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Uber Bonds Term Sheet Reveals $470M in Operating Losses

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Re: Uber Bonds Term Sheet Reveals $470M in Operating Losses

#101

Post by crdoconnor »

quonn wrote: post #89
crdoconnor wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Networks that have a larger customer and driver base can link them up quicker. That means that, at no extra cost to the network , the customer will end up waiting 2 minutes for a cab instead of 40, and the driver will end up waiting 2 minutes for a fare instead of 40. Would you pay extra for those 38 minutes as a customer? I would. Would you accept a lower commission as a driver if you spend less time waiting for far…

> Part of the monopoly advantage means that they can covertly punish drivers who choose to use competitors' apps by sending them fewer rides. If it's not already here, this tactic is probably coming very soon. If they try this as a monopoly, the Department of Justice will probably start investigating.

This is where political donations come in useful. They can be used to keep the DoJ at bay.

Re: Uber Bonds Term Sheet Reveals $470M in Operating Losses

#102

Post by prawn »

Aloisius wrote: post #80
prawn wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe their plan is just to subsidise drivers until self-driving cars arrive, by which time they will have brand dominance and can carry on merrily.

It seem highly unlikely that they're planning on waiting 20+ years it will take before fully autonomous vehicles are able to reliably navigate busy city streets and are licensed to do so without a driver behind the wheel.

I don't think it will be 20+ years in their initial, primary markets.

Re: Uber Bonds Term Sheet Reveals $470M in Operating Losses

#103

Post by dantheman »

iiiggglll wrote: post #64
Kalium wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having used the apps that literally hail a taxi through a smartphone button, I feel compelled to note that Uber has solved a lot more than that. They've also solved the utterly miserable taxi experience that follows pressing the button.

A few years ago I would have agreed with that, but I recently switched to Flywheel in SF because I was tired of the Uber drivers wandering around downtown's one-way streets for half an hour every time I hailed one of them because they don't know the city. I'm not exactly thrilled about going back to taxis, but at least they don't act like it's their first day behind the wheel. (And with Flywheel they can no longer li…

Drivers not knowing the area, getting lost, etc are not restricted to Uber/Lyft - I've had many taxi rides in the US where the driver has no idea how to get places - in SF/NYC/LA/BOS/DC -- so not even restricted to 1 city.

Re: Uber Bonds Term Sheet Reveals $470M in Operating Losses

#105

Post by Dwolb »

lsc wrote: post #65
Dwolb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could break the Uber lock on the market if supply and demand are not sufficiently random to require Uber's marketplace to coordinate. That is, if it is usually convenient for Joe to depart from work at a certain hour and this is a time when Maureen typically likes to drive, both Joe and Maureen could potentially disintermediate Uber and split the marginal gain. This solution could look like a simple payments app,…

Eh, I think the "one big marketplace" model is best. I... honestly, I don't want another relationship I have to worry about. I know it sounds terrible, but I just want to get to work every now and again, and I don't want to have to plan it ahead. My point is that you don't have to run the cars to run a marketplace, though the money is being thrown at doing both at once in an effort to lock the running of the cars int…

Hm, I think 'one big marketplace' is how people originally thought about messaging online. I don't need WhatsApp, I have SMS. I don't need Snapchat I have WhatsApp. I don't need Facebook, I have Twitter.' However, horizontal differentiation in messaging and social has allowed people to use different tools depending on context. In fact, it's currently a bit silly to think you'd spam all your message or social apps at once using a single app or service.

I don't really feel there is a natural monopoly with today's tech when it comes to carsharing. This goes back to my first couple of points where ultimate coordination and reduction of friction may be better served by local/human players to some extent.

Re: Uber Bonds Term Sheet Reveals $470M in Operating Losses

#106

Post by hooo »

cma wrote: post #55
howlingfantods wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In China the taxi oligopolies are very strong and the taxis are notorious for poor service. In Beijing, they come with their doors locked and roll the windows down to ask you where you want to go, to see if they feel like going in that direction.

Don't Uber drivers do the same by just not choosing fares that go to certain locations?

They don't see the destination before accepting

Re: Uber Bonds Term Sheet Reveals $470M in Operating Losses

#107

Post by wpietri »

icebraining wrote: post #88
wpietri wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked for financial traders I won't call them the very worst company in the world. But if my choices were working for them or quitting the industry, I wouldn't blink. For me it's more the accumulation of awfulness. They started out as a scheme to time-share limos among young entitled dudebros. They entered the market with the black cars, exploiting a status-good dynamic. They've shifted all of the capital cos…

How is Uber in any way different in terms of "job security" and "getting paid only when they are useful" than taxis? Taxi drivers were already mostly contractors, who had to pay to work (renting a medallion from one of the rich guys who owned them, renting the car, paying for gas) and then got paid per ride. I dislike Uber as a company in general, but I don't get this idea that they represent some worsening of the wo…

The cab drivers I talk to (which is a fair number, since I still take cabs) by and large hate Uber and are quite happy to talk about it, so if you're really curious, drop $20 and ask.

That said, my take: Taxi drivers were mostly contractors, and they did have to rent the cab. But I think that's way better than having to buy the whole goddamn car and then hope that they make it back. Plus paying all of the maintenance and being out of work if a car broke. They also had to pay the medallion fee, but most of them liked that system, because a) it restricted the number of cabs such that they could make decent money if they worked hard, and b) they saw the medallion system as their version of retirement planning. Specifically, here in SF medallions could be bought only by working taxi drivers, and in order on a waiting list. So the ones that talked about it to me were pretty comfortable with the system.

So along those axes, I think Uber is actually worse, and I think that mainly because cabbies say so. I agree that the previous condition still wasn't great, though.

Re: Uber Bonds Term Sheet Reveals $470M in Operating Losses

#108

Post by wpietri »

omarchowdhury wrote: post #47
wpietri wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked for financial traders I won't call them the very worst company in the world. But if my choices were working for them or quitting the industry, I wouldn't blink. For me it's more the accumulation of awfulness. They started out as a scheme to time-share limos among young entitled dudebros. They entered the market with the black cars, exploiting a status-good dynamic. They've shifted all of the capital cos…

'In the Uber model we'll get paid only during the instants we are directly useful to somebody with money.' I'm sorry, but that sounds more like the efficiency that capitalism optimizes towards.

Yes. But we as citizens get to decide how much we want to let our society be determined by raw capitalism. Freedom to starve in the gutter is one kind of freedom, but not the only one.

Re: Uber Bonds Term Sheet Reveals $470M in Operating Losses

#109

Post by wpietri »

HappyTypist wrote: post #79
wpietri wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked for financial traders I won't call them the very worst company in the world. But if my choices were working for them or quitting the industry, I wouldn't blink. For me it's more the accumulation of awfulness. They started out as a scheme to time-share limos among young entitled dudebros. They entered the market with the black cars, exploiting a status-good dynamic. They've shifted all of the capital cos…

Sometimes local laws are not worth complying. Taxi medallions are one example - they artificially limit supply and break the market. The argument that a limit on taxis is needed to prevent congestion ignores the whole concept of 'supply and demand'. Too many taxis? The market will correct itself, just like what's happening with Uber drivers (I know many are quitting due to the excess supply).

I understand that many people have substituted a faith in "the market" for a faith in god, so forgive me if I offend somebody's religious sensibilities here.

But it turns out there were historical reasons the supply of taxis was artificially limited. An argument like this, which conflates "good" with "whatever the market does" is a terrible argument because it is only sidestepping the point. If you want to say the supply restrictions are bad, then you either need to find a different solution that solves the problem or to make an argument that the harm done by supply restrictions is worse than any other possible solution, so we should just let the market ride.

Markets can sometimes magically self-correct. But market failure [1] is a thing, and even when it isn't, market optimum is not always a human optimum. And markets are not our masters, but tools we use to serve humans.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure

Re: Uber Bonds Term Sheet Reveals $470M in Operating Losses

#110

Post by wpietri »

lsc wrote: post #67
wpietri wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked for financial traders I won't call them the very worst company in the world. But if my choices were working for them or quitting the industry, I wouldn't blink. For me it's more the accumulation of awfulness. They started out as a scheme to time-share limos among young entitled dudebros. They entered the market with the black cars, exploiting a status-good dynamic. They've shifted all of the capital cos…

>Throughout all of this, they sing a song of "entrepreneurship" and "worker independence" while providing low-quality, low-stability jobs and making long-term plans to put every one of their drivers out of work. So, of the people I know working for Uber... it seems that compared to other unskiled labor jobs open to them? By all accounts, Uber is worlds better than foodservice, unless you count both the lack of disabi…

Sure, I get that some people are happy with the Uber work. But that doesn't make Uber good. Because Uber is just exploiting that population, shifting their capital costs and risks to people without a lot of options.

And these are all very temporary jobs. The only reason Uber has such a high valuation is that they plan to fuck those people over. "Kalanick has said that he can't wait for the moment when he can get rid of 'the other dude in the car,'" writes Vice [1]. They just spent a shit-ton of money on robot car research, destroying an AI lab in the process. [2]

[1] http://www.vice.com/read/all-the-reasons-why-uber-is-the-wor... [2] http://www.theverge.com/transportation/2015/5/19/8622831/ube...

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