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The Uber Bubble

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Re: The Uber Bubble

#181

Post by nerdponx »

westcort wrote: post #35

My key takeaways: 1. Uber is actually a higher cost/less efficient producer of urban car services than the taxi companies it has driven out of business 2. Individual Uber drivers with limited capital cannot acquire, finance, maintain and insure vehicles more economically than Yellow Cab 3. Expenses other than drivers, vehicles, and fuel account for 15 percent of traditional taxi costs but Uber charges drivers 25-30 p…

With this many billion dollars on the line, one can never be too cynical.

One has to wonder if this has been the endgame all along: driving taxi services out of business, replacing them with a monopoly where consumers pay the same price (or higher) and where drivers are paid less.

I will say that services like Uber have been very beneficial for areas that were previously underserved by traditional taxi companies. But that alone probably doesn't justify this multibillion-dollar wealth transfer operation.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#182

Post by seoaeu »

xwolfi wrote: post #177
sbarre wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both drivers had been doing Uber for a long time, which would be surprising if they were getting ripped off Did you happen to ask if this was their full-time gig, or if they were doing it as supplementary income?

It's probably a side gig, which is amazing. It means taxi didn't need to be a job all along.

Amazing for whom? Certainly not for the gig workers who don’t get employee benefits and are now sometimes making sub-minimum wage after accounting for gas and deprecation

Re: The Uber Bubble

#183

Post by enahs-sf »

A more egalitarian Uber/DoorDash/Lyft/etc. where all players in the market benefit and the company solely exists to provide value lives rent free in my head. In the practical reality however, the idea seems somewhat intractable.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#185

Post by seoaeu »

thematrixturtle wrote: post #87
novok wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you driven a cab before? Do you know for north america at least, the standard model is drivers are independent contractors and rent out the cars or the medallion license from medallion owners? Many medallion owners are not drivers themselves. Taxi companies are generally a collection of licenses, car rental, some branding and advertising and dispatch services. The angry taxi people you see protesting Uber or equ…

Yes, I think we're actually on the same side of the argument here. TL;DR of what I was trying to say is that Uber may be exploiting drivers, but it's still meaningfully better for them than the alternatives.

> Uber may be exploiting drivers, but it's still meaningfully better for them than the alternatives.

That’s how exploitation works! You take someone who has few/no other options and leverage that fact to get them to agree to an unfair deal.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#186

Post by jimbokun »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #169

I feel this entire thread has quite missed the point of the question the way a neutrino passes through a solid object and interacts with nothing but empty space. People have talked about microeconomics, gig economies, labour shifting, bad old days, safety, subsidies, licenses.... but we've gotten no closer to understanding; "Why Is a Company That Lost Billions Claimed to Be Successful?" To answer this one must ask "W…

So Uber is a Dutch tulip.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#187

Post by chipotle_coyote »

germinalphrase wrote: post #163
thematrixturtle wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is hardly an original insight: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-uber-makes-its-drivers-pay-... And WSJ's survey (above) indicates that many Uber drivers are not actually aware that this is where the money is effectively coming from.

“ And WSJ's survey (above) indicates that many Uber drivers are not actually aware that this is where the money is effectively coming from” Which is another way of saying that they don’t understand the economics enough to know they’re accepting a bad deal?

Yes, basically. And it's certainly not in Uber's interest to help them understand.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#188

Post by seoaeu »

treis wrote: post #173
thematrixturtle wrote: post #9

The real magic of Uber is that it allows drivers to convert the depreciation of their car into cash at a time and schedule of their own choosing. For the reasons discussed in the story, this may still technically be a net negative in the long term compared to driving a regular cab fulltime, but a) drivers find it far preferable to/cheaper than alternatives like payday loans, and b) many Uber drivers have multiple job…

I think people drastically overestimate the depreciation from mileage. When you go to sell your car in 15 years the difference between 150k and 300k miles is maybe a couple grand. You're taking about a few cents per hour.

The amount (and cost!) of maintenance to get a car to last 15 years is going to vary significantly based on how much it is driven

Re: The Uber Bubble

#189

Post by gruez »

amelius wrote: post #144

Why isn't it illegal to disrupt a market by undercutting the competition in a long-term structural way? What makes it worse is that money is pumped into it like a ponzi scheme (first investors cash, last investors are left with the bubble), which should be illegal in itself.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy), it only seems to be banned if you're doing it as a country.

>What makes it worse is that money is pumped into it like a ponzi scheme (first investors cash, last investors are left with the bubble), which should be illegal in itself.

IANAL, but part of what makes a ponzi scheme illegal is that there's deception involved (ie. you're taking money for investors and saying that you'll use it to invest in the business, but really you're paying out yourself/other investors). There's nothing illegal about starting a crappy business, paying yourself and/or others (either through salaries or selling your shares), as long you're transparent about it and go through the proper channels (eg. board approval).

Re: The Uber Bubble

#190

Post by upvotepartytime »

gruez wrote: post #176
nonrandomstring wrote: post #169

I feel this entire thread has quite missed the point of the question the way a neutrino passes through a solid object and interacts with nothing but empty space. People have talked about microeconomics, gig economies, labour shifting, bad old days, safety, subsidies, licenses.... but we've gotten no closer to understanding; "Why Is a Company That Lost Billions Claimed to Be Successful?" To answer this one must ask "W…

>Under financialised logic it is absolutely immaterial whether Twitter, Uber or whatever make a penny. Ever. Or whether any of the stakeholders are served. The rules of traditional business go out the window. What makes you think that shareholders in Twitter or Uber don't care that they'll never make a penny? They're not turning a profit now, but it seems at least somewhat plausible that they'll make money in the fut…

I think stakeholders, not shareholders, was intentional. Stakeholders (users, advertisers, whatever) might not be well served by a lack of edit button or whatever, but that’s only very tenuously connected to company value.

Shareholders care that they make their pennies of course. That seems to be (part of) the observation.

(Which as you say isn’t earth shattering but still worth remembering when you start wondering “why the heck is this company worth so much?” Because people think so. That’s all.)

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