Why don't G just _block_ all Uber drivers from utilizing Google Maps, forcing them to an inferior Mapping/Route product, lowering the quality of the Uber experience. (Only Uber'd a few times and I'm sure the drivers had G maps, but I may be wrong, I was surely drunk.)
Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor
231–240 of 294 posts
Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There is enormous brand value in thinking "I'll get an Uber" as a synonym for "I'll get a taxi, but right what I need it, and it probably will smell better." There is value of having that app on the phone, with credit card # already in place. Hrm. I see where you're coming from, but I can also imagine opening up Google Maps, clicking directions to go somewhere, and then when it says "press to be picked up by your d…
I'm not saying that Uber wins, just that it has quite a bit of value independently. And similar to Google with search (which learns each time someone searches) there is a reinforcing edge when you're first. The key probably isn't price. I think it will be convenience. If Uber knows to have a car nearby you when you need it, you'll pay a dollar more to save 10 minutes. (Same with Google) I wonder about other entrants.…
> I wonder about other entrants... Perhaps Apple?
Because Apple's other attempts at SaaS are going so well? You'll call an Apple Car but it'll go to Blackberry offices instead.
Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor
#233So much criticism of Google! My question: Why on earth would Google want to cede any significant chunk of the personal transport value stream to Uber - or acquire them at a $40Bil+ valuation - when the main (only?) semi-uniquely valuable thing Uber have (a large network of drivers) is worth approximately zero dollars in a self-driving vehicle scenario. Uber are valuable and effective in a human-driven vehicle model b…
The value is only partially in the driver base. Drivers are tangible. But the true value is intangible. There is enormous brand value in thinking "I'll get an Uber" as a synonym for "I'll get a taxi, but right what I need it, and it probably will smell better." There is value of having that app on the phone, with credit card # already in place. But perhaps more important is that Uber is building a graph of everyone w…
> There is enormous brand value in thinking "I'll get an Uber"
Yes, and there is enormous value in "I'll Google it", but that doesn't stop people from using other search engines (and online services) as soon as a better one comes along, because the cost to the user of switching is small.
Name recognition does not, IMO, make Uber worth $40bn.
Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor
#234I'm glad that the article highlighted how valuable the mapping information is that Google collects. While Uber probably could still run its current operations without Google map data, there is a much smaller probability that they would be able to run a self-driving car service without a highly accurate mapping product. And to build a mapping product is really difficult and expensive. I was surprised when Google start…
Uber can simply license their maps from various third parties the same way every car company does today for their GPS. Google has added some decent additions to Google Maps but really 95% of what they had they purchased. For example Whereis/Yellow Pages data here in Australia.
Map data from third parties requires manual verification, as we learned from the Apple Maps debacle.
Google does this [1]:
> Google employs a small army of human operators (they won’t say exactly how many) to manually check and correct the maps using an in-house program called Atlas.
A Maps app isn't just another app. Nobody gets killed if the Stocks app shows an incorrect price, but someone could die if the Maps app uses incorrect mapping information.
Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor
#235I'm glad that the article highlighted how valuable the mapping information is that Google collects. While Uber probably could still run its current operations without Google map data, there is a much smaller probability that they would be able to run a self-driving car service without a highly accurate mapping product. And to build a mapping product is really difficult and expensive. I was surprised when Google start…
Do you think OpenStreetMaps can be a reasonable substitute? IMHO their maps are quite accurate.
The issue with OSM is that the information level is uneven.
Dense urban center, you have every bench and bin mapped. Go into the countryside, there is not even the buildings. It might not be an issue for a taxi company that is mainly operating in urban center though.
Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you looked at the last couple years of updates? It's way more accurate and complete than it used to be, and for getting names on that last 1%, they have drivers and the ability for the app to say "I don't know that street name, is it new?".
I do some work for a company that does mapping, so yes, I've looked at it regularly. It may be way more accurate and complete, but it is still updated too rarely to ever be up to date. Cover any reasonable area, and road situations change daily, especially when you're doing things like driving which also needs to account for temporary road closures and the like. As I say, it's a good starting point, but it's not in a…
You're emphatically emphasizing something I conceded in the second sentence of my initial comment.
I was definitely more focused on the 'current operations' aspect of things though, not the autonomous vehicles. If there's a human driver, the little disruptions to the road system aren't a disaster.
Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
Welcome to HN, where "nobody uses x" is disproved by one person using x, because the only logic in existence is Popperian.
i didn't realize negation is an invented concept ("popperian")
It is not.
But that is the point of Scientific knowlege, is it not? Falsability...
Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor
#238Every single time there is a big discussion thread about Uber on HN about half the commentary is about self-driving cars and how various decisions are being made now based on the inevitability of self driving cars. Every time this happens I always wonder why nobody seems to recognize the obvious fact that self driving cars have nothing to do with any of this stuff and won't make economic sense for a company like Uber…
Autonomous vehicles seem to set off this distortion field that makes otherwise intelligent people ignore everything they know about the state of any number of technologies and the nature of bringing enormously complex systems from research labs into production. We could probably have autonomous vehicles in a limited way under controlled circumstances like interstates in a decade or so. Though if that's optimistic I wouldn't be surprised given that this would be a feature of $100K luxury cars. Robo taxis? My money is on multiple decades which is utterly uninteresting for a VC funded company today.
Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor
#239Every single time there is a big discussion thread about Uber on HN about half the commentary is about self-driving cars and how various decisions are being made now based on the inevitability of self driving cars. Every time this happens I always wonder why nobody seems to recognize the obvious fact that self driving cars have nothing to do with any of this stuff and won't make economic sense for a company like Uber…
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Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor
#240I'm really surprised. G ventures puts ton of money into uber, uber makes a huge pre order for google cars, uber gets put into google maps. And now this. I guess google is like "well we got the hard part, self driving cars. Why not just go after this ourselves?" What is the thing google really wants? Is it more valuable to try to directly monetize all this vehicle traffic, or be the platform every else uses? Google co…
> What is the thing google really wants? I think they want a seriously diversified revenue stream. This gives them data, yes - but it's also directly monetizable. If they see personal transport as a winner takes all market, and they can branch into deliveries, and they do have the best self driving cars then they have a serious advantage in the market and a path to a serious new revenue stream.
> I think they want a seriously diversified revenue stream
I totally agree with this. If I were working at Google, the main thing that would keep me awake at night is the long-term dependence on a single-source of income, i.e. advertising. And there's a lot of reasons advertising is not a good business to be reliant upon. It's pretty terrifying when you look at their revenue stats.
I'm surprised they haven't already achieved this diversity yet, though. Surely at IPO it would have been their number one concern?