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Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

economist.com

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Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#61

Post by CPLX »

jahlove wrote: post #46
strikelaserclaw wrote: post #38

I don't know what the end game for these companies is. Most average people would never use uber or lyft for transportation on even a semi regular basis if those companies didn't heavily subsidize the rides.

doesn't the ride cost go down substantially if they ever get autonomous vehicles on the road? I believe that is the end goal.

In short, no.

I read this in literally every HN discussion of ride sharing, but there's literally no reason to think that ride sharing companies will have any special role to play with autonomous vehicles if they materialize (which seems extremely doubtful in the short or medium term) and there's even less evidence that it will be cheaper.

I still can't figure out why people don't realize that low income humans are cheap. An autonomous car, if such a thing is ever in the real world, will at least for a long time be a complicated technically advanced computerized machine.

Like here's a pretty straightforward machine that rents for $125 a day: https://www.adoramarentals.com/p-~nkd4skit/NIKON-D4S-KIT

For reference that's about the same price as the cost of hiring a minimum wage employee for an entire work day.

Now tell me if the guts of a self-driving car are going to be cheaper or more expensive than a standard DSLR camera.

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#62

Post by philipodonnell »

adventured wrote: post #54
swarnie_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As soon as one of them increase prices to generate profit ill just move on to the next ride sharing app, then the next, then the next. You'd need a price fixing scheme worthy of British Airways make this work.

It doesn't actually work that way in reality. If it did, there would already be another massive Uber undercutting Uber in eg the US market and raising $10+ billion in VC money to do it. Because hey, a $75 billion valuation is sitting right there, so it's really easy: just put $10 or $20 billion into the company, undercut Uber, IPO, easy return. Everbody can do it, just add $20 billion. What's actually the case, is th…

> As soon as one of them increase prices to generate profit

Once prices get back to a sustainable level it will be more appealing for other entrants and they won't need to burn that much money.

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#63

Post by [deleted] »

maxxxxx wrote: post #12
wonderwonder wrote: post #9

Very interesting process going on right now with Lyft & Uber both losing money and some of their drivers trying to stage protests and strikes. The drivers appear to rely on the company as their primary source of income and want more money yet at the same time the companies are operating at a loss. Were they to increase wages (as % of every ride) it stands to reason the losses would widen. If they get to wide the comp…

The drivers want to make enough money so working for Lyft makes sense. It’s pretty simple.

[deleted]

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#64

Post by CPLX »

m_ke wrote: post #53
strikelaserclaw wrote: post #38

I don't know what the end game for these companies is. Most average people would never use uber or lyft for transportation on even a semi regular basis if those companies didn't heavily subsidize the rides.

I'm convinced that the end goal is being the last one standing. Either one of them failing would guarantee a monopoly for the other and make it easier to play with the margins.

> Either one of them failing would guarantee a monopoly for the other

Why? Is there some reason someone else couldn't make a basic app-based service to get taxi rides?

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#65

Post by return1 »

adventured wrote: post #54
swarnie_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As soon as one of them increase prices to generate profit ill just move on to the next ride sharing app, then the next, then the next. You'd need a price fixing scheme worthy of British Airways make this work.

It doesn't actually work that way in reality. If it did, there would already be another massive Uber undercutting Uber in eg the US market and raising $10+ billion in VC money to do it. Because hey, a $75 billion valuation is sitting right there, so it's really easy: just put $10 or $20 billion into the company, undercut Uber, IPO, easy return. Everbody can do it, just add $20 billion. What's actually the case, is th…

There are a bunch of taxi apps in markets where uber is not allowed to enter and they are doing quite well too. This means thay if drivers are not happy with uber s pay, they can group together to creat their own gig.

Users seem to go with whatever is cheapest. Uber doesn’t have entrenched anything

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#66

Post by jonathankoren »

whoisjuan wrote: post #8

The problem with Lyft is that they are in a poorly understood market, in second place and burning cash at neck-breaking speed. Even if they manage to start making progress towards profitability, they might need more than that. The reality is that ride-sharing probably needs another lustrum or so to solidify and that seems excessively long for Lyft in its current state. Uber faces the same challenges but its way more…

Uber’s multiple markets maybe an advantage. If they’re all equally unprofitable, perhaps not, but at least that’s plausible.

Uber’s multiple verticals are dogs, and reek of money madness. Eats is small time and loses money. I don’t know it’s financials, but I find it hard that this ancillary business is in a healthier state than a competitor who has it as their core buisness.

Uber ATG is as bad off as any other autonomous car program. There’s a growing realization that technology won’t be ready anytime soon. (See Andrew Ng’s comments about just redesigning cities to limit autonomous vehicles’ interactions)

Uber Freight is a ghost town.[0]

The of course there’s the buisness if renting and then discarding Xiaomi scooters. (Or is that not a thing anymore? I honestly don’t remember.)

Sure, I understand the logic behind all of these. Once you have a system to tell a person “Go here, and take this here,” then you can plug pretty much anything into those slots. However. No one has shown that the way they’re doing it is a sustainable business model, and it looks like it’s not.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebanker/2018/04/10/is-uber-...

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#67

Post by nytesky »

jkubicek wrote: post #56

> Most of that was down to booking stock-based compensation plans for employees, who earned $894m from Lyft’s initial public offering Could someone help me understand what this means? Is this compensation above and beyond employee stock options? If not, that means employees own ~5% of Lyft, which is much less than I would expect. As an employee of a pre-IPO startup, I'd love to get a better handle on the realistic va…

0. It’s a lottery ticket. To be realistic. Esp with the DOW down 300 today.

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#68

Post by dd36 »

wonderwonder wrote: post #9

Very interesting process going on right now with Lyft & Uber both losing money and some of their drivers trying to stage protests and strikes. The drivers appear to rely on the company as their primary source of income and want more money yet at the same time the companies are operating at a loss. Were they to increase wages (as % of every ride) it stands to reason the losses would widen. If they get to wide the comp…

Or they can charge more.

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#69

Post by strikelaserclaw »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #52
jahlove wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

doesn't the ride cost go down substantially if they ever get autonomous vehicles on the road? I believe that is the end goal.

Uber and Lyft only have ~2 years of cash on hand. The end goal is further than the runway. Waymo has Alphabet pockets, Tesla has billions of dollars in assets to make products to sell to backstop their FSD aspirations (and think what you will in the HN echo chamber of Autopilot, investors value it's future capabilities at something above 0).

Even then, unless Uber and Lyft develop self driving in house and don't license it out, i think in the majority of the country, most people would buy a car with self driving tech instead of using Uber or Lyft. Most people in america live in suburbs, where having a car on hand is much more convenient than ordering one all the time. My bet is that self driving tech will lead to more people moving farther into the suburbs rather than less.

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#70

Post by [deleted] »

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #69
toomuchtodo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber and Lyft only have ~2 years of cash on hand. The end goal is further than the runway. Waymo has Alphabet pockets, Tesla has billions of dollars in assets to make products to sell to backstop their FSD aspirations (and think what you will in the HN echo chamber of Autopilot, investors value it's future capabilities at something above 0).

Even then, unless Uber and Lyft develop self driving in house and don't license it out, i think in the majority of the country, most people would buy a car with self driving tech instead of using Uber or Lyft. Most people in america live in suburbs, where having a car on hand is much more convenient than ordering one all the time. My bet is that self driving tech will lead to more people moving farther into the subur…

[deleted]
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