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Uber launches flat fares in San Francisco through subscription

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Re: Uber launches flat fares in San Francisco through subscription

#101

Post by the_watcher »

jeffjose wrote: post #31
zaidf wrote: post #8

The copy on this page is super unclear. I just realized(after signing up) that the subscription is to get the special $2/ride pricing, not the actual ride. Put another way: after you have the $30/month subscription, you can get UberPools for $2/ride.

I thought that was clear. What were you confusing that with? I'm trying to understand what you initially thought it was.

The unclear part was the portion where you select how many rides you want. $30/40 rides doesn't exactly clearly imply that you're paying to pay for flat rates. Not saying that it's not on the page, or that they're hiding details, just that they definitely obscured that element.

Re: Uber launches flat fares in San Francisco through subscription

#102

Post by bsder »

the_watcher wrote: post #96
bsder wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse, Uber and Lyft threw a hissy fit in Austin and now there are competitors getting traction. Once you've got one city down, scaling it isn't that hard.

No, Austin kicked them out for bullshit reasons, citing safety of riding with un-fingerprinted drivers, when if you simply go out downtown in Austin now or before Uber, you'd see dozens of people knocking on random car windows and offering them cash for a ride. None of whom were fingerprinted. The competitors who have gotten traction also do not fingerprint, but as they are decentralized, there's not really a way to…

> The competitors who have gotten traction also do not fingerprint, but as they are decentralized, there's not really a way to regulate them out.

So, that would be why the city was overwhelmed fingerprinting drivers. Uh, yeah, let's see some evidence behind your statements.

And Austin didn't kick them out, Uber and Lyft LEFT. Uber and Lyft tried to hold Austin hostage, and, surprise, the Austin VOTERS bit them.

Re: Uber launches flat fares in San Francisco through subscription

#104

Post by lsc »

laksjd wrote: post #30
forgetsusername wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for just under $18, and nobody else pooled with me. How could this be fair to the drivers? So I asked the driver how much he was getting for the trip. I believe he said something like $50 Quite the business model. I wonder if they really believe they're earning goodwill at the rate of an Andrew Jackson per ride?

If they can kill the competition they can then crank the prices back up and profit of this for years and years. It feels slightly 'evil' but it does make business sense, especially if they know they can outlast their competitors.

I don't know. Right now? It costs me ten bucks a day to uber pool from my house in Santa Clara to my gig in mountain view and back. At those rates, I am totally paying and reading. But if that were twenty or thirty a day? Maybe not, or at least it would not be an every day thing.

The problem for uber is that I am paying the majority of the cost of owning a car, the parking space, either way, so switching back to driving myself has a low cost. Housing situations I want that don't come with "free" parking are few and far between in my area.

Now if uber would bully the city into letting someone build a parking free tower of studio condos? Yeah o.k. Maybe they could exploit the lack of competition to get me to pay a lot more for transport, but as it is, they need to keep the price below what I would pay to read for twenty minutes rather than drive, and I am not sure that would add up to a market clearing wage without some vc largess.

Re: Uber launches flat fares in San Francisco through subscription

#105

Post by SilasX »

the_watcher wrote: post #99
SilasX wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They only guarantee gross pay -- that figure doesn't include Uber's cut or operating expenses[1][2]. Together, that would make your taxable income something like 60% of the figure. [1] http://therideshareguy.com/what-to-make-of-the-2016-uber-hou... [2] And seriously, phrasing the guarantee as before their own cut? Come on, guys.

> And seriously, phrasing the guarantee as before their own cut? Come on, guys. I see your point here and am annoyed by this tendency, but to be fair, in the US, this is pretty common. After all, salaries are reported pre-tax, despite a $100K salary meaning wildly different post-tax nets depending on where in the country you live.

I wasn't objecting to pre-tax, I was objecting to pre-Uber's-cut. It's like if I said "I'll pay you $1200/week to work for me" and when your paycheck comes it's only $1000 (pretax) and I say, "oh yeah, that's my finder's fee".

Nothing wrong with a finder's fee. Lots wrong with promoting the pre-fee value.

Re: Uber launches flat fares in San Francisco through subscription

#106

Post by iamdave »

the_watcher wrote: post #96
bsder wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse, Uber and Lyft threw a hissy fit in Austin and now there are competitors getting traction. Once you've got one city down, scaling it isn't that hard.

No, Austin kicked them out for bullshit reasons, citing safety of riding with un-fingerprinted drivers, when if you simply go out downtown in Austin now or before Uber, you'd see dozens of people knocking on random car windows and offering them cash for a ride. None of whom were fingerprinted. The competitors who have gotten traction also do not fingerprint, but as they are decentralized, there's not really a way to…

Austin kicked them out? That's news to me as a resident because the distinct impression I got was that we the people voted we wanted drivers fingerprinted, and if they could do that, they could stay but apparently it was more cost effective to launch a million+ dollar campaign against the proposal and try running a sitting councilmember (who, sure, I'll admit, probably doesn't have good approval ratings) out of office and then left when the people voted in favor of the fingerprinting rules.

The same rules that Uber and Lyft seem to have no problem working under in Dallas and Houston.

Austin didn't kick anyone out, they left and good riddance I say. Fare and Fasten aren't perfect, but I will much more readily support a local company than Uber.

Re: Uber launches flat fares in San Francisco through subscription

#107

Post by r00fus »

Analemma_ wrote: post #10
tachyonbeam wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same reaction when I rode UberPool from the south bay into SF (a 45 minute ride) for just under $18, and nobody else pooled with me. How could this be fair to the drivers? So I asked the driver how much he was getting for the trip. I believe he said something like $50. Fortunately, he wasn't getting shortchanged. Later, someone pointed out to me that Lyft and Uber are aggressively competing right now. It se…

Margaret Thatcher once said "The problem with socialism is, you eventually run out of other people's money", which makes it ironic and humorous that Uber, the poster child of Valley Objectivism, has basically the same problem with their "price dumping funded by VCs" model.

Price dumping is the precursor to monopoly/cartel which then results in unassailable market barriers to entry and consequently large premiums.

If you're paying too little, you've got to expect that situation is not sustainable - either that good deal withers, or the vendor's lock on their customers means they can raise prices arbitrarily.

Re: Uber launches flat fares in San Francisco through subscription

#108

Post by chrisper »

superuser2 wrote: post #62
chrisper wrote: post #16

I do not really like Uber. The company does shady stuff quite often but also their drivers seem to be bad. They do not care at all about traffic laws. Illegal u-turns, stop wherever they want, etc. I can't surely be the only one who experienced this?

>stop wherever they want Have driven for Uber. There is approximately nowhere to legally stop in a busy downtown area aside from parking garages that cost $35+. The best you can do is pick stopping places that minimize disruption to traffic (i.e. fire hydrants, no parking zones that could easily accomodate parking, the parking spaces too close to the stop signs) and get into/out of them safely, signaling, watching mi…

I am not talking about busy downtowns. If there is a good place to stop, even if it brakes the law, such as stopping in front of a fire lane, then just do that. I am talking about situations where these people stop in the middle of the intersection to pick up or drop someone off.

I get the frustration in downtowns, but I live in San Jose, which is not busy downtown and it annoys me every time these people do weird things and impede the traffic flow.

Re: Uber launches flat fares in San Francisco through subscription

#109

Post by chrisper »

superuser2 wrote: post #65
NegativeLatency wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish that it wasn't the exception to be ticketed for that. I see it all the time, as long as drivers get off with a warning (and not a fine) it will keep happening.

Have you ever ordered a package from Amazon, had a pizza delivered, or taken a taxi? Been picked up by a friend or parent somewhere that didn't have its own parking spaces? If so, I'm guessing you've benefitted from a driver stopping or parking in a place they weren't legally allowed to stop. Do you think these services should go away, or what?

There is a difference in stopping somewhere illegally (e.g. in front of a fire lane for 5 minutes) or stopping anywhere and impeding traffic.

Just this morning I saw an uber driver stopping at the sidewalk but having the back of his car hanging in the lane making people having to drive around him. That is, in my opinion, just egoistic and annoying. On the other hand if you stop in front of the fire lane without impeding traffic, no one will care.

Re: Uber launches flat fares in San Francisco through subscription

#110

Post by NelsonMinar »

nicwolff wrote: post #66

Uber has taken $12B of capital, broken the regulatory regimes and opened the drive-for-hire markets, marketed the benefits of drive-for-hire and ride-sharing to drivers and consumers, and helped drivers finance vehicles – but now there seems to be no barrier to entry for any competing service except writing an app. I'm happy to let VCs pay for my comfortable daily ride to work but I don't see how this is sustainable.…

It's not sustainable. Uber is trying to drive competition out of business, so it then has monopoly pricing and can charge what it wants. We've seen a preview of this in China; the day Uber and Didi signed their agreement fares went significantly up because both companies dropped all their promotional discounts.
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