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Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

nytimes.com

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Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#201

Post by grkhetan »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #14

When I use lyft now, I'm coming across drivers that only drive for lyft. The tide has definitely shifted against Uber. I'm not really sure there's a way back at this point. The one advantage Uber had was network effect, but in my experience that has diminished. Lyfts come just as fast as Ubers now because they have enough drivers on the road to support the response time. I'll never go back to Uber.

I use Uber a lot, and most of the drivers don't use Lyft. So I am not sure whether one can use any anecdotal evidence like this to gauge anything.

One more thing -- even though the press is hitting on Uber with lot of negative articles -- lot of this appears to be because those articles sell. Lot of the negativity seems exaggerated or seems to be the result of incomplete facts provided (for example, Mike Isaac on NYT said Uber uses Slice Intelligence to get aggregate anonymous data on market conditions; he did not mention that Lyft also does the same and that most companies have competitive intelligence teams. There are many other examples like this).

I like Uber that they went ahead and got cities to recognize the need for ride-sharing -- they were the first so they had to fight the regulations and entrenched taxi industry. In the end, that benefitted everyone - riders getting convenient, inexpensive rides, and drivers getting livelihood. Uber's competitors also benefited as the market was created by Uber already.

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#202

Post by bigbugbag »

mikeg8 wrote: post #48
sikosmurf wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I feel like there is no way Uber would be on the brink of bankruptcy and not be able to fundamentally change the problems that have persisted so far. I guess what I'm getting at is that a company valued at 69 billion dollars going out of business in less than 2 years should be a surprise to everyone .

The surprise to me is the craziness of that valuation to begin with. And if they were able to make "fundamental changes", why wouldn't they have done it by now? Seems like the path to change will be more difficult with the loss of top execs, low internal morale, and difficulty hiring top talent moving forward. Maybe out of business in 2 years is agressive, but 5 years? Wouldn't surprise me at all.

Valuation is bullshit. When this bubble will burst a few trillion will go poof and the cycle will start over.

60+ billions valuation for a company losing over 2 billions a year or one third of their total revenue, seems like a big pile of horse manure.

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#203

Post by bigbugbag »

nebula wrote: post #78
danso wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting way to put it. Facebook seemed destined to overtake MySpace as it provided useful data connections (college courses/networks) and a uniform design that MySpace did not have. Lyft has pretty much been trying to be a drop-in replacement for Uber (to be fair, Uber nicked a few ideas from Lyft), with no projects like automation or even Uber's attempts at being a delivery service. If Lyft ends up win…

I wonder why MySpace couldn't copy some of these features from FB.

Myspace was designed from the get go to be sold to a big company so it has little inherent value.

Rupert Murdoch bought Myspace for quite a sum as an attempt to get into the online business because all their attempts failed miserably for a lack of understanding and vision. The same drove myspace to its expected outcome.

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#204

Post by grkhetan »

enraged_camel wrote: post #200
nodesocket wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure Uber is losing gobs of money, but that's not the most important metric at this stage for them. Look at Tesla, they lost 330 million in 2017 Q1. You absolutely will find bears against Tesla, but that's mainly because of its current $324 share price, not its fundamental business which is losing money.

>>Sure Uber is losing gobs of money, but that's not the most important metric at this stage for them. Look at Tesla, they lost 330 million in 2017 Q1. Apples and oranges. Tesla is losing money because they are investing massive amounts of capital to improve their supply chain and production capabilities. Uber is losing money because they subsidize rides to try to push competitors out of business. Tesla is actually pr…

"Uber is losing money because they subsidize rides to try to push competitors out of business."

?? I think thats the wrong way to phrase this. Uber is loosing money as Uber and its competitors are giving a lot of incentives to drivers to win business. All of them are loosing money.

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#205

Post by bigbugbag »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #36
gremlinsinc wrote: post #8

I feel like Lyft is the underdog coming back to strike the killer blow to Uber... The year Uber has had I wouldn't be surprised to see them disappear altogether by 2018/2019. Lyft seems to be doing things a lot better, but helps that their CEO isn't out starting fires instead of putting them out.

Lyft - Uber might be a Facebook - MySpace story.

So which one, Lyft or Uber, is the one being made for the purpose of being sold to a giant company ?

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#206

Post by grkhetan »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #184
rjuyal wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Seattle and I just don't prefer Lyft. 100% of the time Lyft's estimated time of arrival is wrong. They say your "lyft" is reaching in 3 minutes when I can clearly see it can't come even in 10mins. On the other hand Uber gives pretty good estimation. Same goes with estimated cost of the ride. Uber tell me exactly how much I will have to pay while Lyft says $7-$12.

Uber has started allowing drivers to accept a new ride before they're done with the current one, as an incentive to keep driving (as opposed to ending their shift). I have had rides stuck in "Driver is finishing up a trip nearby" for 10 minutes or more. And I could see on the map that there were other available drivers around. I don't remember what the initial estimate is in those cases, but I think it's less than wh…

Its a neat feature actually. Taking up the next ride before finishing a previous one allows drivers to have no downtime, and thus increase their earnings; and for riders it allows them to get drivers sooner in cases where other available drivers are further away.

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#207

Post by CydeWeys »

Joeri wrote: post #181
quonn wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> literally lighting billions of dollars in funds on fire Figuratively. But even that's not true, since customers have saved real money and spent it elsewhere.

So, uber is really a secret socialist scheme to redistribute wealth from the investors to uber's customers?

Heh, it's kind of funny when you look at it like that. It's the opposite of the typical fleecing scheme, wherein a publicly owned company enriches the big guys at the little guys' expense (a la Enron). Uber is doing the opposite, since it isn't publicly traded and only has large rich investors: They're saving lots of little guys' money on car fares at the expense of the few big guy investors.

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#208

Post by grkhetan »

searchhn wrote: post #157
alistproducer2 wrote: post #14

When I use lyft now, I'm coming across drivers that only drive for lyft. The tide has definitely shifted against Uber. I'm not really sure there's a way back at this point. The one advantage Uber had was network effect, but in my experience that has diminished. Lyfts come just as fast as Ubers now because they have enough drivers on the road to support the response time. I'll never go back to Uber.

Yes.. as a bay area resident can confirm this. I switched totally to Lyft the past few weeks and have no issues finding a ride promptly. Also all drivers that I met seem to be driving only for Lyft. PS: What convinced me to totally switch was this https://github.com/lyft/envoy , my way of saying thanks for the Lyft team.

I think Uber has released tons more open source sw than Lyft. https://github.com/uber

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#209

Post by grkhetan »

mattnewton wrote: post #59
omarforgotpwd wrote: post #26

Uber and Lyft are pretty much the exact same thing in markets where both are available. hell, they even have the same set of drivers as many drivers sign on to both. I think time will prove that Lyft was quite undervalued compared to Uber, especially as autonomous vehicles hit the market.

Personally, there are nicer touches in the Lyft app- the colored signs, color-accurate picture of the make and model of the car, and generally friendlier driver instructions make getting into the car and riding more pleasant for me.

I have tried to use Lyft, but the Uber's app design is much more user-friendly to me. I was confused by some of Lyft's ride selection options etc. Esp after the Uber redesign that happened a few months ago, it became much more easier and nicer to use.

Re: Lyft and Waymo Reach Deal to Collaborate on Self-Driving Cars

#210

Post by searchhn »

grkhetan wrote: post #208
searchhn wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes.. as a bay area resident can confirm this. I switched totally to Lyft the past few weeks and have no issues finding a ride promptly. Also all drivers that I met seem to be driving only for Lyft. PS: What convinced me to totally switch was this https://github.com/lyft/envoy , my way of saying thanks for the Lyft team.

I think Uber has released tons more open source sw than Lyft. https://github.com/uber

I agree.. Just a small payback for something I personally use.
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