71–80 of 198 posts
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iPhones, model hasn't mattered. Flat Iron + GPS = location lottery for me anytime of the day.
> iPhones, model hasn't mattered. Flat Iron + GPS = location lottery for me anytime of the day. That's unfortunate. As I said, every Android phone I had has been spot on everywhere in the city.
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The point the commenter is making is that Uber is just providing access to it. They aren't training all those drivers, buying and maintaining all those cars, building and maintaining all the roads, etc. BART does all those things for their rail system.
The commenter almost certainly has no idea (or more likely, chooses to ignore) the operational infrastructure and excellence it takes to scale a marketplace like Uber's to 4 billion rides, as fast as Uber did it. Any hot-take that centers around "It's just an app that a couple of guys wrote in an afternoon with some underpaid drivers doing all the work" is someone arguing in bad faith (and I suspect the person is wel…
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> Drivers aren't going to get more than a few percentage points increase without increasing the price to the end user. But they should. Perhaps the pay scale is too top heavy. Uber's operational expenses should be trivial (hell, they straight up stole the most expensive bits -- the self-driving car IP). Instead they squeeze the drivers (passing along rate cuts) and riders (surge pricing during shootings, etc) pretty…
Uber's driver and rider acquisition costs (marketing, promotions, ads, etc.) are astronomical. They can't easily scale these efforts back because the value of the service plummets for all parties if they lose their economy of scale.
I just wanted to drop a note to say I think Uber is doing a good job, all things considered. Many public transit companies have been around for decades and haven't figured out how to scale up to the kind of service Uber is providing. 4B rides in 2017 is pretty amazing. If I understand the math correctly, BART claims about 126 million rides (2015) and cost $906M (~$7 a ride, comparable to some uber pool fares)
>Many public transit companies have been around for decades and haven't figured out how to scale up to the kind of service Uber is providing This is because these are publicly funded organizations that are starved of funds for political reasons. Public transit works well where it's funded well. It's a political problem, not a technology problem.
But that covers 100 percent of their expenses. If Uber had to shell out to fix the streets that they use, I bet it wouldn't be so cheap.
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Uber's driver and rider acquisition costs (marketing, promotions, ads, etc.) are astronomical. They can't easily scale these efforts back because the value of the service plummets for all parties if they lose their economy of scale.
Won't there be some point at which they're established and don't need to work so hard at those things?
L5 self-driving cars will be a game-changer for a while, assuming Uber gets exclusivity from Waymo (which now owns a stake in Uber).
Lyft used to do something similar couple of years ago (at least in Bay Area) in Lyft Line. I believe they had 10 min wait option wherein when you request and wait for 10 mins you'll get cheaper fare. I remember getting 10-20% cheaper fares consistently using that option. I'd regularly take 10 min wait option especially going to east bay or peninsula from SF. Uber also has "express pool" option (again in bay area), wh…
F.D. I work for Uber, but not in the rides business.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The commenter almost certainly has no idea (or more likely, chooses to ignore) the operational infrastructure and excellence it takes to scale a marketplace like Uber's to 4 billion rides, as fast as Uber did it. Any hot-take that centers around "It's just an app that a couple of guys wrote in an afternoon with some underpaid drivers doing all the work" is someone arguing in bad faith (and I suspect the person is wel…
Please. They drive around on roads that they don't pay for, in cars that they don't own, using drivers that they don't pay. The routing engine is Google's (they all use Maps). The rest of the stuff is impressive, and not something that you can put together in a day, or even a year. But I don't think it should be as difficult as it is for them to make a profit. I genuinely don't know what their expenses are other than…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_McClendon
He's a great guy by the way, in addition to being super smart.
Your others points are not well thought through at all - I urge you to spend some time really thinking deeply about them if this is a topic you care about.
Every company drives around on roads they don't pay for. Roads are a benefit to society - part of the reason we value them is because they enable commerce. Do you complain that GrubHub doesn't use their own roads when they deliver your food? Do you complain that Pizza Hut doesn't own it's own cars when their delivery drivers bring you pizza? Does United help pay for the airports that enable them to exist?
Look, the fact of the matter is that consumers LOVE ride sharing services. They're fast, they're cheap, they're clean, they're safe, and the customer support is incredible. Ride sharing today is simply 10x better than any alternative in most cities. If you're going to argue for cabs being superior, then you either do not live in America or you've never taken a cab before. Not only that, but many drivers love ride-sharing too. Whole classes of people that couldn't find work before can now easily find work with Uber or Lyft (including the deaf, mute, retired, students etc). They can work when they want to, as much as they want to (or as little) and set their own schedule. This is simply not possible with any other low-wage work.
Having said all of this, I don't mean to imply that we should absolve Uber of responsibility for their business practices or their culture problems. We should absolutely push them, and the industry to be better. But this isn't just about Uber. This is about ride-sharing in general, which completely changed what transportation in cities means. It is absolutely innovative in every sense of the word.
Why doesn't Uber/Lyft support actual carpooling so that if I know I need to go somewhere I can offers other people a ride to/from nearby locations. Given the traffic in large cities and the number of single cars going the same direction at rush hour it would make a lot of sense. Adding the option for a longer wait like this would make it easier to manage for the commuting driver. I guess the issue is it'll annoy the…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Many public transit companies have been around for decades and haven't figured out how to scale up to the kind of service Uber is providing This is because these are publicly funded organizations that are starved of funds for political reasons. Public transit works well where it's funded well. It's a political problem, not a technology problem.
Even the best funded public transit services are substantial money losers. Paris covers 70 cents of every dollar, Madrid 60 cents, and even in Berlin and Munich its 30 cents. But that covers 100 percent of their expenses. If Uber had to shell out to fix the streets that they use, I bet it wouldn't be so cheap.
Streets are public infrastructure and are paid for by taxes, which Uber and all other companies that do business using roads presumably pay, just like everyone else. So, unless you have a specific reason to believe otherwise, it is fair to assume that yes, Uber is paying for the streets that they use.
If streets are not being adequately paid for, then that's a failure of the government that's responsible for them, not the businesses that are using them (streets are there to be used).