn't cost anything to use. In such a world, could companies even contribute patches to Linux? Making Linux better without expectation of profit could be considered predatory pricing against Microsoft.

The difference is that predatory pricing includes an expectation of future profits from that product. So it makes sense to exclude perpetual free licenses like open source from the definition.

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#63

Post by JCM9 »

Uber has also just gotten really bad from a product standpoint in so many cities too. Canceled rides, terrible customer service. It seems like other app platforms are attracting more/better drivers. Plain old taxis are better than Uber in many cities again.

Quite ironically Uber has become the terrible bloated transportation option with a bad customer experience that they set out originally to replace.

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#64

Post by jmeister »

lozenge wrote: post #11
nowherebeen wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you forgetton the whole Google lawsuit against Uber? Anthony Levandowski. Uber’s self driving project is still no where near production ready.

What does that have to do with Musk? Musk never worked at Google and Tesla s self driving technology lacks key sensors compared to what Waymo and Uber were working with.

/u/failingknife, I cannot reply to you, but thanks for making only relevant comment on this entire thread.

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#65

Post by matsemann »

What is Uber's "moat"? After all, it's "just an app" and there are so many of them now. Most drivers here have like 5 different ride hailing apps installed and take a ride from whatever shows up.

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#66

Post by higeorge13 »

Vespasian wrote: post #42
epolanski wrote: post #33

As someone who has used Uber quite a bit across Europe I cannot understand how they are not profitable. They take what 10/20% of the ride and they do millions of rides every day. I myself have spent few thousands in their service alone. How can they not be profitable after all these years.

If the costs per ride are higher than the fare, it doesn't matter how many they do. In the end they have to pay for all the maintenance and initial purchase of the vehicle as well even if they manage to put those on the driver's as well. Their "independent contractor" employment model doesn't work in some markets where they end up paying regular benefits and taxes.

Is there a break down on their cost per ride? Infra/engineering/marketing/local regulation/etc. ?

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#67

Post by mst »

jon_adler wrote: post #45
golergka wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's convenient to you to wait for a cab to appear for 20 minutes in rain and snow instead of opening an app inside?

In addition to taxi ranks in popular areas, my local area (U.K.) has local taxi companies with their own apps. You can even still call them on the phone (quaint as it is) to make a booking.

Same in my bit of .uk.

Now, admittedly, the app I use most often is stunningly ugly and has almost zero features, but it -does- have the feature of 'reliably producing a taxi when I type my name and location into it' and so long as that part works I don't really care much about anything else.

(in several areas of .us I've found that the taxi experience is "call them, one might turn up at some point" so I can see uber's tracking of the car as it approaches to be a welcome security blankie for people who've been traumatised by the local taxis)

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#68

Post by mst »

fallingknife wrote: post #19

I stopped reading at the claim that Uber provides worse service at a higher price than traditional cab companies. No one who experienced the hell of taxis could ever say that with a straight face.

Taxi quality varies wildly by location.

In a lot of places that's absolutely true.

In a lot of places that's a laughable idea that will probably never be true.

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#69

Post by matsemann »

seanhandley wrote: post #32
sneak wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber was founded because the same was true in SF; however then oftentimes the cab only arrived after an hour, if at all.

I live in rural UK. We have several local taxi companies that reliably turn up within minutes. It's been that way for decades. The only really interesting value add to Uber was app-centric interactions (as opposed to a phone call), giving the ability to pay by card (instead of cash), and to track the taxi in the app. Many local taxi firms are using apps too, so those advantages are gone. If this plays out the same in…

Same in rural area I grew up. If anything, the monopoly on being a taxi drivers is what made it possible to get a taxi year round, not just during tourist season. So we could call a cab at a random weekday and probably be the driver's only ride that day. Then they would make most of their money during high season.

Now, lots of randoms dip into the high season using these apps. No longer profitable for the taxi to operate year around. So for the locals there is no longer a reliable taxi service most of the year...

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#70

Post by potamic »

amelius wrote: post #39
shreyshnaccount wrote: post #20

I don't get the endgame here. Uber provides super cheap cab rides by going into a loss so competitors don't spring up. then eventually when they've dominated the market they do what? increase prices? so competitors spring up again? makes no sense

There is no end game. It's a pump and dump scheme. Early investors get insanely rich, whereas later investors pay the price.

I wonder if part of the root cause is allowing non profitable companies to list publicly. For early investors, listing is the end game and not having profitability as a goal means investors are more incentivized to grow hype than in sustaining the business.
Post reply on HN