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Saw this in the coffee shop where I’m grabbing breakfast from, and pulled up a link to go with.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2018/03/21/cabbie-blamed-uber-lyft-for-financial-woes-before-hanging-himself/amp/

It’s on the phone, hence the link. Basically, a cabby killed himself because Uber made him broke. Assuming underlying mental health issues, but if we ignore those, and focus on ride-share vs taxis, what is the preference? Honestly, I support taxi companies being killed off. Every Uber I have used has been cleaner, nicer, friendlier, cheaper, and more convenient because the credit card was already on file and it has always been much easier to get a driver. The ride has always felt safer too. If taxis want to compete, I really feel they need to step up their game; cleaner cars, offer credit card pay in the car (some are starting to do this these days), and they have to lower costs. All taxi companies try to do is blame ride-share and strong arm them away from some areas. They don’t try to fix their own inherent issues.

Thoughts?

Obsolete business models die. It's unfortunate when their employees can't cope with the stress of losing a job, but what are you going to do? Have the government step in and subsidize a dying industry at the expense of superior competition? The whole medallion system is idiotic and anti-competitive in the first place, and the idea of expanding it to kill off competition is absurd.

The real problem is that people are gullible enough to take a job where you, on average, pay money for the privilege of working and funding someone else's profits. If these drivers actually did the full analysis on their expenses, including fuel, deprecation, maintenance, etc, they'd often find that their hourly pay is below minimum wage, and in many cases negative. If the employees of these companies had more sense about it and refused to work without proper compensation their cost vs. conventional taxi services would probably be a lot less impressive.

 Peregrine wrote:
Obsolete business models die. It's unfortunate when their employees can't cope with the stress of losing a job, but what are you going to do? Have the government step in and subsidize a dying industry at the expense of superior competition? The whole medallion system is idiotic and anti-competitive in the first place, and the idea of expanding it to kill off competition is absurd.

The real problem is that people are gullible enough to take a job where you, on average, pay money for the privilege of working and funding someone else's profits. If these drivers actually did the full analysis on their expenses, including fuel, deprecation, maintenance, etc, they'd often find that their hourly pay is below minimum wage, and in many cases negative. If the employees of these companies had more sense about it and refused to work without proper compensation their cost vs. conventional taxi services would probably be a lot less impressive.

Many Ubers I know get tipped very well which puts their daily pay much to shame. Which in general seems to why a number seem to continue with Uber.

As a Londoner I am used to the best taxis in the world. Uber seems to be popular in the USA where the regular taxi service is pretty dismal. (As far as I know.)

Uber has been banned from London and a number of cities on the continent. At the same time, various cities have launched local taxi app services using "real" taxis.

From what I understand it, Uber has been bleeding red ink for years, and only manages to stagger on because they got a vast amount of venture capital investment early on. Once this runs out they are toast. Possibly sooner if they get nailed for ripping off Google's AI car code, or for running over that lady in Tempe.

The hackney cab business model, OTOH, has been working fine since Georgian times.

 Peregrine wrote:
Obsolete business models die. It's unfortunate when their employees can't cope with the stress of losing a job, but what are you going to do? Have the government step in and subsidize a dying industry at the expense of superior competition? The whole medallion system is idiotic and anti-competitive in the first place, and the idea of expanding it to kill off competition is absurd.

The real problem is that people are gullible enough to take a job where you, on average, pay money for the privilege of working and funding someone else's profits. If these drivers actually did the full analysis on their expenses, including fuel, deprecation, maintenance, etc, they'd often find that their hourly pay is below minimum wage, and in many cases negative. If the employees of these companies had more sense about it and refused to work without proper compensation their cost vs. conventional taxi services would probably be a lot less impressive.

Uber is a predatory company focused mainly on grift. Blaming people for falling for the marketing campaign or simply being desperate enough that they don't have other options is the wrong end of it. Uber isn't "superior competition" in any sense other than that they keep selling the idea of Disruptivating The Markets to billionaires with nothing better to spend money on than bitcoin and scams. Taxi companies can't keep up because they have to follow regulations and have minimal standards for their employees. The government deciding to subsidize them would just mirror Uber's financial situation, anyway.



Entirely aside from that basing public transportation on competing for-profit companies is really fething stupid in the first place.

I seriously dislike Uber.

We have it here in Leeds, but many of its drivers are not familiar with this area - they get their licenses or whatever accreditation they need from a town 30 miles away (which has lower licensing standards) and come in to the City to pick up more lucrative fares. They rarely know where they are going, you'd be screwed if you didn't know where you need to be.

The biggest Taxi company here has been pretty on the ball in getting an app sorted, which is as good as Uber's offering, and I know I'm supporting a company that has been operating in the City for decades.

I also hate the idea of surge charging. I looked at Uber the other night (well, 2am) after several beers when it was snowing. Due to demand, Uber were expecting to be able to charge me £25 for the 3 mile journey - normally that journey would be £5. The other company were saying no taxis available for an hour (after which I'd have paid the normal price) so I walked.

Uber is convenient and cheap due to non-existent regulations and clueless drivers. It's like airbnb; you can save a lot of money by utilising amateurs trying to earn a fast buck, but it can rebound badly.

Your average black London cabbie knows every street and side alley in London to nip down and save you time, your Uber driver is using a GPS satnav to get you there and sits in traffic. Your average London cabbie is tested, qualified, and registered in umpteen different ways; your uber driver has to pass an easily duped online system. Your London cabbie is a self-sufficient man making himself a living wage, your Uber driver is making a pittance and passing a large chunk back to an exploitative American tech company.

As a consumer, Uber is usually very handy purely it is cheap. Not particularly comparatively easy anymore, because using Addison Lee or Kabbee or somesuch is just as convenient. It's just cheap, plain and simple. When people complain about losing access to Uber, it's entirely price focused. And as with all price focused things, you shortchange yourself in other areas to get the cheaper rate. You give up local knowledge, safety, and paying a working man a working wage because you want to save a few quid. It's no different to buying dirt cheap low quality clothing from a Vietnamese factory instead of something more local, better quality, and suitably remunerative to the employee.

All that being said, Uber does have some good features that users like.

Being able to summon a cab anywhere and see how close it is to you.
Being trackable while you are in the cab.
Maybe some others...

However these are fairly obvious ideas that any cab company could put into an app. That's why there are so many competitors to Uber.

It largely depends on the area, I think.

For example, in Montana's state capital, only one company was allowed to operate legally. Suspiciously, that same company was owned by the legislater that drew up the bill. Some big bull doodoo right there. In that case, I am all for Uber and other such services.

In larger metropolitan areas, they also give a huge benefit of competition, which is also good.

In any case Uber is not a ride sharing company. Uber drivers take passengers and get paid for it as a more or less regular source of income, so they're basically a more or less informal taxi with an app behind.

Ridesharing is something more like blablacar, where people post their routes and people can get it paying part of the trip cost.

I do ride-sharing through a web-based service promoted by Oxford University for people in and around Oxford and Oxfordshire.

It works exactly like you say about blablacar.

I have a regular commute to Oxford and back. If someone wants a ride, they can pay half my petrol, save on the bus or train fare, and I get a bit of pocket money.

Hopefully it doesn't end with a big fight about Brexit and spinning off the road into the woods in a fireball.

Uber sucks for everyone involved except for it's shareholders.

Don't be a sucker. Don't use Uber.

 feeder wrote:
Uber sucks for everyone involved except for it's shareholders.

Don't be a sucker. Don't use Uber.

Unless you live in an area where Taxi's are straight up awful in which case.. What then?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 feeder wrote:
Uber sucks for everyone involved except for it's shareholders.

Don't be a sucker. Don't use Uber.

Unless you live in an area where Taxi's are straight up awful in which case.. What then?

Get a bike

I have used Taxis in Oklahoma City in the past.

- I had to call a central dispatch number for any of the local companies.
- I routinely had to wait 30 minutes for my cab.
- At least 75% of the cabs were dirty and malodorous.
- The price was more expensive than Uber.

Everytime I have used Uber:

- I pull up an app
- I never waited more than 5 minutes for a car.
- Every care has been clean and the drivers friendly.
- The price was cheaper than a cab.

Uber doesn't kill Taxis, Taxis kill Taxis.

 d-usa wrote:
I have used Taxis in Oklahoma City in the past.

- I had to call a central dispatch number for any of the local companies.
- I routinely had to wait 30 minutes for my cab.
- At least 75% of the cabs were dirty and malodorous.
- The price was more expensive than Uber.

Everytime I have used Uber:

- I pull up an app
- I never waited more than 5 minutes for a car.
- Every care has been clean and the drivers friendly.
- The price was cheaper than a cab.

Uber doesn't kill Taxis, Taxis kill Taxis.

I really feel like (at least in the US) this is the crux of the issue.

You can say all the nasty things about Uber that you want, and a lot of them can even be true, but at the end of the day traditional taxi service here is god awful and so much so that basically anything is an improvement. So Taxi's can do the not free market (we still like that round here right?) thing and try to legislate their competitor away to keep being the only player in the game or they can get their own gak together and maybe just beat Uber by actually being a better service.

Huh. I've never had a cab that wasn't at least basically fine.

Another victory for the filthy northern socialist scum!

I wouldn't say that applying the same standards to companies doing the same business is subsidizing though. Uber runs a taxi service and should be subject to the same regulation. If someone needs xyz certification or license to drive a taxi they should need it to drive Uber as well. On the flipside, if the regulation is unnecessary then it should be repealed and not applied to taxis either.

At any rate, I think any taxi group that doesn't have an app running at this point is simply putting itself out of business from sheer laziness/stubborn refusal to keep with the times.

Regulation (and licensing) isn't always a panacea.

Uber (and Lyft) is simply circumventing the established "market" in the taxi industry. This is what new advances of technologies does... the old lucrative taxi industry will die out and evolve to something different.

I've always had better service with Uber than regular Taxi.

 feeder wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 feeder wrote:
Uber sucks for everyone involved except for it's shareholders.

Don't be a sucker. Don't use Uber.

Unless you live in an area where Taxi's are straight up awful in which case.. What then?

Get a bike

That's pretty worse!

But in general, if Taxi's can't keep up then they are going to get left behind at this rate here.

I can't say I've had better or worse service on uber compared to taxis. They've both been... fine. It's a car, you sit in it, it takes you somewhere.

But uber is way cheaper, and you can get one right now, at times when the taxi ranks are full.

The reason is uber has a very clever model that encourages drivers to come and go based on demand at that time. This leads to surge pricing which people hate, but personally I'd rather pay more and get the service, than have an artificially low price and no driver available.

 feeder wrote:
Uber sucks for everyone involved except for it's shareholders.

uber really sucks for its shareholders. It is burning money, and unlike say early days Amazon it is basically impossible to envision a world where uber can ever give a decent ROI. Either uber's place in the market will forever be litigious and therefore unprofitable, or they will eventually establish the 'contractor own car' model, at which point uber will be swamped with a million competitors and never able to charge more than few cents above profit.

The silly buggers built a model based around perfect market economics, with perfect information and the supply of drivers able to come and go in a second. They didn't realize perfect markets are a really tough place for a business to make profit.

 sebster wrote:
The silly buggers built a model based around perfect market economics, with perfect information and the supply of drivers able to come and go in a second. They didn't realize perfect markets are a really tough place for a business to make profit.

I think its more likely they thought that with enough money they'll be able to get into a quasi-monopoly position when it comes to ride sharing apps (have the customers) and maybe also to push old taxi companies out, that they'll have the infrastructure ready (all the data to optimise their service in all regions), and that they'll manage to get early enough into self-driving tech to benefit from the combination of users, data, and cars without drivers to finally somehow get profitable while making mad money from their rent-seeking middle man position in that whole industry (and then maybe expand into all kinds of delivery services and anything adjacent that they could exploit).

Why else would somebody give them billions in venture capital? You don't get that type of money from VCs by promising to just collect a percentage of your drivers' transactions.

Self-driving cars killing people doesn't help that model.

I'm sure self-driving cars still have a lower kill-ratio than human drivers, but people don't like the optics. I figured that skynet would start with something more upscale than running people over in the streets.

Mario wrote:
I think its more likely they thought that with enough money they'll be able to get into a quasi-monopoly position when it comes to ride sharing apps (have the customers) and maybe also to push old taxi companies out, that they'll have the infrastructure ready (all the data to optimise their service in all regions), and that they'll manage to get early enough into self-driving tech to benefit from the combination of users, data, and cars without drivers to finally somehow get profitable while making mad money from their rent-seeking middle man position in that whole industry (and then maybe expand into all kinds of delivery services and anything adjacent that they could exploit).

If uber had been more sensibly managed from the start they might have reached a point where their market dominance could shut out the alternatives. But uber has not been sensibly managed. As an example, from the start uber fought against having its drivers recognized as employees, instead calling them sub-contractors. But the funny thing is if they were employees then uber could have told its drivers they can't drive for anyone else. Hey presto there's an incredibly powerful network effect maintained, as drivers are going to pick the big company that has all the custmers, and customers are going to pick the company that has all the customers.

But uber didn't do that, because of ideology and an inability to understand the economics of their own business model. Now anyone driving for uber would be mad not to also install the app for every other ride service in the city. No network effect, no monopoly, so uber gets stuck competing on price in an industry with potentially infinite new companies always fighting for market share.

It doesn't mean uber is doomed or anything like that. But the chance for outsized profits are gone.

Why else would somebody give them billions in venture capital? You don't get that type of money from VCs by promising to just collect a percentage of your drivers' transactions.

Silicon Valley gave $120 million to a failed juice bar owner to build the Juicero, a $700 juicer that couldn't juice fruit, it only worked with $4 juice pods. But it was connected to the internet.

A less smart arse answer is that uber could have been an extraordinary payoff for everyone involved. It targeted the taxi industry, which was ripe for plucking, and attacked it with a significantly cheaper product that was much easier to use. It's just uber screwed it up, so instead of breaking down the old industry and replacing it entirely themselves, they're probably just going to break down the old industry and create space for lots of new companies to fill.

 sebster wrote:

Spoiler:

Mario wrote:
I think its more likely they thought that with enough money they'll be able to get into a quasi-monopoly position when it comes to ride sharing apps (have the customers) and maybe also to push old taxi companies out, that they'll have the infrastructure ready (all the data to optimise their service in all regions), and that they'll manage to get early enough into self-driving tech to benefit from the combination of users, data, and cars without drivers to finally somehow get profitable while making mad money from their rent-seeking middle man position in that whole industry (and then maybe expand into all kinds of delivery services and anything adjacent that they could exploit).

If uber had been more sensibly managed from the start they might have reached a point where their market dominance could shut out the alternatives. But uber has not been sensibly managed. As an example, from the start uber fought against having its drivers recognized as employees, instead calling them sub-contractors. But the funny thing is if they were employees then uber could have told its drivers they can't drive for anyone else. Hey presto there's an incredibly powerful network effect maintained, as drivers are going to pick the big company that has all the custmers, and customers are going to pick the company that has all the customers.

But uber didn't do that, because of ideology and an inability to understand the economics of their own business model. Now anyone driving for uber would be mad not to also install the app for every other ride service in the city. No network effect, no monopoly, so uber gets stuck competing on price in an industry with potentially infinite new companies always fighting for market share.

It doesn't mean uber is doomed or anything like that. But the chance for outsized profits are gone.

The problem with their drivers being full employees is that Uber would have needed to actually pay them. And with that they wouldn't be able to expand into every city everywhere. They are already losing billions per year just by subsidising their drivers to make Uber look cheaper. Imagine if they actually had to pay all those people as full or part time workers.

Their drivers are "freelancers" because no matter how much money they spend on everything else it means their drivers are not a fixed cost but just a variable that's stapled to each transaction (from Uber's point of view) and because they want to get rid of them as soon as possible once their cars driver on their own (rather optimistic) without considering that Uber drivers also maintain those cars (you just need one guest to thrash a car and make it useless for Uber until it gets cleaned). I think they also saw self-driving cars in a way too optimistic light.

But the main—and I think insidious—point is that around the time Uber got traction the gig economy started booming after the 2008 depression. So many new startups started providing "services" (a lot of it was essentially "mom for hire for SV man-babies") that relied on people letting themselves get abused by those companies because they had no other choice and it was all packaged as "freedom" and "independence" for the people doing the actual work. Uber knew that they could get enough people to sign up for that but also that competitors wouldn't be lacking in drivers if Uber's drivers were exclusive. They tried other schemes to make life hard for Lyft and other competitors.

Why else would somebody give them billions in venture capital? You don't get that type of money from VCs by promising to just collect a percentage of your drivers' transactions.

Silicon Valley gave $120 million to a failed juice bar owner to build the Juicero, a $700 juicer that couldn't juice fruit, it only worked with $4 juice pods. But it was connected to the internet.

A less smart arse answer is that uber could have been an extraordinary payoff for everyone involved. It targeted the taxi industry, which was ripe for plucking, and attacked it with a significantly cheaper product that was much easier to use. It's just uber screwed it up, so instead of breaking down the old industry and replacing it entirely themselves, they're probably just going to break down the old industry and create space for lots of new companies to fill.

Juicero, like Uber, sounds like a company that had one really nice sounding hook that investors bought into (and if it worked out it'd make them filthy rich). In their case it was Nespresso for juice with extra internet based DRM (it's more secure, they'll never find a way around it, hahaha!) while fleecing all those health obsessed people with way too much money.

That their actual juicer was over-engineered and also sold at a loss for a process that can be emulated with two hands may have been a tiny bit of a mistake on their side.

On Uber: I think when it comes to taxis the incumbents will improve their services and we'll have to see how it actually turns out once self-driving cars are there and the industry (as well as world) changes. Uber's selling point to investors shifted over time: From taxi to self-driving, to them having the best knowledge and tech infrastructure (that was only incidentally taxi related). I don't know if Uber will survive long enough and if they don't who'll happen to get all the data in the end.

Mario wrote:
The problem with their drivers being full employees is that Uber would have needed to actually pay them. And with that they wouldn't be able to expand into every city everywhere. They are already losing billions per year just by subsidising their drivers to make Uber look cheaper. Imagine if they actually had to pay all those people as full or part time workers.

I know why they did it. I also know its cost uber their chance at market dominance, and the latter is a lot bigger loss than the salary costs of a living wage.

On Uber: I think when it comes to taxis the incumbents will improve their services and we'll have to see how it actually turns out once self-driving cars are there and the industry (as well as world) changes. Uber's selling point to investors shifted over time: From taxi to self-driving, to them having the best knowledge and tech infrastructure (that was only incidentally taxi related). I don't know if Uber will survive long enough and if they don't who'll happen to get all the data in the end.

Amazon also went through a constant shift in business operations and has never booked much of a profit. It was an on-line bookstore at the start. So in that sense I'm not skeptical of uber's history of loss making and operations drift. But the difference is Amazon turned each business element profitable, and used cashflows from those parts to fund each new element. It worked like an old fashioned industry conglomerate, but at hyperspeed.

Thing is uber has never made money doing anything, and it's actually pretty hard to see how it is going to make any kind of serious profit from any of its business operations. They move in to new areas, but there's no underlying cashflow to fund it, they're just burning through investor's cash. As you say, will uber survive long enough to benefit from any of the stuff its developing?

Uber's very business model relies on the public not enforcing the law (seriously, we spent 2 weeks on this company and topic in an MBA business ethics class)

What many have argued, even in this thread, is that Uber and Lyft, by their use of apps and payment methods have forced the normal taxi companies to adjust more quickly than they otherwise would have.

What surprises me in this thread is that you all find Uber cheaper.

Uber is not cheaper in my city. Even when not on surge pricing it is more expensive than other local taxi firms (even those that offer their own apps).

Over here the taxis are just massively over regulated, and uber managed to slip in being almost completely unregulated. There needs to be a happy middle ground, taxi licenses are just stupidly expensive and they pass that cost on to passengers making the costs stupid high. Before uber I'd be more inclined to sleep on a mate's floor or even a park bench until I sobered up enough to drive myself before paying a taxi to drive me home.

Granted I don't catch a lot of ubers either, but at least it's on my radar.

Add to that of the few times I've caught taxis they've done me dirty by not showing up or taking me arse about ways and dropping me further away than I asked making me pay even more for an already overpriced ride.

Herbington wrote:
What surprises me in this thread is that you all find Uber cheaper.

Uber is not cheaper in my city. Even when not on surge pricing it is more expensive than other local taxi firms (even those that offer their own apps).

Where I am it is nearly three times cheaper then local taxi equivalents. If it had not been for Uber I would've had some major issues with transportation.