I believe Uber will be successful with this idea and kill quite a few startups in the process.
Announcing UberPool
131–140 of 159 posts
Re: Announcing UberPool
#132"Our friends at Google will also be joining us in the beta. They share our vision of a more energy-efficient world with less traffic congestion and pollution in our cities and are excited to be early adopters of UberPool." I don't quite understand what that means. Are they saying that all Google employees have access to the beta, or is Google involved in some other way?
Random guess:
they may be modifying one of the routing algorithms with google maps. How far of a deviation can you make from a given route to pickup another group without increasing the ride time by X percentage type questions?
Re: Announcing UberPool
#133Cab With Me[1] is doing this in NYC right now (head of biz dev here). MIT came out with a study[2] that showed ~80% of cab rides in 2011 could have been shared, if there was an easy facilitator. [1] http://www.welcome.cabwith.me/ [2] http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2014/03/how-system-shared-t...
Lol be careful of Uber. They've been known to try aggressive tactics in the past.
<-- locks deadbolt
Re: Announcing UberPool
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Boston has a very strong biking culture, partly due to the large number of university students there.
Well, putting aside the endless war between cars and bikes... Several of my friends who bike regularly (hasn't happened to me, thankfully) have been hit by cars while biking, even though they were following the law and had all manner of blinky lights on their person. I think that while the biking culture in Boston is great, it won't be a good replacement for cars until there are more bike lanes and more careful drive…
Copenhagen has curbed lanes dedicated to bikes and the people take full advantage. I saw several Christiana Bikes on the road while there (In fact one lady used one to drag back a loveseat sofa!)
Re: Announcing UberPool
#135Sounds very similar to Hitch[0] which launched a couple of months ago in SF. It sounds very useful for long, expensive trips (e.g., cross bay, down to south bay) where the fixed cost of picking up or dropping off another passenger is a smaller factor. On an unrelated note, how is the form at the bottom supposed to update you when UberPool is in your area? Area codes are going to be inaccurate for anybody who's moved…
Not to sound pedantic, but I think you mean marginal cost.
Re: Announcing UberPool
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are Uber users this price conscious though? I think their core user base skews to a higher net worth, and aren't going to be the kinds of people that want to share a car with another person. The only thing they'll know about the person they are sharing with going in is that they are too cheap to take their own Uber ride. This just doesn't sound like it will work with their core user base. Maybe they are trying to exp…
> The only thing they'll know about the person they are sharing with going in is that they are too cheap to take their own Uber ride. Oh the horror. I don't know if higher net-worth necessarily means that there aren't a good amount of those that are mindful of their spending (or cheap ).
In the Millionaire next Door (or maybe it was the Millionaire Mind), it was pointed out that a common way of becoming a high net worth individual isn't to make an obscenely huge amount of money; but rather to be careful about how you spend the money that you do make. A lot of high net worth individuals own their own business, and make a good income, but are also frugal enough that they are able to build up wealth rather than make the money and immediately spend it.
Re: Announcing UberPool
#137The First Name and Last Name fields do not appear to work in Firefox. The input is correctly entered, but the text is not Visible.
Disabling the box-sizing: border-box shows the content. Anyone ever run into an issue like this before?
Re: Announcing UberPool
#138A buddy of mine already made and launched the exact same thing (without Uber branding, obviously): http://www.jumpinstudent.co.uk/
It was really successful; and he got bought out for a decent sum of money.
Re: Announcing UberPool
#139I'm a periodic Uber user and tend to use it later when public transit isn't running. This would be interesting, and if cheap enough, could be more convenient than waiting for a bus if you're in an area where they don't run frequently and it's storming, extremely hot, you don't want to wait around. I also just tried out Car2Go which costed me ~$15. The same trip from Uber, albiet at a different time of day, costs $9-1…
Are Uber users this price conscious though? I think their core user base skews to a higher net worth, and aren't going to be the kinds of people that want to share a car with another person. The only thing they'll know about the person they are sharing with going in is that they are too cheap to take their own Uber ride. This just doesn't sound like it will work with their core user base. Maybe they are trying to exp…
I became an uber user because it became cost comparable to taxi's. The uber experience is significantly better than NYC cabs and now that it will be cheaper it really is no contest anymore.
Re: Announcing UberPool
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there a reason you don't want to just bike? Seems like the perfect distance for it, and it's free after the initial investment of a couple hundred dollars.
simply not a practical option for everyone. I only do it because I can bikeshare one way home. After biking a few miles in DC in the summer I need a shower and complete change of clothes. Also, before they put the bike lanes in biking during rush hour felt stressful and dangerous.
I hear you; a lot of people feel the same way (I'm lucky enough to be able to shower at each end; if I don't bike commute it's usually more laziness).
That said, a lot of people seem to sweat less on bikes with an electric assist; people worried about sweat might look into those as an alternative.