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How Uber Got Lost

nytimes.com

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Re: How Uber Got Lost

#131

Post by jandrese »

dd36 wrote: post #43
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…

Ironically, if the drivers were actual employees, it’d be an actual barrier.

I was just thinking this. In treating their workforce as disposable they themselves became disposable.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#132

Post by [deleted] »

mantas wrote: post #63
Consultant32452 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought a lot about this. I think, if the price is right, it could work for families in lieu of a second car. In a "traditional" family there's two vehicles. One is a commuter car and the other is a family-mobile (Van/SUV) which holds all the stuff. In this case, the commuter car could theoretically be replaced by a car service in many cases. The other problem is that people would have to stop seeing cars as a s…

At least in my whereabouts all (solo or both) cars have same role. One for mom and another for dad. Likely one is coming in later to drop kid off and other is leaving job early to pick him up. Or maybe multiple kids go to different institutions. There's no clear separation between kids-ok and no-kids car in family. IMO the fantasy of car sharing is naive and I'd even say it's counterproductive for the supposed goals.…

[deleted]

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#133

Post by dumbfoundded »

jandrese wrote: post #131
dd36 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, if the drivers were actual employees, it’d be an actual barrier.

I was just thinking this. In treating their workforce as disposable they themselves became disposable.

Not necessarily. Growth depends on the price charged to the customer. The unit economics of using "contactors" to circumvent labor (minimum wage) laws, probably offers this model to provide the cheapest price to customers. When you take into account car depreciation, the median Uber driver earns something like half of the minimum wage.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#134

Post by ec109685 »

cryptica wrote: post #73

Uber didn't get lost. It simply was never the kind of company that could acquire a monopoly big enough and fast enough to justify a multi-billion dollar valuation. I'm starting to think that many of the most successful tech companies of the past decade are not real monopolies but succeeded purely because the centralization of capital made it difficult for alternative projects to compete for a limited period of time.…

This is so pessimistic. There is no realistic scenario where they won’t be worth many billions of dollars. They are a technology company where the marginal cost of services performed is essentially 0.

While their valuation might be too high now, it is really good business that doesn’t require a monopoly to be successful.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#135

Post by _hardwaregeek »

dymk wrote: post #110
_hardwaregeek wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, politeness dictates. I suppose I could lie. Or just refuse to answer.

You're overthinking this; when I say what Big Evil Tech Company I work at, 9/10 times they say "Oh that's neat I bet working there is really fun", and the remaining 1/10 time is "Oh what do you think about Cambridge Analytica"

There’s a slight difference in the sort of abstract evil that Cambridge Analytica poses and the very tangible changes that Amazon and Microsoft are bringing to Seattle. Your average person isn’t going to understand data collection and its role in political manipulation but they will understand rent increases and gentrification.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#136

Post by Bostonian »

_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…

"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."

Uber customers are not generally deceiving Uber drivers, and if they want to feel better about themselves, they can tip. No one is forced to driver for Uber. The United States is a rich country in part because people can move to better job opportunities throughout the nation. That mobility does not deserve the "carpetbagging" slur.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#137

Post by rgovostes »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #127
nsuser3 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe by detecting the notification vibration?

But how would they know it's from Lyft?

The article says, "But detecting sounds in a driver’s car without permission was clearly invasive." But it also explicitly says it would use the accelerometer and gyroscope. Perhaps these are sensitive enough to pick up vibrations from the speaker.

Different apps have unique vibration patterns, as well. A text message on my iPhone is two buzzes, but a NYTimes news alert is one. Perhaps if you detected a single buzz, and then picked up motion because I'm double-clicking the home button, you could presume that I'm switching apps to respond to the notification.

Most drivers would have sound on and not purely use vibrations, because the phone is not in their pocket.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#138

Post by jen20 »

mturmon wrote: post #108
jen20 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in Austin many times over the period that Uber and Lyft were not there. One of my takeaways was that building a mobile app which feels polished and actually works as advertised is _hard_ - not one of the local competitors managed it. Most of them didn’t even bother to distribute their app outside the US App Stores (a common issue with American companies) making it next to impossible to use for international vis…

> ...Uber’s GPS navigation is unspeakably bad in most metros, offering idiotic routes... On this tangent: I took a few Lyfts around LA recently, with the driver following Lyft navigation. For the longer airport rides, that navigation was indeed "unspeakably bad", diverting onto surface roads that ended up adding 15 minutes to a 45-minute trip. Not being in a hurry, I let it play out on two trips. I looked at traffic…

I believe Uber used to use Google maps and switched away from it to something else.

Where I live now, it doesn’t understand that Uber cars are registered as minicabs and can therefore use a variety of roads closed to normal cars. Consequently what should be a 2-3 minute pickup is often quoted as 15 or more as it suggests the driver will be going around the entire city perimeter when they can actually go across. Fortunately the drivers (usually) know that and completely ignore the GPS!

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#139

Post by jen20 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #114
jen20 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in Austin many times over the period that Uber and Lyft were not there. One of my takeaways was that building a mobile app which feels polished and actually works as advertised is _hard_ - not one of the local competitors managed it. Most of them didn’t even bother to distribute their app outside the US App Stores (a common issue with American companies) making it next to impossible to use for international vis…

I (mostly) disagree. I always prefer to take RideAustin now because they pay their drivers more and donate a large amount of money to local charities with their round up feature. RideAustin was most definitely sub-par when it first came out, but considering it was rushed on a teeny shoe-string, non-profit budget, that's not surprising. I'm sure Uber and Lyft had lots of issues when they first launched, too. Point bei…

It’s only 100% adequate if you can download it and it takes the payment you have. During the entire period Uber was away, this was not the case for me, making it 100% useless instead.

During that period, I rented a car each time I flew in.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#140

Post by kpennell »

ghaff wrote: post #62
kpennell wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

random data point from Berlin...multiple US friends cannot use JUMP bikes (owned by Uber) using their USA uber apps. Something just doesn't work. So I think this must be hard for companies to get right.

Probably hard. And the general rules about the effort to handle all the edge cases. It's also reasonable, especially if you're prioritizing time to market and especially if you know you may have a small window, you may decide that a lot of the edge cases just aren't very important. How much does JUMP really care if US visitors to Berlin can use their bikes or not?

Yeah, true.
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