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Uber's Still Not Profitable

pluralistic.net

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Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#91

Post by origin_path »

Ekaros wrote: post #49
fleventynine wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There should be difference between releasing something for free like Open Source. And then providing real product or service for less than it costs to produce without any alternative income streams.

How would you even define that? Aren't you asking for other people's market dumping to be illegal, but not the type you like?

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#92

Post by origin_path »

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.

There's the ride subsidies of course, which have never gone away really.

But also, Uber is a valley tech firm, meaning it has extremely high overheads. To service all those markets Uber employed 29,300 people last year, a roughly 30% increase from 2020, and note that isn't including the drivers. That's nearly 30,000 people in operations and software development of various kinds.

Uber probably can't make money even if it stops subsidizing rides because the extra added value of a ride-hailing app (which is certainly non zero) is nonetheless not enough to offset the cost of having such a massive company, especially given that so many are earning some of the world's highest salaries.

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#93

Post by vwcx »

the_black_hand wrote: post #73

I agree with the article about Uber's accounting games, but many of the arguments about why Uber can't be successful are unconvincing. > In Q2 alone, Uber transferred $2.8b from its drivers to its shareholders. From a business point of view thats exactly what it should be doing. Increasing margins and paying contractors less is what a business. I understand the ethical questions about minimum wage and pay for drivers…

> Cabs are terrible. Driver's are mean.

I'm sorry they hurt you, but I assure you this is not a universal trait of taxi drivers everywhere in 2022.

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#94

Post by rightbyte »

jmeister wrote: post #64
lozenge wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You copy pasted something you were about to write on Reddit?

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#95

Post by Exness199507 »

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.

No post body was provided.

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#96

Post by smcl »

rightbyte wrote: post #94
jmeister wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You copy pasted something you were about to write on Reddit?

The person they were replying to was flagged, so you may not see it unless you set showdead in your profile

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#97

Post by tmsh »

The post only mentions Uber Eats in the article’s tags. That lowers credibility a bit I think? Uber Eats seems like it has the potential to level out the lack of profitability on the rides side. And they have a better, more reliable service than Doordash, imho, which has a 32B market cap.

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#98

Post by Traubenfuchs »

occz wrote: post #82
snowpiercer wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. ..I'm really surprised by this comment..what do you mean by "farther away than ever" . I just recently started learning to code and I really want to go into machine learning ..does it mean there isn't any major innovation right now in the field ?

That's probably not what they meant. What I interpreted it as was that the current iteration of machine learning will not be able to satisfactorily solve full self-driving cars.

> That's probably not what they meant.

It is, somewhat. The current generation of software and hardware was pushed to its limits by the smartest AI/ML engineers in the world and the best we got is Tesla FSD which is in no way ready to replace taxis and still needs someone at the wheel at all times.

100% self driving taxis for drunk night crawlers are not on the horizon anymore.

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#99

Post by Traubenfuchs »

smcl wrote: post #7
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #4

I think they were really betting on autonomous driving, fueled by Elon Musks lies and hype. They built up the digital infrastructure and so much clout their company name & product became a verb on the level of googling. But now taxi-level 100% autonomous no-driving-wheel cars are farther away than ever. The current broad generation of machine learning and sensors reached its maximum and it‘s looking bleak.

I don't know if Elon Musk's nonsense was involved - they had their own autonomous driving project in-house didn't they?

Just forget about me naming him. What I really meant was simply the whole autonomous driving bubble that just had him as its figurehead.

Re: Uber's Still Not Profitable

#100

Post by Traubenfuchs »

snowpiercer wrote: post #58
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #4

I think they were really betting on autonomous driving, fueled by Elon Musks lies and hype. They built up the digital infrastructure and so much clout their company name & product became a verb on the level of googling. But now taxi-level 100% autonomous no-driving-wheel cars are farther away than ever. The current broad generation of machine learning and sensors reached its maximum and it‘s looking bleak.

Wow. ..I'm really surprised by this comment..what do you mean by "farther away than ever" . I just recently started learning to code and I really want to go into machine learning ..does it mean there isn't any major innovation right now in the field ?

Modern ML/AI became a fully accepted, mature part of the "production software engineering world", it's a solid career choice, from everything that can be predicted right now. Existing, non-startup companies are using ML/AI to solve real problems and its buzzword powers are shrinking every day.

But regarding autonomous driving, there seems to be stagnation. We now got cars that can "autonomously drive in most conditions but required a driver at the wheel at all times" for many years now. Tesla FSD updates seem to be incremental at best. Is there any company left still planning 100% autonomous taxis that can get drunk people home? I don't think so. And that would be the fucking holy grail of the transportation business. There are about 18 million taxi drivers in the world and most of them would lose their job, saving customers and companies billions.

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