Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 331 posts

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#201

Post by chadwittman »

blawson wrote: post #157
elhudy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber's new "cheap" pool option forces you to walk up to 5 blocks (!!) and is the same price that it used to be. Lyft's pool option doesn't make you walk and the prices have remained unchanged. Uber lost all of my (bi-daily) business when they moved to the pool express business model.

Interesting! That’s new to me, and honestly a benefit in places like SF, where dropping someone off or picking someone up at a specific address might involve numerous annoying loops / turns around one way streets, where the passenger could just make everyone else’s life easier and walk a block or two. This feels like a positive change as long as weather isn’t a huge concern.

Agreed. A lot of one-way streets in Seattle. I had been setting the pickup spot 2 blocks away just for traffic / one-way / highway access, now UberPool automatically selects that spot and I save money. It's been a win for me personally.

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#202

Post by akira2501 »

segmondy wrote: post #135
guelo wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't have the driver's phone number so I had to use the Uber app to contact the driver, that's when they charged me the $15.

Well, not having the driver's phone number is good. Can you imagine passengers calling drivers and harassing them for whatever reason? It will happen. Should the driver drive for free to return your jacket? What if the driver is already en route to another passenger and they told the passenger 5 minutes, and your cost will be additional 10 minutes. Do you think another passenger will understand and be forgiving that…

> Well, not having the driver's phone number is good.

There is no need to actually give out the drivers phone number, Uber could easily have an 800 number that when called would prompt you for a case or ticket number generated by the app and then would provide you with options for anonymously connecting to your driver or a customer support agent.

> Should the driver drive for free to return your jacket?

When I drove cabs, we would take lost items back to the shop. If they were called for we might deliver them to you for free if it was really slow, but we would usually just charge you a regular fare from the shop to where you wanted it. Otherwise, you could come down to the shop and claim it in person.

> Do you think another passenger will understand and be forgiving that their ride is 10 minutes late because of your situation?

If you lost the item, I think the primary concern is that you actually get it back not how timely it is. Clearly you'll just have to wait until the driver is free and pay the fare to get the item back to where you are currently.

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#204

Post by garysahota93 »

Androider wrote: post #30

Uber doesn't have much of a moat or lock-in effect. I just switched one day from being a frequent Uber rider to 100% using Lyft, simply because I don't like Uber's behavior as a company. The prices are so close it doesn't make any practical difference to me. Anecdotally, among my friends I also see Lyft becoming the default, and sometimes price-checking with Uber. If Waymo or whoever came out tomorrow with a cheaper/…

With their new loyalty program and Uber Visa card, I definitely think they are trying hard to build that lock-in effect. Once that happens, I do think they'll reap the rewards of their platform. It's just hard at first. I hope they can pull it off tho. But then again, I do know a lot of Uber drivers who only use Lyft personally for rides.

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#205

Post by jdavis703 »

torpfactory wrote: post #188
lotophage wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty misleading. You are not charged to contact the driver in the app, you are charged once the item is returned. I've been through this process myself, and it's even stated on their FAQ: > A $15 fee is charged to you once your lost item is returned.[0] [0] https://help.uber.com/riders/article/lost-item-return-fee-?n...

Does the driver get all of that fee? Or does Uber take a cut?

Uber has to do all kinds of things that a taxi company wouldn't need to do. For example they have an entire department related to resolving sexual assault/harassment issues between customers and drivers. A taxi company would just send the the matter to the police and be done with it.

They also must have a large "compliance" department as each city, state and country seems to be enacting a different set of rules around how the company can operate.

All these different departments need software to support them (no point in having compliance if the app forgets to charge the right tax somewhere!), which means they need more accountants, more HR people, etc.

It seems like Uber could trim some fat (I had an interview with them that was laughably easy), but who knows if the CEO thinks he can do that without causing low morale and a stampede of the actual talent.

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#206

Post by alasdair_ »

yalogin wrote: post #186

How can they incur that huge a loss? According to Crunchbase they have 5000-10000 employees. They have a backend to manage. They have limited sales and marketing expense.Where is their money going? R&D or just employee pay?

I assume most of the money goes to incentives to the drivers to keep driving when a 30 minute ride in sf cost me $3 the last time i used uber.

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#207

Post by gergles »

Balgair wrote: post #169
cm2012 wrote: post #51

I am a pretty loyal Uber user, and probably spend around $400 a month with them. But... I was stuck out in the cold in the boonies of long island recently, and Uber kept bugging out and not finding rides since I was fairly rural. I downloaded Lyft for the first time and it found me a ride instantly. I'm going to have to use them more often. Just my random anecdote.

$400/mo. Woah! Why not lease a car at that rate? Leases go for ~$150/mo there.

In addition to the lease, you also have to add in the cost of insurance and fuel, and potentially parking (depending on where precisely in the region you live). Also, you almost always have to carry (expensive) full coverage for leased vehicles, further increasing the price.

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#208

Post by sseveran »

zhobbs wrote: post #88
Androider wrote: post #30

Uber doesn't have much of a moat or lock-in effect. I just switched one day from being a frequent Uber rider to 100% using Lyft, simply because I don't like Uber's behavior as a company. The prices are so close it doesn't make any practical difference to me. Anecdotally, among my friends I also see Lyft becoming the default, and sometimes price-checking with Uber. If Waymo or whoever came out tomorrow with a cheaper/…

Agree that the lock-in is weak compared to other markets. Their strategy has been to incentivize drivers and riders to not split usage between other apps. Uber drivers who do a certain number of hours or rides per day/week often get bonuses, so they'd have to forego these bonuses to split time with Lyft. On the rider side, they're pulling a play from the airline playbook, with their version of frequent flier miles an…

I have often compared Uber to the airlines and not in kind way. There is simply no loyalty. I am skeptical that the airline frequent flier model will work. I predominately use Delta for international travel because of Delta One, but will probably switch to United when the 767 and 777 retrofit to Polaris is complete. I prefer United because I live in SF and there are more good flights from here. I don't know what Uber or Lyft could offer me because the networks are largely the same, the product is identical and there is very little chance for differentiation. Maybe they will figure something out but I am skeptical. For me to believe there is margin anywhere in there I would need to see what their equivalent of business class would be.

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#209

Post by thewizardofaus »

spookthesunset wrote: post #191
windexh8er wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion the outstanding question today is: are they both too early? It's currently a race to the bottom of driver oriented rides. As soon as driverless becomes viable the current rider fee suddenly shifts to being a more positive profit margin and also shifts opex back in favor of both. But can either last long enough to get there?

> As soon as driverless becomes viable Alexa can't even turn on my living room lights more than 50% percent of the time. I'm not holding my breath for driverless cars coming any time soon (if ever).

This is so sad alexa play despacito

Re: Uber Revenue Slows as Quarterly Loss Surges to $1.1B

#210

Post by DenisM »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #163
nwmcsween wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is reminding me of the dotcom boom, the markets are badly overvaluing a lot of tech companies in my opinion anyways.

Critically though it isn't retail investors who would bear the cost of a failure, that would be born by the folks like Softbank and the hedge funds who have invested. Of course the employees are also victims. I have been in the situation of holding untradeable (by me) stock being valued a high number (woohoo! I'm rich) only to watch helplessly as it became worthless (uh, I'm not rich). While the value of things chang…

It's somewhat Marxist, don't you think?

The capital from the capitalists is "redistributed", spent by Uber on salaries and various purchases (more salaries). The working class collects their salaries, roughly commensurate with the cost of living (aka "according to their needs").

Post reply on HN