Uber Hires Former Google Search Chief Amit Singhal as SVP of Engineering

Post by byoung2 » Sat, Jan 21, 2017, 12:48 AM UTC

taxicabjesus wrote: post #63

byoung2 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't want 'on demand' employment, they want stability. Because of outsourcing and automation, the economy doesn't need as many workers anymore. Uber's business model is entirely dependent on this phenomenon. Do you see this phenomenon going away anytime soon? My grandparents' generation worked at a single company for life. My parents switched companies maybe 3 times in their careers. I have worked for 9…

> Do you see this phenomenon going away anytime soon? The economic paradigm has to change. I think something will shift, eventually. Searching for 'john gatto livelihood' just now brought up this link: http://www.wtp.org/archive/transcripts/john_taylor_gatto.htm... - John Taylor Gatto (1991 New York State Teacher of the Year) Interview By Jerry Brown, March 25, 1997 It's probably worth reading the whole thing, but if…

Post by ctrl_freak » Sat, Jan 21, 2017, 12:52 AM UTC

hueving wrote: post #97

cbau wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The articles I have read have made it sound like a Catch-22. They cannot profit while they have to pay drivers, but self-driving cars will enable competition from both software companies and automakers, especially if an automaker reduces the need for capital by renting out self-driving cars. It's unclear how Uber will not be further commoditized by self-driving cars.

By beating people to market with self driving cars. That's the reason Uber is pushing it.

Post by beguiledfoil » Sat, Jan 21, 2017, 1:27 AM UTC

throwaway91111 wrote: post #109

beguiledfoil wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Uber is footing an addiction to cheap transport nobody knows how to satiate. Just ride a bike. Not an option in the burbs, for sure, but taking an uber is not an efficiency gain the way public transit or bicycles are. IMHO low density communities will die. They cannot be saved.

Public transit isn't an option in the country. Neither is biking: you can't bike your father to the er when his hip breaks. Uber is, and it's displacing sustainable transit. What happens when they try to justify it? They're basing their world view on efficient economies, but they're getting there with a subsidized economy. The way this ends is either with a) starving drivers or b) unaffordable transport for those bel…

Post by groby_b » Sat, Jan 21, 2017, 1:49 AM UTC

carussell wrote: post #104

groby_b wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"they've got a self-driving cars program that's halfway off the ground" In the sense that a working model airplane gives me a space program that's halfway off the ground. And why would they improve OSM at all? Actually collecting and cleaning mapping data is not cheap. There's no incentive in contributing to OSM, it doesn't build a moat, it doesn't further their access to markets,...

> And why would they improve OSM at all? It's in their business interests to make sure their fleet and their delivery drivers have accurate mapping info. Is there something unclear about the way I worded this in the comment you responded to?

Post by Eridrus » Sat, Jan 21, 2017, 2:19 AM UTC

ctrl_freak wrote: post #110

Eridrus wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are real economies of scale in ride service. Once you have enough customers your cars are better utilised and your costs are lower, this means that while Uber's cap table may be all fucked up by the time it happens, it will lose less money competing on price than new entrants. Depending on how large these economies of scale are, even the fact that a new entrants would be doing less volume (and therefore…

This analysis strongly suggests that there isn't economies of scale in ride service: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver...