6 ms·

I'd like the think that eventually karma will catch up with Uber. Hard to think of a single positive thing to say about the company.

sokoloff 10y ago
Here's my positive thing. Taking a cab to the airport from my house in Cambridge, MA runs about $42 before tip, so call it $48 or so. An UberX costs $24.30 right now and UberPool costs $14.30 right now. Additionally, I can summon the ride more easily and get better feedback about the arrival time, giving me more confidence/less anxiety that I'll have a problem getting to the airport on time. As a consumer, by reducing my cost by 50-70% while providing a marginally better service, I can readily find one thing positive to say about the company.
- u_wot_m8 10y ago
  You could say the same about lyft, seemingly minus the illegal and immoral behavior, though they might get away with the same behavior due to not being in the spotlight as much as Uber
  - sokoloff 10y ago
    Sure. Being able to say a positive thing about Jane does not diminish the positive thing that I say about Susan.
- karussell 10y ago
  Wait until no one else is in the market. Then have fun with your positive thing/thinking :)
  - mikeash 10y ago
    I don't see that happening. There's no natural monopoly here and almost no barriers to entry. The moment Uber tries to leverage being the only one left, someone new will undercut them.
    - majewsky 10y ago
      There will be a natural monopoly (or rather, a natural oligopoly) once the car makers all have their own autonomous carsharing fleets and sell cars only with an EULA that forbids ridesharing. The entry barrier for car manufacturing is way higher.
      - stale2002 10y ago
        Ok, but a lot of companies are working on self driving cars. If one company refuses to sell self driving cars to consumers/upstart ride sharing companies, then that means that ANOTHER self driving car company can makes 10s of billions of dollars by ignoring this rule. Do you really think that not a single one of the multitude of self driving car companies would break the collusion agreement, if there is 10s of billions of dollars on the line?
      - ThrustVectoring 10y ago
        >sell cars only with an EULA that forbids ridesharing. It'd probably be leases, rather than sales - selling property gives the buyer more rights, which would make that sort of EULA problematic. Might be able to side-step it by a combination of forbidding commercial ride-sharing in order to keep the self-driving system up to date along with requiring up-to-date self-driving software to be road-legal.
    - elsewhen 10y ago
      i think you are right about the barriers to entry, but uber will have tremendous resources to kill/acquire any upstart. any prospective competitor is going to have to be very well-financed to deal with uber's ability to price them out of the market.
    - aseipp 10y ago
      This is basically like saying "I don't see why someone couldn't just build a Youtube alternative. There's no barrier to entry, basically. You can just buy as many hard drives as you need if Youtube acts up!" Except the twenty gazillion dollars you need to get started anyway, and the fifty ga-jillion dollar incumbent you're stacked against who already, again, has leveraged their death grip on the market -- which is presumably why you were becoming a competitor at all, right? To fight that?
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Uber can afford to subsidize your ride for the next 10 years or so. That doesn't mean it's long term viable, it just means that they're pumping money from one pot to another until the first one is empty and won't be refilled. They've raised over $10B...
  - sokoloff 10y ago
    I'm willing to take a discount on cabs for ten years. That it's not sustainable does not make it not a net positive to me. (I don't think any of my money is in that $10BB they raised.)
    - jxf 10y ago
      That line of thinking seems to miss a lot of the negative externalities [0] of a hypothetical world in which Uber is dominant. Just to take one example, Uber doesn't pay the same taxes as taxi companies. Localities will be losing out collectively on a lot of revenue. Aren't you affected if your city has to raise taxes to compensate? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative
      - sokoloff 10y ago
        I am overwhelmingly likely to save more on car services in the next 10 years than I am to pay in increased local taxes, leaving Uber/Lyft a net economic positive for me, even after considering that most of my Uber rides are expense-able to my company. Uber is proving that car service is not a natural monopoly. If the dominant provider is taking too many liberties with pricing, someone else will come in to right the market. I didn't intend to start a massive defense of Uber subthread, but to say there's no single thing positive about Uber I thought was a substantial overstatement.
        tkfu 10y ago
        > Uber is proving that car service is not a natural monopoly. If the dominant provider is taking too many liberties with pricing, someone else will come in to right the market. This is complete nonsense. Car services have never been a monopoly, natural or otherwise; in every major city there have always been multiple car services. Uber's valuation is premised almost completely on the hope/expectation that they can become a monopoly and start exploiting their market position to the detriment of everyone. Seriously, check out the Naked Capitalism series linked above. It lays out in great detail why Uber is not in any way an example of someone "coming in to right the market". They're wronging the market.
- hackerboos 10y ago
  That 50-70% is a loss leader for Uber. Did you read the post of their financials? They are hemorrhaging money. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver-part-one-understanding-ubers-bleak-operating-economics.html http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver...
  - Animats 10y ago
    Uber's biggest investor is Saudi Arabia's Sovereign Wealth Fund.[1] They don't have a problem with the company keeping women in their place. It may even be viewed as a plus, influencing an American company to adopt Saudi values. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/technology/uber-investment-saudi-arabia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/technology/uber-investmen...
    - imglorp 10y ago
      I suspect even the most misogynistic investor will balk at the poor publicity like OP's story, and especially at the stack of harassment lawsuits that are sure to be in the pipeline if all these employees grievances are accurate.
    - wheelerwj 10y ago
      how the fuck did Saudia Arabia investors make it into a conversation about SF company culture..
      - Animats 10y ago
        Saudi Arabia is keeping Uber alive. Without that $3.5 billion cash investment from last summer, Uber would be in serious financial trouble now. They wouldn't have been able to get the $2 billion loan that followed, and would have had to raise rates to stop the cash burn. That would have stopped their growth and cut their market share.
        wheelerwj 10y ago
        and none of that makes any difference to company culture. if it was toxic without money it wil be toxic with money.
- rhizome 10y ago
  To be sure, ethical consumer choices are a luxury and consequently you'll have to pay extra to make them. If your only concern is the sticker price, then that is a ethical choice that you're certainly entitled to make, but that also necessarily involves a choice not to account for what goes into that sticker price (parallels with e.g. Walmart), and thus is a pretty limited principle. Possibly limited to the degree that it is actually merely self-serving.
- Throwadev 10y ago
  Are there any Uber competitors in your city?
tomlu 10y ago
It should cost them employment talent, which should be a factor against them versus other employers with less toxic work cultures, all else being equal.

sokoloff 10y ago

Here's my positive thing. Taking a cab to the airport from my house in Cambridge, MA runs about $42 before tip, so call it $48 or so. An UberX costs $24.30 right now and UberPool costs $14.30 right now. Additionally, I can summon the ride more easily and get better feedback about the arrival time, giving me more confidence/less anxiety that I'll have a problem getting to the airport on time. As a consumer, by reducing my cost by 50-70% while providing a marginally better service, I can readily find one thing positive to say about the company.

u_wot_m8 10y ago
You could say the same about lyft, seemingly minus the illegal and immoral behavior, though they might get away with the same behavior due to not being in the spotlight as much as Uber
- sokoloff 10y ago
  Sure. Being able to say a positive thing about Jane does not diminish the positive thing that I say about Susan.
karussell 10y ago
Wait until no one else is in the market. Then have fun with your positive thing/thinking :)
- mikeash 10y ago
  I don't see that happening. There's no natural monopoly here and almost no barriers to entry. The moment Uber tries to leverage being the only one left, someone new will undercut them.
  - majewsky 10y ago
    There will be a natural monopoly (or rather, a natural oligopoly) once the car makers all have their own autonomous carsharing fleets and sell cars only with an EULA that forbids ridesharing. The entry barrier for car manufacturing is way higher.
    - stale2002 10y ago
      Ok, but a lot of companies are working on self driving cars. If one company refuses to sell self driving cars to consumers/upstart ride sharing companies, then that means that ANOTHER self driving car company can makes 10s of billions of dollars by ignoring this rule. Do you really think that not a single one of the multitude of self driving car companies would break the collusion agreement, if there is 10s of billions of dollars on the line?
    - ThrustVectoring 10y ago
      >sell cars only with an EULA that forbids ridesharing. It'd probably be leases, rather than sales - selling property gives the buyer more rights, which would make that sort of EULA problematic. Might be able to side-step it by a combination of forbidding commercial ride-sharing in order to keep the self-driving system up to date along with requiring up-to-date self-driving software to be road-legal.
  - elsewhen 10y ago
    i think you are right about the barriers to entry, but uber will have tremendous resources to kill/acquire any upstart. any prospective competitor is going to have to be very well-financed to deal with uber's ability to price them out of the market.
  - aseipp 10y ago
    This is basically like saying "I don't see why someone couldn't just build a Youtube alternative. There's no barrier to entry, basically. You can just buy as many hard drives as you need if Youtube acts up!" Except the twenty gazillion dollars you need to get started anyway, and the fifty ga-jillion dollar incumbent you're stacked against who already, again, has leveraged their death grip on the market -- which is presumably why you were becoming a competitor at all, right? To fight that?
jacquesm 10y ago
Uber can afford to subsidize your ride for the next 10 years or so. That doesn't mean it's long term viable, it just means that they're pumping money from one pot to another until the first one is empty and won't be refilled. They've raised over $10B...
- sokoloff 10y ago
  I'm willing to take a discount on cabs for ten years. That it's not sustainable does not make it not a net positive to me. (I don't think any of my money is in that $10BB they raised.)
  - jxf 10y ago
    That line of thinking seems to miss a lot of the negative externalities [0] of a hypothetical world in which Uber is dominant. Just to take one example, Uber doesn't pay the same taxes as taxi companies. Localities will be losing out collectively on a lot of revenue. Aren't you affected if your city has to raise taxes to compensate? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative
    - sokoloff 10y ago
      I am overwhelmingly likely to save more on car services in the next 10 years than I am to pay in increased local taxes, leaving Uber/Lyft a net economic positive for me, even after considering that most of my Uber rides are expense-able to my company. Uber is proving that car service is not a natural monopoly. If the dominant provider is taking too many liberties with pricing, someone else will come in to right the market. I didn't intend to start a massive defense of Uber subthread, but to say there's no single thing positive about Uber I thought was a substantial overstatement.
      - tkfu 10y ago
        > Uber is proving that car service is not a natural monopoly. If the dominant provider is taking too many liberties with pricing, someone else will come in to right the market. This is complete nonsense. Car services have never been a monopoly, natural or otherwise; in every major city there have always been multiple car services. Uber's valuation is premised almost completely on the hope/expectation that they can become a monopoly and start exploiting their market position to the detriment of everyone. Seriously, check out the Naked Capitalism series linked above. It lays out in great detail why Uber is not in any way an example of someone "coming in to right the market". They're wronging the market.
hackerboos 10y ago
That 50-70% is a loss leader for Uber. Did you read the post of their financials? They are hemorrhaging money. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver-part-one-understanding-ubers-bleak-operating-economics.html http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver...
- Animats 10y ago
  Uber's biggest investor is Saudi Arabia's Sovereign Wealth Fund.[1] They don't have a problem with the company keeping women in their place. It may even be viewed as a plus, influencing an American company to adopt Saudi values. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/technology/uber-investment-saudi-arabia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/technology/uber-investmen...
  - imglorp 10y ago
    I suspect even the most misogynistic investor will balk at the poor publicity like OP's story, and especially at the stack of harassment lawsuits that are sure to be in the pipeline if all these employees grievances are accurate.
  - wheelerwj 10y ago
    how the fuck did Saudia Arabia investors make it into a conversation about SF company culture..
    - Animats 10y ago
      Saudi Arabia is keeping Uber alive. Without that $3.5 billion cash investment from last summer, Uber would be in serious financial trouble now. They wouldn't have been able to get the $2 billion loan that followed, and would have had to raise rates to stop the cash burn. That would have stopped their growth and cut their market share.
      - wheelerwj 10y ago
        and none of that makes any difference to company culture. if it was toxic without money it wil be toxic with money.
rhizome 10y ago
To be sure, ethical consumer choices are a luxury and consequently you'll have to pay extra to make them. If your only concern is the sticker price, then that is a ethical choice that you're certainly entitled to make, but that also necessarily involves a choice not to account for what goes into that sticker price (parallels with e.g. Walmart), and thus is a pretty limited principle. Possibly limited to the degree that it is actually merely self-serving.
Throwadev 10y ago
Are there any Uber competitors in your city?

tomlu 10y ago

It should cost them employment talent, which should be a factor against them versus other employers with less toxic work cultures, all else being equal.