11–20 of 291 posts
I remember getting so much joy out of requesting an Uber back in the earlier days. Nowadays I get about as much joy out of Uber(pool) as using the bus, sometimes less because the wait time has increased so much.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The biggest days are going to be holidays...NYE and Halloween are probably #1/#2.
I'm not sure any one day is super important, but I honestly just don't know. Is 1 or 2 spikes in a season that lasts months going to carry you, especially when supply is limited?
I don't think this is a reflection of Lyft taking market share...more likely that the ridesharing industry has just matured. I remember getting so much joy out of requesting an Uber back in the earlier days. Nowadays I get about as much joy out of Uber(pool) as using the bus, sometimes less because the wait time has increased so much.
I wonder how much effect it would have on sales volume if ride prices were adjusted upwards to the break-even point? They must know what they are doing but it almost always seems counterintuitive to me to sell below cost over a long time period. I like Uber as a service but I don’t really care how they do, except that a friend works at their AI lab.
Supposedly Uber's original pitch to early stage investors was that they were going to grow so fast that they would quickly put all the competition out of business, and then, having achieved a monopoly, would begin to jack their fares way up. I don't know if that's true, but it's at least the only hypothesis that would seem to fit all the publicly available information. If it is true, then that would imply that they never intended to sell below cost over a long time period. It would also explain why they've been flailing for ancillary revenue sources since just about the exact moment it became clear that the story in their main market was going to be one of trench warfare rather than blitzkrieg.
I think uber’s rewards program will be successful and boost sales. I’ve switched all of my business meals and longer rides to Uber for this alone. Other food delivery services don’t offer a clear kickback. Lyft has a nice but poorly thought out program that gives you $5 in personal credit for every 5 business trips no matter how short.
How fast will you be gone once the nice rewards give way to price increases necessary to reach a sustainable business covering expenses, let alone profitability?
> Of the $11.4 billion in net revenue the company generated in 2018, $3 billion came in the last three months of the year, up only 2 percent from the previous quarter. To what degree does Uber's main business have seasonality? Are people going more places when it's nicer out in the Northern hemisphere?
I'd expect it to be positively correlated with nice weather in tourist destinations, because more people would be in town at all. I'd expect it to be inversely correlated in major urban centers, because the number of people needing to get around will have less seasonal variability, and walking, waiting for a bus and riding a bike are all relatively more attractive options when it's not gross outside.
> Of the $11.4 billion in net revenue the company generated in 2018, $3 billion came in the last three months of the year, up only 2 percent from the previous quarter. To what degree does Uber's main business have seasonality? Are people going more places when it's nicer out in the Northern hemisphere?
Every winter India witnesses a massive influx of westerns to its popular beach holiday locations of India (Goa, Pondicherry, etc.,). Similarly to the hill-stations of north India during summer.
He apparently accepted the ride before cancelling it, because the pickup and drop-off addresses were different. I got a $6.50 charge instead of the normal $5.00 cancellation charge. I wrote into Uber about it, and instead of refunding me $1.50 they refunded to full $6.50 amount.
Sometimes my Uber fares are super cheap. I paid $3.00 to go a mile in snowy weather in Denver the other day. It was a shared ride but nobody picked up.
I think Uber is spending lots of money, and could probably make their numbers better by tightening up. They'd lose some of my rides, but probably less than half of them. In more than half of them public transportation is inconvenient or unavailable for the full route (the last mile problem is relevant to me).
I for one am excited by the prospect of their failure.