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The Uber Bubble

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Re: The Uber Bubble

#91

Post by systemvoltage »

rzz3 wrote: post #43
Barrin92 wrote: post #22

The piece is exactly right. Uber is effectively an instrument to shift economic gains from labour to capital by atomizing the workforce. From a macroeconomic perspective this is terrible because turning taxi firms into countless of one man businesses provides no efficiency gains, it's basically reverse economic development. There is a version of Uber that actually makes sense. As a lean SaaS company that sells its so…

Despite all of the negatives, many of which I agree with, the legacy taxi industry really sucked for riders. Riding in a taxi feels dirty to me, to be honest. Old, ugly cars that never seem well maintained, having to actually call someone on a phone and tell them where to pick you up, often not accepting Apple Pay, Android Pay, credit cards. Rude drivers with no rating system to disincentivize it… It’s sad that Uber…

You forgot safety. I can’t recall how many times I’ve come close to an accident by Taxi drivers.

Fuck them. These people are the most unsafe drivers on the road.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#92

Post by MrStonedOne »

rzz3 wrote: post #43
Barrin92 wrote: post #22

The piece is exactly right. Uber is effectively an instrument to shift economic gains from labour to capital by atomizing the workforce. From a macroeconomic perspective this is terrible because turning taxi firms into countless of one man businesses provides no efficiency gains, it's basically reverse economic development. There is a version of Uber that actually makes sense. As a lean SaaS company that sells its so…

Despite all of the negatives, many of which I agree with, the legacy taxi industry really sucked for riders. Riding in a taxi feels dirty to me, to be honest. Old, ugly cars that never seem well maintained, having to actually call someone on a phone and tell them where to pick you up, often not accepting Apple Pay, Android Pay, credit cards. Rude drivers with no rating system to disincentivize it… It’s sad that Uber…

No post body was provided.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#93

Post by lhorie »

MBCook wrote: post #30
Closi wrote: post #5

Easy answer - They are still experiencing rapid revenue growth, they have a clear path to profitability with a simple monetization strategy, and have dominated the market in many territories.

> they have a clear path to profitability What is it? The problem I see is that there’s zero switching cost. It’s like buying salt at the supermarket. It’s all the same. They have nothing to differentiate them except their brand. Sure they can charge a little more because of that. National brands charge a bit more than generic. But you can’t raise prices 50+% and hope people will just stick with you so that you aren’…

> It’s like buying salt at the supermarket. It’s all the same

You can say the same about Coca-cola or McDonalds though. They have a ton of competition and are most certainly not dead. I don't really buy the argument that competition is all that problematic for Uber. Worst comes to worst, taxis made money, so IMHO there's no reason to believe Uber couldn't settle at doing what taxis did in terms of profitability, at a bare minimum.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#94

Post by catlifeonmars »

naoqj wrote: post #18
mistrial9 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"slavery" is a relationship with gravitational pull for the ages; less a literal, particular configuration IMHO

If you can freely change the meaning of words then they may as well have no meaning at all.

Only if we don’t all agree on the new meaning :)

Re: The Uber Bubble

#95

Post by ISL »

Barrin92 wrote: post #22

The piece is exactly right. Uber is effectively an instrument to shift economic gains from labour to capital by atomizing the workforce. From a macroeconomic perspective this is terrible because turning taxi firms into countless of one man businesses provides no efficiency gains, it's basically reverse economic development. There is a version of Uber that actually makes sense. As a lean SaaS company that sells its so…

Uber adds more value to the rider than a balkanized taxi environment. No matter where you are, it is likely to work and work in a familiar way.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#96

Post by Mountain_Skies »

1over137 wrote: post #81
rzz3 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite all of the negatives, many of which I agree with, the legacy taxi industry really sucked for riders. Riding in a taxi feels dirty to me, to be honest. Old, ugly cars that never seem well maintained, having to actually call someone on a phone and tell them where to pick you up, often not accepting Apple Pay, Android Pay, credit cards. Rude drivers with no rating system to disincentivize it… It’s sad that Uber…

>having to actually call someone on a phone The horror!

The issue isn't social anxiety or anything like that, it's the taxi company dispatch systems are typically run by people who are both bad at their job and hate you for making them pick up the phone.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#97

Post by NikolaNovak »

rzz3 wrote: post #43
Barrin92 wrote: post #22

The piece is exactly right. Uber is effectively an instrument to shift economic gains from labour to capital by atomizing the workforce. From a macroeconomic perspective this is terrible because turning taxi firms into countless of one man businesses provides no efficiency gains, it's basically reverse economic development. There is a version of Uber that actually makes sense. As a lean SaaS company that sells its so…

Despite all of the negatives, many of which I agree with, the legacy taxi industry really sucked for riders. Riding in a taxi feels dirty to me, to be honest. Old, ugly cars that never seem well maintained, having to actually call someone on a phone and tell them where to pick you up, often not accepting Apple Pay, Android Pay, credit cards. Rude drivers with no rating system to disincentivize it… It’s sad that Uber…

In most places I've been to, traditional taxis has a captive market and no effective competition due to limited licenses. Drivers were frequently rude, dangerous, and bitterly resentful if you weren't the exact type of ride they happened to look for. Cars were poorly maintained from outside to inside. Calling them would give you a "we'll be there between 5 and 45 minutes, please stay outside in the rain and wait for them" (actual situation that happened frequently in Ottawa or Toronto). They refused to take credit cards, and would cancel the meter after starting so they wouldn't be tracked. Experience was awful from start to finish.

So my sympathy toward old model is negative.

And then there's the whole medallion business in many parts of North America, which is crazy to explain to outsiders - basically, licensed which nominally cost $150 - $1500 (depending on the city), would go for upwards of 450k on secondary market. People would buy loans and invest in them as primary retirement. When city decided to open up the market, people who invested all their money in an extremely speculative irrational market took to streets... And hired thugs to trash uber hq.

So my sympathy toward previous model is negative.

That being said, I agree that exploitation of gig economy is bad. I just feel people have a lot more choice to be or not to be an uber driver for me to fully understand their plight.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#98

Post by sbarre »

colinmorelli wrote: post #74
sbarre wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Balance that against the fact that most taxi drivers know the city by heart, including where there is construction, habitual traffic jam, and transit congestion.. I'll take a better drive-to-destination experience over being able to stare at my phone watching a car inch closer to me, or saving a few dollars when I need to get somewhere. A lot of part-time Uber drivers, especially in big cities, come in from the subur…

Interesting angle. My experience (in NYC) has been that while taxis most certainly have better knowledge of the city, Uber is by far more reliable in just getting me there. This is because of the key difference of Uber knowing exactly where I'm going in advance, and relaying turn-by-turn directions to the driver. Most of the time, the taxi driver knows the address or cross streets I'm going to. But when they don't, i…

Yeah where I live (Toronto) the turn-by-turn is the problem often. There's no adjustment for traffic or temporary closures, and combined with part-time drivers not knowing what roads should be avoided at certain times of day, and you can end up taking way too long getting somewhere.

In fact I used to see a lot of Uber drivers switch out to Waze for directions once you're in the car, since that was probably better.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#99

Post by menzoic »

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #34
Barrin92 wrote: post #22

The piece is exactly right. Uber is effectively an instrument to shift economic gains from labour to capital by atomizing the workforce. From a macroeconomic perspective this is terrible because turning taxi firms into countless of one man businesses provides no efficiency gains, it's basically reverse economic development. There is a version of Uber that actually makes sense. As a lean SaaS company that sells its so…

> Uber is effectively an instrument to shift economic gains from labour to capital by atomizing the workforce. This is the entire gig economy/sharing economy in a nutshell. The platform puts most of the financial risk on the labor side (drivers owning the cars if you're driving Uber, owning the house if you're Airbnb'ing it, etc.) and simply taking a cut of each transaction. The platform owns nothing, the workers hav…

>The platform puts most of the financial risk on the labor side (drivers owning the cars if you're driving Uber, owning the house if you're Airbnb'ing it, etc.)

Actually people already owned the cars and already owned their houses. How is that a financial risk? These platforms allow people to use their existing resources to make money. That's efficiency gains.

If anyone decides to acquire new vehicles or properties to use on these platforms it's because it's profitable due to the large demand driven by these companies pouring billions into customer acquisition and customer relations/support for them.

Re: The Uber Bubble

#100

Post by thematrixturtle »

anyfoo wrote: post #88
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uber has nothing on that Travel extensively in Germany. I can hail Uber from an app that works in Frankfurt, Paris and New York. Uber is often cheaper. And it is far more ubiquitous, particularly outside the major metropolitan areas. I still take taxis e.g. from the airport, but pretending there is convenience parity in all situations is false. (Agree that Frankfurt and London cabbies are good.)

> I can hail Uber from an app that works in Frankfurt, Paris and New York. That matters to travelers (and skewed towards business travelers, too), i.e. people who visit only for a short time, but not much to anyone else. > And it is far more ubiquitous, particularly outside the major metropolitan areas. Not my experience. I can be far outside the city and call (through the App nowadays) a taxi and I know it's going t…

Travelers hail a disproportionate amount of taxis. Living in a walkable European city with good public transport, approximately the only times I use taxis or Uber are when I'm going to/from the airport/train station and have luggage, or when it's a business trip and I can expense it (and even then I opt for trains when I can).
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