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Gett in advanced talks to buy Juno for $250M as Uber rivals consolidate

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Re: Gett in advanced talks to buy Juno for $250M as Uber rivals consolidate

#51

Post by yawaworht12 »

ghaff wrote: post #24
notyourwork wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they need to be a monopoly to succeed? I personally dislike Uber based on all the latest PR but what if they actually achieve a self driving car? If so, this would change the business entirely because no more contractor's to pay. Do you think if one company has self driving cars and the rest don't this is a competitive advantage? Perhaps they license the self driving car software to other companies which also…

Self-driving is so far out as a door-to-door taxi service as to be utterly irrelevant to Uber's business model.

The longer self driving cars take to completely replace cars, the harder it is for a self-driving only company to compete. You can't run a network with only self driving cars unless you they are all level 5 under all driving conditions (like poor weather) and you literally have hundreds of them in each market you want to compete in so you can guarantee availability.

Customers want reliable transportation. Imagine if your internet company could only provide service when the weather was good. You'd quickly switch to the service that is reliable because being without service becomes unimaginable. This is especially important if you want to compete with car ownership and not just livery services. These companies also need to be reliable on pickup times. If a service take 5 minutes sometimes and 25 minutes at other times, most people will give up on them and go for the 5 minutes all the time service.

Re: Gett in advanced talks to buy Juno for $250M as Uber rivals consolidate

#52

Post by yawaworht12 »

tyingq wrote: post #14
chronic940 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few people on HN actually care about the Uber scandals. Almost no one has changed their daily behavior. They all still use Uber. It's exactly how Trump won the US election. A small group of people spread the idea Uber is doing poorly when in reality they're not.

I'm skeptical about the business model in general, not related to any recent scandal. The leaked financials[1] seem to indicate it's a losing proposition until self driving cars are relatively ubiquitous. So whenever it does become financially viable, there's a pretty long payback cycle. And no obvious iron clad moat that keeps competitors at bay...ones that aren't under pressure to pay back investors for years of su…

Given Lyft's leaked financials versus Uber's leaked financial, it looks like Lyft (and others) are going to be the ones trying to pay back investors for years:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13772168

I don't understand how so many people on HN falsely believe that Uber is the only one subsidizing rides. My only explanations are ignorance and astroturfing.

Re: Gett in advanced talks to buy Juno for $250M as Uber rivals consolidate

#53

Post by yawaworht12 »

tyingq wrote: post #28
user5994461 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's your problem there! :D Self driving cars are just hype that won't be any significant for another decade. You should forget about self driving cars. What Uber has right now is real, a massive customer base and network of taxi, that is bringing billions of dollars. They could totally focus on that and have a strong and sustainable business.

Sans self driving cars, Uber loses cash. You seem to think shedding employees is enough to fix that. Closing a $2 to $3bn/yr loss with just layoffs seems hard. Eliminating subsidies puts competitors on a level playing field. I can sell dollar bills for 90 cents and be incredibly popular too. I just don't have the panache to sell that plan to Saudis.

Sans self driving cars, Uber's competitors are also losing cash, and they are losing cash faster than Uber

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13772168

Re: Gett in advanced talks to buy Juno for $250M as Uber rivals consolidate

#54

Post by yawaworht12 »

tyingq wrote: post #30
monkmartinez wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't think self-driving vehicles face an enormous uphill regulation battle, you are sorely, sorely mistaken! Politics haven't even entered the self-driving game yet. They will and every union associated with driving is going to freak the fuck out. It will be a bloody political mess.

I think you may be misreading me. I'm not saying they are imminent. I am saying Uber's business model sucks without the lower costs they deliver. Anything that delays them means Uber burns more cash subsidizing cheap prices to hold back competition. And once they do arrive, competitors can enter the market with lower costs. Or, maybe Uber isn't losing as much as it seems? (Estimates are $2+bn/yr) Or there is some moa…

Everyone is blinded by the large number like $3 billion. That's not the number that matterS. All the companies in this market are subsidizing rides (except maybe the traditional taxis). What matters is how much each ride is being subsidized.

A while back another user did this math using leaked financials from Uber and Lyft and Lyft deserves more criticism for subsidizing rides than Uber:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13772168

Re: Gett in advanced talks to buy Juno for $250M as Uber rivals consolidate

#55

Post by Spinfusor »

yeukhon wrote: post #9

I prefer Gett for long commute. It gives you a firm quote so if your Uber/Lyft/Juno driver messed up enroute or there's a traffic, you don't pay the extra. From a user's perspective, this saves me money. I would take Gett to Barclay Center knowing Uber and Lyft would charge me high premium after game. Or trip from Manhattan back to Queens. There's also an option to make extra stop which is nice! Gett cars are the reg…

Re Grubhub/Seamless (I used to work there):

The sense I got was that they haven't unified the brands yet because they're really afraid of messing up the NYC market. Grubhub merged with Seamless in 2013 because leadership wanted to get into NYC, and Seamless owned/owns NYC. It's a hugely profitable market for the company.

They've toyed with the idea of bringing the brands closer (particularly around the Grubhub rebrand last year), but nothing's happened so far.

Re: Gett in advanced talks to buy Juno for $250M as Uber rivals consolidate

#56

Post by doubleplusgood »

aomurphy wrote: post #49
avip wrote: post #13

The headlines I see in Hebrew (both Gett and Juno's founders are Israelis) are somewhat more low-key: the undisclosed price tag is estimated at "few tens of millions", to be paid in shares of privately held Gett.

Could you link to some of them?

Sure: http://www.themarker.com/technation/1.4049196

Re: Gett in advanced talks to buy Juno for $250M as Uber rivals consolidate

#57

Post by tyingq »

yawaworht12 wrote: post #52
tyingq wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm skeptical about the business model in general, not related to any recent scandal. The leaked financials[1] seem to indicate it's a losing proposition until self driving cars are relatively ubiquitous. So whenever it does become financially viable, there's a pretty long payback cycle. And no obvious iron clad moat that keeps competitors at bay...ones that aren't under pressure to pay back investors for years of su…

Given Lyft's leaked financials versus Uber's leaked financial, it looks like Lyft (and others) are going to be the ones trying to pay back investors for years: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13772168 I don't understand how so many people on HN falsely believe that Uber is the only one subsidizing rides. My only explanations are ignorance and astroturfing.

That might make sense here if I'd thrown a rant about how Lyft was going to eat their lunch.

But I didn't.

I said, roughly, that the current model is unsustainable and loses money. If Uber is losing $2-3bn/year, and Lyft is losing $600/mn, that doesn't contradict that. People talk about Uber because they are the market leader, and because their hubris and antics add additional risk to the already shaky model (like the Waymo suit).

Re: Gett in advanced talks to buy Juno for $250M as Uber rivals consolidate

#58

Post by yawaworht12 »

tyingq wrote: post #57
yawaworht12 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given Lyft's leaked financials versus Uber's leaked financial, it looks like Lyft (and others) are going to be the ones trying to pay back investors for years: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13772168 I don't understand how so many people on HN falsely believe that Uber is the only one subsidizing rides. My only explanations are ignorance and astroturfing.

That might make sense here if I'd thrown a rant about how Lyft was going to eat their lunch. But I didn't. I said, roughly, that the current model is unsustainable and loses money. If Uber is losing $2-3bn/year, and Lyft is losing $600/mn, that doesn't contradict that. People talk about Uber because they are the market leader, and because their hubris and antics add additional risk to the already shaky model (like th…

Define hubris and provide evidence of it. That seems like an odd accusation to levy if someone is trying to be dispassionate and objective in their argument against a business model instead of a particular company.

Re: Gett in advanced talks to buy Juno for $250M as Uber rivals consolidate

#59

Post by [deleted] »

yawaworht12 wrote: post #53
tyingq wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sans self driving cars, Uber loses cash. You seem to think shedding employees is enough to fix that. Closing a $2 to $3bn/yr loss with just layoffs seems hard. Eliminating subsidies puts competitors on a level playing field. I can sell dollar bills for 90 cents and be incredibly popular too. I just don't have the panache to sell that plan to Saudis.

Sans self driving cars, Uber's competitors are also losing cash, and they are losing cash faster than Uber https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13772168

[deleted]

Re: Gett in advanced talks to buy Juno for $250M as Uber rivals consolidate

#60

Post by tyingq »

yawaworht12 wrote: post #53
tyingq wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sans self driving cars, Uber loses cash. You seem to think shedding employees is enough to fix that. Closing a $2 to $3bn/yr loss with just layoffs seems hard. Eliminating subsidies puts competitors on a level playing field. I can sell dollar bills for 90 cents and be incredibly popular too. I just don't have the panache to sell that plan to Saudis.

Sans self driving cars, Uber's competitors are also losing cash, and they are losing cash faster than Uber https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13772168

Yes, that seems logical. I'd mentioned competition in my comment as Waymo and car companies.

"Sell at a loss but make it up in volume" probably doesn't work well for many :)

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