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

Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 294 posts

Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

#161

Post by prostoalex »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #32
hosay123 wrote: post #18

My inner paranoid finds this interesting from the perspective of Google entering yet another domain where they have high accuracy data on the present/future whereabouts and private concerns of a large number of people.. add it to the hundred other properties they maintain that appear to have no direct business value other than capturing masses of sensitive data that was previously nicely decentralized and private. Ca…

Well you're in luck on that last point, because nobody has ever paid for their meal with Google Wallet.

They are now sending people debit Mastercards, which presumably is much more convenient for non-tech folks to use in the contexts you're referring to

https://support.google.com/wallet/answer/3529204?hl=en

Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

#162

Post by JacobAldridge »

krschultz wrote: post #53
bobbles wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love a service where I can rent some storage unit out in the middle of the country somewher (I live in Australia..) for cheap cheap prices, then just call a car/van to my house with an app, load it up with gear, and have it delivered out to my storage unit. Seems like a great way to handle people in my situation where I can only afford a small place but don't necessarily want to get rid of all my stuff just becau…

Everything you described, but with people! https://www.makespace.com/

I thought of Make Space as well - but there's a quite a difference between "Manhattan" and "middle of Australia".

Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

#163

Post by username223 »

rottyguy wrote: post #77
ajju wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That $0.56 number includes depreciation. There are other costs like insurance which are non-trivial. Initially at least, it's not going to be much less.

Actually, insurance in driverless cars should be trivial. Accidents should drop to near 0 (over time) due to driver error... at least in theory.

That's like saying "software should become bug-free over time." I'm not sure it's actually getting worse over time, but it sure isn't getting better. Have you ever had to find a bug in a Wordpress plugin written in PHP by a part-time developer, that generates JavaScript, that in turn generates buggy HTML? I doubt wonky driverless cars trying to optimize a bunch of conflicting metrics (operation cost, utilization, revenue (from fares/ads/analytics), security, etc.), plugged into a constantly updating global mapping system, will have a decreasing number of bugs over time.

Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

#165

Post by SyneRyder »

boomzilla wrote: post #63
fidotron wrote: post #31

Uber have struck me before as a bigger potential headache for Google than even Facebook were/are, and I suspect this is all an effort to acquire them and drive the price down. There is something about the automated dispatch at giant scale business which overlaps with the search as interface idea. "Get me to [wherever]" is a natural extension of what you might do after searching. Furthermore, the act of finding a driv…

This is very spot on. Savvy advertisers are already rubbing their hands, waiting for the day when they can get access to Uber data. Imagine if one can send a message/notification to the people heading towards certain restaurants in Uber cars, asking "How about visiting my place instead, first drink and dessert is on the house :)"

Uber is already doing/testing this in a better way. They had free Uber week in Perth not long ago, with discounts & freebies offered at a number of restaurants if you made them your final Uber destination.

I don't usually go out on a whim to a restaurant when the taxi is $40 each way, but when the travel cost is dramatically subsidized by the venue or zero...

Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

#167

Post by nostrademons »

aetherson wrote: post #137
ajju wrote: post #7

Google is the only company with a potential edge over Uber right now. The point in time at which self-driving cars are usable by the the public is the only visible inflection point where Uber's hegemony is truly threatened. (edit) The article suggest self driving cars, and by extension Google's ridesharing service won't be ready for 2-5 more years.

Huh? No. Anyone with relatively deep pockets could easily disrupt Uber right now. Uber's technology is pretty simple and straightforward, and not meaningfully patent-protected. You can do the same tech given six months or so and a decent engineering team. And Uber's customer-base is price sensitive. You can easily get into this market if you're willing to price compete with Uber. Now, Uber is very willing to price-co…

The hard part of Uber isn't the tech, it's building up the network. Two-sided marketplaces are really hard to build from scratch, when there are no competitors. They're virtually impossible once both your customers and your drivers are like "I've already had good experiences with Uber. Why would I take a chance on you?"

That's why Google has an advantage over everyone else - for them it's a one-sided marketplace, they don't need to worry about the driver. And that gives them a big cost advantage over Uber.

Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

#168

Post by cpeterso »

billsimpson wrote: post #118
thirtyseven wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Passengers in cars are potentially a huge captive advertising audience.

Boston cabs do this now (I assume it's happening all over) by playing a short ad reel that loops over and over. It's pretty horrible. If that's their end game here, I'd be disappointed.

Given Google's knowledge about the rider/user and the taxi rope and destination, they ought to be able to provide veto high value advertising.

Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

#169

Post by prostoalex »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #8

If Google competes directly with a company they are invested in via GV they're going to really damage the reputation of GV. Why would you accept investment from them if they're going to get access to your private info and then turn around and screw you.

The amount of secret sauce that's being shared with VCs is really up to the company. If the company is doing well, request for anything beyond the financials and strategy docs would be suspicious.
Post reply on HN