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How Uber Got Lost

nytimes.com

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Re: How Uber Got Lost

#41

Post by jrockway »

_hardwaregeek wrote: post #24
seibelj wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you do the same complex class calculation every time you interact with a cashier, talk to a receptionist, or pass a janitor? People do honest work and earn a living, no shame in that. Your life must be exhausting if you have a class-based panic attack when you hop in an Uber!

Uber feels different for some reason. Maybe it's the lack of transparency with salary. With a regular job, you get paid x dollars an hour. That's it. You may get paid minimum wage, but at least you know it's minimum wage. With Uber, a lot of people come in with expectations of a high salary (falsely perpetuated by Uber), then end up making a whole lot less. Sometimes less than minimum wage. Maybe it's the semi-predat…

I mean, you're trapped in a confined space with the driver. The same is not true with cashiers, receptionists, or janitors. That is why it feels different. "This is awkward, I'm out," doesn't work at 60mph on the freeway.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#42

Post by ENOTTY »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #15

I think NYT misses the point. The problem with Uber isn't some cultural issue, it's that they're in an extremely tough and competitive business. It's really a race to the bottom. The logic I kept hearing repeated is ride-sharing is a winner take all market. Like once you have a network of drivers setup giving people the lowest times for rides, you can force other competitors out and raise prices. Time has proven how…

Completely agree re competitors. If you look at when Uber and Lyft left Austin, almost overnight, competitors willing to follow the local laws sprung up and soon began providing equivalent service. In my opinion, it's going to be impossible to establish a moat (aside from incumbency) in ridesharing (absent some kind of regulatory change heavily favoring incumbents). The second someone thinks they can do it better, they will try (provided the capital is available).

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#43

Post by dd36 »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #15

I think NYT misses the point. The problem with Uber isn't some cultural issue, it's that they're in an extremely tough and competitive business. It's really a race to the bottom. The logic I kept hearing repeated is ride-sharing is a winner take all market. Like once you have a network of drivers setup giving people the lowest times for rides, you can force other competitors out and raise prices. Time has proven how…

Ironically, if the drivers were actual employees, it’d be an actual barrier.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#44

Post by rokhayakebe »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #15

I think NYT misses the point. The problem with Uber isn't some cultural issue, it's that they're in an extremely tough and competitive business. It's really a race to the bottom. The logic I kept hearing repeated is ride-sharing is a winner take all market. Like once you have a network of drivers setup giving people the lowest times for rides, you can force other competitors out and raise prices. Time has proven how…

Winner Takes “All” is an incomplete sentence. All what? All profits or all losses?

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#45

Post by rokhayakebe »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #18
todd3834 wrote: post #5

I feel like Uber became a gamble on self driving technology. It will be interesting to see if they can last long enough to see it happen. I could see them running out of money before that happens but I kind of hope they make it.

Uber really has no advantage to self-driving. A customer network doesn't mean much if you cannot finance actually building the cars. They also don't any training data to give them a tech advantage. It'd make way more sense for an existing car company to build the features into the car and let the owner rent out the car when they don't need it. (Telsa, GM/Cruise). Another option is to simply build the best technology…

No, it makes more sense for Uber to do so because the solution they would build “could” be an add on to different cars giving anyone with such car the ability to add it to Uber’s fleet. When BMW creates their solution, it will “probably” not work on an Audi or Ford.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#46

Post by empath75 »

todd3834 wrote: post #5

I feel like Uber became a gamble on self driving technology. It will be interesting to see if they can last long enough to see it happen. I could see them running out of money before that happens but I kind of hope they make it.

I have never understood why anyone would believe a money losing taxi business would be able to figure out a major ai problem.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#47

Post by novok »

tzs wrote: post #34
_hardwaregeek wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber feels different for some reason. Maybe it's the lack of transparency with salary. With a regular job, you get paid x dollars an hour. That's it. You may get paid minimum wage, but at least you know it's minimum wage. With Uber, a lot of people come in with expectations of a high salary (falsely perpetuated by Uber), then end up making a whole lot less. Sometimes less than minimum wage. Maybe it's the semi-predat…

Another difference is that the cashier, receptionist, and janitor have a good chance of having an employer provided health insurance plan, and perhaps other employee benefits. Since Uber says the drivers aren't employees, it does not provide them with any of that.

There are many business that don't do a full 40 hours so they don't have give benefits. And they demand you comply to a badly planned last minute schedule. There are also businesses where you don't know if the tips are going to the employees or to the business owner. You have no idea if your fast food server lives a 2hr commute away and does 2 or 3 '30 hr' (no benefits) jobs to tread water.

Also the benefits things is a uniquely American issue, in many other countries it is not.

In the past the exploitive bigco was walmart. Walmart is still the same, but we don't really talk about it anymore?

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#48

Post by goatinaboat »

dhnsmakala wrote: post #22
dumbfoundded wrote: post #15

I think NYT misses the point. The problem with Uber isn't some cultural issue, it's that they're in an extremely tough and competitive business. It's really a race to the bottom. The logic I kept hearing repeated is ride-sharing is a winner take all market. Like once you have a network of drivers setup giving people the lowest times for rides, you can force other competitors out and raise prices. Time has proven how…

This makes a lot of sense. A large business doesn't rely on the average employee. The employee relies on the business for food, shelter, healthcare...everything. It's just an inherently large imbalance, and the only way it doesn't exist is if there is a shortage of employees in the sector and the ROI per employee is high. This is a pretty small percentage of jobs. Unions are one way to try to curb exploitation, but I…

If retail workers tried to unionize what is to prevent the millions of people who are equally qualified from replacing the entire union?

We know the answer to that because film extras (and most screenwriters) are of a comparable replaceability to retail workers but the Hollywood unions are strong.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#49

Post by jen20 »

ENOTTY wrote: post #42
dumbfoundded wrote: post #15

I think NYT misses the point. The problem with Uber isn't some cultural issue, it's that they're in an extremely tough and competitive business. It's really a race to the bottom. The logic I kept hearing repeated is ride-sharing is a winner take all market. Like once you have a network of drivers setup giving people the lowest times for rides, you can force other competitors out and raise prices. Time has proven how…

Completely agree re competitors. If you look at when Uber and Lyft left Austin, almost overnight, competitors willing to follow the local laws sprung up and soon began providing equivalent service. In my opinion, it's going to be impossible to establish a moat (aside from incumbency) in ridesharing (absent some kind of regulatory change heavily favoring incumbents). The second someone thinks they can do it better, th…

I was in Austin many times over the period that Uber and Lyft were not there.

One of my takeaways was that building a mobile app which feels polished and actually works as advertised is _hard_ - not one of the local competitors managed it. Most of them didn’t even bother to distribute their app outside the US App Stores (a common issue with American companies) making it next to impossible to use for international visitors.

Uber and Lyft are not immune to some of this though - Lyft still do not appear to accept international credit cards correctly, though fortunately they do accept Apple Pay which is a reasonable substitute. And Uber’s GPS navigation is unspeakably bad in most metros, offering idiotic routes.

Re: How Uber Got Lost

#50

Post by dumbfoundded »

troquerre wrote: post #28
dumbfoundded wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber really has no advantage to self-driving. A customer network doesn't mean much if you cannot finance actually building the cars. They also don't any training data to give them a tech advantage. It'd make way more sense for an existing car company to build the features into the car and let the owner rent out the car when they don't need it. (Telsa, GM/Cruise). Another option is to simply build the best technology…

Uber has an advantage bc the transition to fully autonomous self-driving will take years to decades to realize, not only on a technological level but on a political level. In the meantime we’ll introduce self-driving more and more with humans-in-the-look, and uber is in a great position to take advantage of that.

I agree. Self-driving cars will take a really long time to emerge. The progress will be gradual. According to George Holtz of Comma ai, great lane-keeping is the first major milestone.

The problem with your logic is the connection to Uber. Uber doesn't control the cars their drivers use. Sure they can set restrictions but they never collect actual data that is useful for self-driving. The only data Uber collects is when and where people want to travel. Google & Apple both have this dataset (probably superior) through their map apps.

The real data gathering will come in the way Tesla does. Gather data from real-time drivers by putting the necessary sensors in cars you sell.

Maybe Uber could force their drivers to install kits but I doubt it. Self-driving cars will emerge over time as new features in cars you buy. This is already happening (ie brake assist). You'll then just get updates to your car when new features become available.

There's a pretty good talk about the future self-driving cars here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwcYp-XT7UI

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