191–200 of 203 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Google still holds 5% of Uber. Is that public knowledge?
I don't know if the exact percentage is publicly known, but that Google Ventures invested $258M into Uber certainly is: http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures-puts-258m-i...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about Google is a tech company that happens to sell ads. Better?
Hmm, no. Considering them an ad company helps to keep what they do for money on the forefront. Trying to push it down as some ancillary activity makes sense if you're marketing for Google, but not in any other situation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about Google is a tech company that happens to sell ads. Better?
Hmm, no. Considering them an ad company helps to keep what they do for money on the forefront. Trying to push it down as some ancillary activity makes sense if you're marketing for Google, but not in any other situation.
Hell, just the market value of Google's brand is enough to distinguish them. You cannot buy that trust, you earn it by providing more value than an advertising brand could.
> Drivers will only be able to make two trips per day, and the software will ensure they only travel from their home neighborhoods to their workplaces. > There also won’t be a ton of money changing hands as a passenger will pay the driver only a nominal fare for the trip I'd hardly call it a Uber rival
UBER plans to attack the "drive to work" segment of the transportation market, and it's potentially a huge opportunity for UBER.This Google service, if successful, might fill that role very well. And the fact that it's cheaper is basically "disruption from below" - a proven strategy in many businesses. While this exact transport service model generally failed , it did succeed in France(blabla car), and Google has uni…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, ride sharing with self driving cars is going to be pretty normal in the near future. What will be cool is once they are self driving, they will be able to auto calculate quickest routes to pick people up, drop off, etc while being able to re-calculate to pick up people along the way.
I'd love to see self-driving cars completely replace human drivers ASAP. I'd trust software to drive me to my destination safely and responsibly much more than I would trust random strangers, or even myself for that matter.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just FYI, it's Uber, not UBER. It's not an acronym.
https://www.uber.com/ take a look at that-there all-caps branding. It's pretty prominent in the app, too. (At least for UBER as an overall brand - uberX and the like are gladly lowercased.) Though they do use lowercase in some minor text. Still easy enough to make the mistake, though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> while it's a significant fraction of current revenue That's why. They aren't doing anything out of the goodness of their hearts. If there's no money involved, at least tangentially, it's not something they are going to do.
Yea, but it's not like they are dedicated to making money advertising. They're dedicated to making money, period, and advertising is just the current mechanism.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do people talk about Google being an advertising company when, while it's a significant fraction of current revenue, it's also only a small portion of their interests and investments.
The first time you hear it, it sounds surprising. Then someone explains about revenue and it makes sense. So then you want to share the cleverness. Of course, it's actually a pretty shallow analysis, unsupported by the company's history and inconsistent with some of the company's current behavior. How useful is it really to consider Google as being in the same equivalence class as TBWA\CHIAT\DAY? Well never mind, the…
Take a look at these:
http://bgr.com/2014/02/06/apple-google-microsoft-revenue-sou...
http://www.statista.com/statistics/266471/distribution-of-go...
https://www.wordstream.com/articles/google-earnings
Notice how even last year 89.5% of Google's revenue is straight up advertising. What else would you call them?
Or if you don't buy this argument let's try it by comparison. Is Zappos a shoe store? For sure, they did things differently and focuses on happiness of employees and customer satisfaction, but at the end of the day, they sell shoes. They have an interest in people buying more shoes and if they could, they'd certainly do something to make people buy more shoes. Substitute Google and ads in those two sentences. Just because they spend some minute portion of their profits on other projects doesn't make them anything but an ad company, even if they are a much more innovative ad company than the others you mentioned.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Vast segments of the population (that is to say: probably 90%+ of women and 40%+ of men) are going to be deeply uncomfortable with getting into an automobile in the company of exactly one totally random stranger. Even if there are cameras.
For $3 of savings I bet a lot more people than that will do it. I think lots of times it might save more than that, I picked a low number because I expect even modest savings will convince people to do it, especially if the impact on convenience is small.
For example: An UberX ride today generally costs between $10 and $20 here in sunny San Francisco (outside of surge). Nearly 80% of that goes to the driver! The premise of driverless cars leading to massive rides-for-hire is that driverless cars could massively reduce that cost -- probably from $10 - $20ish to $5 - $10ish.
So just there -- is ride-sharing really going to save $3? Presumably not for a $5 ride. Not for a $6 ride either. A $7 ride? Maybe! But if so Uber is sure as hell not getting a lot for driving ride-sharing.
Okay, so let's say that a driverless car would ordinarily cost you $10 per ride, and you can reduce it to $7 by sharing. First of all, note that this reduces the value of the service for you -- even if you have no safety concerns, it takes longer. Then add in the non-safety awkwardness thing. It's pretty close quarters for a relatively long ride. What if the other person is just socially awkward?
And then imagine if you will that it's someone that you feel -- rightly or wrongly -- is genuinely threatening. And you're cooped up in a Toyota Camry for 15 minutes with this person and absolutely no one to run interference for you.
For $3?
Also: if getting a driverless Uber costs $10, you should at least contemplate owning your own driverless car. $10 at current business write-off rates is about 18 miles. It sounds like in this hypothetical Uber isn't a great deal. You could realize most or all of your cost-savings by owning your own driverless car, and as a bonus you won't have to share your car with a stranger, and as a further bonus you won't get gouged at high demand times.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For $3 of savings I bet a lot more people than that will do it. I think lots of times it might save more than that, I picked a low number because I expect even modest savings will convince people to do it, especially if the impact on convenience is small.
I think that lots of people have lots of very self-contradictory beliefs about driverless cars. For example: An UberX ride today generally costs between $10 and $20 here in sunny San Francisco (outside of surge). Nearly 80% of that goes to the driver! The premise of driverless cars leading to massive rides-for-hire is that driverless cars could massively reduce that cost -- probably from $10 - $20ish to $5 - $10ish.…
Point taken on how many people that would apply to if miles were cheap.