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How Uber Got Lost

nytimes.com

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Re: How Uber Got Lost

#11

Post by remarkEon »

_hardwaregeek wrote: post #9

I feel deeply uncomfortable taking Ubers, especially in Seattle. The drivers are inevitably working class folk, just trying to scrape by. They inevitably mention the increasing rent and cost of living. They inevitably ask what I do and I have to respond that I'm one of the asshole carpetbagging tech people who come in and raise the cost of living, raise the rent. Services like Uber are placing the class barrier front…

How is this different from taking a cab? Honest question.

Maybe the difference is the relationship between employer and employee in that regard.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#12

Post by kuzehanka »

devoply wrote: post #4

It seems none of this turn people into peon services at behest of capitalists are really sustainable other than for deceptive tactics to bilk more money than customers are willing to pay by for instance stealing tips in order to make them seem like they are sustainable or growth businesses.

> It seems none of this turn people into peon services at behest of capitalists are really sustainable

Like the entire employment sector?

At the core of it, all Uber/Airtasker/AirBnB etc. are doing is cutting out the middle man and replacing it with a far more efficient technology. Regulations will come, but they won't undo the existence of these platforms because they're more efficient and better for everyone except the middle man.

> stealing tips in order to make them seem like they are sustainable or growth businesses

Like the US restaurant industry?

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#13

Post by epistasis »

jrockway wrote: post #2

The infrastructure they've built their business on is crumbling. Every so often I'm running late and think to myself "I should just drive" (by which I mean take an Uber). I check the driving times in Google Maps and it's as long as waiting for the subway and walking. There are just too many people on the roads for cars to be a competitive mode of transport; people only drive when there is absolutely no other option.…

When Uber started with their black car service many years ago, the drivers seemed universally happier to work for Uber than the shady limo services that typically served as a ride broker; they knew they would get paid and they knew how much and could make a decision for themselves about what their best options were.

Capitalism always works better when people have enough economic freedom to say "no, I'm worth more than that," or "I can make an investment with this money and even if it disappears I'll still be able to eat." Pretty much all economic models assume that people have enough economic independence. It falls down when people are desperate and have no choice and have to take whatever is given to them. All of a sudden the system that allocates resources to the those who use them best starts to exploit people that have no other choice, and the resources start getting wasted.

Uber's recent years have all been about exploiting drivers that have few other options; they position themselves as a side job, but it's become the job of last resort that everybody is doing on the side, but dislikes the extreme pressure from every single interaction.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#14

Post by YeahSureWhyNot »

uber is making money from almost all of the rides and they keep around 35% to themselves. uber has 22000 people (not including drivers) working for it while facebook has 37000. all of Facebook's apps and underlying tech have been tremendously evolving and developing for years which can't be said about uber's app or their tech in general. uber will become profitable when they shed at least half of their employees at which point they will become just like Groupon or Zynga.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#15

Post by dumbfoundded »

I think NYT misses the point. The problem with Uber isn't some cultural issue, it's that they're in an extremely tough and competitive business. It's really a race to the bottom.

The logic I kept hearing repeated is ride-sharing is a winner take all market. Like once you have a network of drivers setup giving people the lowest times for rides, you can force other competitors out and raise prices.

Time has proven how wrong this thinking was. It's almost impossible to stop competitors in ride-sharing because the cost of switching for customers is low, there are no legal or capital ex competitive barriers, and you can be picked apart city by city. Even drivers are incentivized to download as many of these apps as possible.

The whole situation seems awfully similar to Living Social and Groupon.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#16

Post by epistasis »

_hardwaregeek wrote: post #9

I feel deeply uncomfortable taking Ubers, especially in Seattle. The drivers are inevitably working class folk, just trying to scrape by. They inevitably mention the increasing rent and cost of living. They inevitably ask what I do and I have to respond that I'm one of the asshole carpetbagging tech people who come in and raise the cost of living, raise the rent. Services like Uber are placing the class barrier front…

You didn't do that. It's not tech that's increasing housing prices in Seattle, it's the people that have houses and don't want to have to share their city that are causing rising prices.

The US is a nation of immigrants and migrants, and the cities that have decided "no we are full and only care about current residents" are the ones who have created this situation, not you. Do you have a paid off house, own land and try to keep people out? If not, you are not to blame.

Another problem is that it takes an Uber ride for you to experience the class difference. We have let class and racial segregation become an acceptable and even expected state of matters in our cities. We need to reverse that segregation in addition to reversing the "got mine, forget you" policies of cities that are driving up rents.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#17

Post by seibelj »

_hardwaregeek wrote: post #9

I feel deeply uncomfortable taking Ubers, especially in Seattle. The drivers are inevitably working class folk, just trying to scrape by. They inevitably mention the increasing rent and cost of living. They inevitably ask what I do and I have to respond that I'm one of the asshole carpetbagging tech people who come in and raise the cost of living, raise the rent. Services like Uber are placing the class barrier front…

Do you do the same complex class calculation every time you interact with a cashier, talk to a receptionist, or pass a janitor? People do honest work and earn a living, no shame in that. Your life must be exhausting if you have a class-based panic attack when you hop in an Uber!

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#18

Post by dumbfoundded »

todd3834 wrote: post #5

I feel like Uber became a gamble on self driving technology. It will be interesting to see if they can last long enough to see it happen. I could see them running out of money before that happens but I kind of hope they make it.

Uber really has no advantage to self-driving. A customer network doesn't mean much if you cannot finance actually building the cars. They also don't any training data to give them a tech advantage.

It'd make way more sense for an existing car company to build the features into the car and let the owner rent out the car when they don't need it. (Telsa, GM/Cruise).

Another option is to simply build the best technology and use ungodly piles of money to finance building the cars. Only Google or Apple could really do this.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#19

Post by whatshisface »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #15

I think NYT misses the point. The problem with Uber isn't some cultural issue, it's that they're in an extremely tough and competitive business. It's really a race to the bottom. The logic I kept hearing repeated is ride-sharing is a winner take all market. Like once you have a network of drivers setup giving people the lowest times for rides, you can force other competitors out and raise prices. Time has proven how…

The cultural problem is with the investors that are willing to spend $100B to win a cut-throat $10M/year profit market.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#20

Post by clairity »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #15

I think NYT misses the point. The problem with Uber isn't some cultural issue, it's that they're in an extremely tough and competitive business. It's really a race to the bottom. The logic I kept hearing repeated is ride-sharing is a winner take all market. Like once you have a network of drivers setup giving people the lowest times for rides, you can force other competitors out and raise prices. Time has proven how…

also the value chain of driver->dispatcher->rider just doesn't have a lot of extra margin to squeeze out of the ride-hailing business to make it really profitable (this should have been obvious from the beginning to VCs).

once uber/lyft cut out the dispatcher, reduce no-shows a tiny bit, increase utilization a bit, off-loaded cap ex/risk to drivers, where do the killer profits come from?

when you do a five forces analysis, the only place they have some leverage is on the drivers (supplier-side), whom they've already squeezed down to below minimum wage (on average).

walmart can eek out huge profits from a low-margin business because they provide essentials that are hard to subsitute at their price point. ride-hailing is not nearly as essential and has a number of substitutes available in most places.

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