7 ms·

I will say good riddance, and I bet prices will be similar, even lower.

by afsina 9y ago

joering2 9y ago
Just curious: why would they be lower [from taxis] if there are no taxis and Uber runs almost a monopoly?
- thanksgiving 9y ago
  Because if they are too high, the taxis will make a comeback. I think uber understands that the network effect is only so strong. Just look at Facebook and see how it brought out the big guns against a seemingly benign rival: Snapchat. You might be asked to extract rent but you can't extract too much (just my conjecture, no clue how much is too much)
  - joering2 9y ago
    > Because if they are too high, the taxis will make a comeback Uber can change price dynamically while you load your app within seconds. Somehow doubt the whole Taxi industry of Medallion et al can reboot in a matter of seconds (or days or months).
  - petra 9y ago
    The network effects are pretty small when you do a single passenger trip. But multi-passenger trips(Uber pool) have quite strong network effects and a lot of room for margin.
    - thanksgiving 9y ago
      > The network effects are pretty small when you do a single passenger trip. But multi-passenger trips(Uber pool) have quite strong network effects and a lot of room for margin. So I might be the last person to realize this but you're right! If I don't mind being ten or twenty minutes late, then how about taking this a step further with a bus? You enter where you want to go and the closest bus gets rerouted based on where its existing passengers are going (or if you're going somewhere weird it won't trigger the bus but rather a small Toyota Corolla I am not completely opposed to small cars). It doesn't even need to be self-driving. The main thing is there needs to be enough of them (and it would be nice if they had access to bus lanes but the amazing Uber legal time I am sure can figure this one out). This is brilliant because if we can reroute bus traffic based on who is travelling and where (and we know live traffic information thanks to Google and Waze) we can make "public transit" a lot more palatable. I'd argue we can realistically make an "unlimited" rides card that allows you to ride any uber pool anywhere for say $200 a month? I mean if you never have to wait for the bus/taxi for more than twenty minutes, it is surely worth it right? I guess the point is that there is a lot of room for innovation with uber pool and uber has to continue to innovate to stay ahead. If they do, I don't mind if they take a small portion of the money. We as a society will be better off with fewer cars on the road. anywhere doesn't actually mean anywhere but anywhere within certain areas. Can't uber pool between brisbane and sydney :)
      - petra 9y ago
        I agree , it could be a great thing. The leading startup in making that vision is Via, they just got $200m investment from Mercedes and a partnership, they are deployed in 3 major cities in the us, also starting in Europe via big partnership and working on dual model of both their own service and licensing their software to others, what could enable rapid takeup. As for prices, recently I read a story comparing ride services, for 4mile trip , Uber costs ~$20, via $6(although via can sometimes get delayed for long, but I think with scale that could greatly improve, and maybe prices a bit).so this may give a scale for the practicality of $200 free pass. And btw to run such service you need 8 passenger minibuses , which are commercial vehicles driven by commercial drivers, who hate Ubers guts,and probably won't work with Ubers model, and if Uber changes their model and gives preference to these drivers, they could alienate their own drivers.So maybe that's why they don't fully compete. And one more thing: the other big possible improvement is in vehicle design, to allow multiple people sharing a vehicle more comfort and privacy. But now that Mercedes is in the picture and they said they will optimize vehicles , maybe this will get solved.
- afsina 9y ago
  First, Uber will not be a monopoly, second Taxis are over priced already.
  - brianwawok 9y ago
    What's overpriced to you? Any business where an employee can maybe eek out $13 an hour?
    - DevinTheDude 9y ago
      He said nothing about what wages the employees make. As a consumer this is not your concern when you think about pricing. I don't care how a company manages it's money. I just care about how much their services cost versus what it's worth to me.
      - brianwawok 9y ago
        Except it does. A taxi occupies 100% of the attention of a human being as he drives you. How the heck can you not considet his wage when asking for a price drop? If 75% of your price goes to the driver and the driver makes minimum or near minimum wage, where do you propose the cost savings come from?
    - afsina 9y ago
      Overpriced is this: I can pay to a pirate taxi service 2-3 times less and he is still fine. For example, Taxi drivers here needs to pay money to medallion owner and prices are determined by their guild and government centrally. There is no competition or any concern of consumer expectations.
- dx034 9y ago
  Taxi costs in many areas are driven by high barriers to entry (medallions or tests) and taxi drivers spend a high percentage of their time waiting. The surge pricing system and apps can better match demand and supply so that you should be able to get the same hourly wage for lower costs to the passenger. The problem currently just is that while Uber could be something like 25% cheaper, they are actually rather 40% cheaper and pay the difference out of their own pocket.
B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
I can't wait to bankrupt my local surly cabbies, and have my transportation controlled by a Californian company who'll be able to dictate prices and sell my data.
- orcdork 9y ago
  I get where you're coming from, but you could say the same thing about software purchased on any app store, your mobile phone and a bunch of other things.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    Yes, yes you can.
- dx034 9y ago
  Not sure where you live but in most big cities you already have the choice between some Californian company, at least one European company and sometimes Chinese (or chinese backed) companies. Someone will get your data but you can choose who that'll be. Creating an app like uber is cheap enough that competitors will pop up whenever uber feels like making money.
the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
Lower prices makes no sense. No drivercan live a reasonable life with those prices. And self driving cars won’t be cheaper for a long time
- Eridrus 9y ago
  GPS+Smartphones killed any special skills that drivers needed, so Uber/Lyft wages are being driven down to McDonalds levels, because there is no barrier to entry, and the flexibility provided by Lyft/Uber is actually helpful to people who are already working at a part time job that has shitty unpredictable hours. And if one of these companies goes under, expect wages to fall further because they do not need to compete with the other.
  - the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
    I don’t see how Uber failing would cause wages to fall. Uber is consistently cheaper than competing services. When Uber leaves a European market taxis generally profit from it.
bitL 9y ago
Frankly, I don't get it why so many people in tech are so biased against smaller independent businesses such as taxis and mom-and-pop shops, so that the shareholders have more money (and they already don't know what to do with their money and beg entrepreneurs to take them to beat index funds returns). Like everybody has to be a corporate slave otherwise doesn't have right to exist. It's obvious those smaller/independent companies are the target of Uber/Lyft, sucking life off another class of people that would otherwise have bearable conditions of their existence. This is frankly a highway to hell for everyone.
- rayiner 9y ago
  But taxi companies have regulatory capture. How are giant VC funded companies dumping service into the market below cost supposed to compete with that?
- curun1r 9y ago
  It might have something to do with taxi drivers specifically since they're not known for being the most honest and decent service providers. Whether it's scams like letting air out of their tires, not starting the meter or taking longer routes or discriminatory practices like avoiding certain neighborhoods and driving by minorities to pick up white people (yes, this is a thing and a friend and I had it happen reliably enough that it became a running joke), the pre-Uber cab situation was pretty bad and there wasn't much riders could do about it. I admit to some schadenfreude at seeing taxi drivers struggle after so many years of putting up with their BS.
  - bitL 9y ago
    OK, probably because I live in Germany where taxis work fine my perspective is different.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- splintercell 9y ago
  This whole problem exists not because taxis didn't embrace technology soon enough, but because in 1936 they put a cap on issuing new medallions in NYC. Which meant that since then, irrespective of the economic growth and the number of people, the number of taxi cabs became severely restricted. This created an artificially increased prices for taxies. In the year 2011 a taxi cab medallion was sold for $1 Million in 2011 [1]. Taxi Cab industry is a heavily regulated industry which was screwing only one group of people, i.e. the consumers. This is why there is little love for the cab industry in America. For more economic analysis on this, check out the lecture by Murray Rothbard given in 1989 at NY Polytechnic [2]. 1. https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/2-taxi-medallions-sell-for-1-million-each/ https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/2-taxi-medalli... 2. https://mises.org/sites/default/files/Government%20Cartels%20Murray%20N%20Rothbard.mp3 https://mises.org/sites/default/files/Government%20Cartels%2... [Part about taxi cab medallions start from 29:21]

I will say good riddance, and I bet prices will be similar, even lower.

by afsina 9y ago

I will say good riddance, and I bet prices will be similar, even lower.

joering2 9y ago

Just curious: why would they be lower [from taxis] if there are no taxis and Uber runs almost a monopoly?

thanksgiving 9y ago
Because if they are too high, the taxis will make a comeback. I think uber understands that the network effect is only so strong. Just look at Facebook and see how it brought out the big guns against a seemingly benign rival: Snapchat. You might be asked to extract rent but you can't extract too much (just my conjecture, no clue how much is too much)
- joering2 9y ago
  > Because if they are too high, the taxis will make a comeback Uber can change price dynamically while you load your app within seconds. Somehow doubt the whole Taxi industry of Medallion et al can reboot in a matter of seconds (or days or months).
- petra 9y ago
  The network effects are pretty small when you do a single passenger trip. But multi-passenger trips(Uber pool) have quite strong network effects and a lot of room for margin.
  - thanksgiving 9y ago
    > The network effects are pretty small when you do a single passenger trip. But multi-passenger trips(Uber pool) have quite strong network effects and a lot of room for margin. So I might be the last person to realize this but you're right! If I don't mind being ten or twenty minutes late, then how about taking this a step further with a bus? You enter where you want to go and the closest bus gets rerouted based on where its existing passengers are going (or if you're going somewhere weird it won't trigger the bus but rather a small Toyota Corolla I am not completely opposed to small cars). It doesn't even need to be self-driving. The main thing is there needs to be enough of them (and it would be nice if they had access to bus lanes but the amazing Uber legal time I am sure can figure this one out). This is brilliant because if we can reroute bus traffic based on who is travelling and where (and we know live traffic information thanks to Google and Waze) we can make "public transit" a lot more palatable. I'd argue we can realistically make an "unlimited" rides card that allows you to ride any uber pool anywhere for say $200 a month? I mean if you never have to wait for the bus/taxi for more than twenty minutes, it is surely worth it right? I guess the point is that there is a lot of room for innovation with uber pool and uber has to continue to innovate to stay ahead. If they do, I don't mind if they take a small portion of the money. We as a society will be better off with fewer cars on the road. anywhere doesn't actually mean anywhere but anywhere within certain areas. Can't uber pool between brisbane and sydney :)
    - petra 9y ago
      I agree , it could be a great thing. The leading startup in making that vision is Via, they just got $200m investment from Mercedes and a partnership, they are deployed in 3 major cities in the us, also starting in Europe via big partnership and working on dual model of both their own service and licensing their software to others, what could enable rapid takeup. As for prices, recently I read a story comparing ride services, for 4mile trip , Uber costs ~$20, via $6(although via can sometimes get delayed for long, but I think with scale that could greatly improve, and maybe prices a bit).so this may give a scale for the practicality of $200 free pass. And btw to run such service you need 8 passenger minibuses , which are commercial vehicles driven by commercial drivers, who hate Ubers guts,and probably won't work with Ubers model, and if Uber changes their model and gives preference to these drivers, they could alienate their own drivers.So maybe that's why they don't fully compete. And one more thing: the other big possible improvement is in vehicle design, to allow multiple people sharing a vehicle more comfort and privacy. But now that Mercedes is in the picture and they said they will optimize vehicles , maybe this will get solved.
afsina 9y ago
First, Uber will not be a monopoly, second Taxis are over priced already.
- brianwawok 9y ago
  What's overpriced to you? Any business where an employee can maybe eek out $13 an hour?
  - DevinTheDude 9y ago
    He said nothing about what wages the employees make. As a consumer this is not your concern when you think about pricing. I don't care how a company manages it's money. I just care about how much their services cost versus what it's worth to me.
    - brianwawok 9y ago
      Except it does. A taxi occupies 100% of the attention of a human being as he drives you. How the heck can you not considet his wage when asking for a price drop? If 75% of your price goes to the driver and the driver makes minimum or near minimum wage, where do you propose the cost savings come from?
  - afsina 9y ago
    Overpriced is this: I can pay to a pirate taxi service 2-3 times less and he is still fine. For example, Taxi drivers here needs to pay money to medallion owner and prices are determined by their guild and government centrally. There is no competition or any concern of consumer expectations.
dx034 9y ago
Taxi costs in many areas are driven by high barriers to entry (medallions or tests) and taxi drivers spend a high percentage of their time waiting. The surge pricing system and apps can better match demand and supply so that you should be able to get the same hourly wage for lower costs to the passenger. The problem currently just is that while Uber could be something like 25% cheaper, they are actually rather 40% cheaper and pay the difference out of their own pocket.

B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago

I can't wait to bankrupt my local surly cabbies, and have my transportation controlled by a Californian company who'll be able to dictate prices and sell my data.

orcdork 9y ago
I get where you're coming from, but you could say the same thing about software purchased on any app store, your mobile phone and a bunch of other things.
- rayiner 9y ago
  Yes, yes you can.
dx034 9y ago
Not sure where you live but in most big cities you already have the choice between some Californian company, at least one European company and sometimes Chinese (or chinese backed) companies. Someone will get your data but you can choose who that'll be. Creating an app like uber is cheap enough that competitors will pop up whenever uber feels like making money.

the_mitsuhiko 9y ago

Lower prices makes no sense. No drivercan live a reasonable life with those prices. And self driving cars won’t be cheaper for a long time

Eridrus 9y ago
GPS+Smartphones killed any special skills that drivers needed, so Uber/Lyft wages are being driven down to McDonalds levels, because there is no barrier to entry, and the flexibility provided by Lyft/Uber is actually helpful to people who are already working at a part time job that has shitty unpredictable hours. And if one of these companies goes under, expect wages to fall further because they do not need to compete with the other.
- the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
  I don’t see how Uber failing would cause wages to fall. Uber is consistently cheaper than competing services. When Uber leaves a European market taxis generally profit from it.

bitL 9y ago

Frankly, I don't get it why so many people in tech are so biased against smaller independent businesses such as taxis and mom-and-pop shops, so that the shareholders have more money (and they already don't know what to do with their money and beg entrepreneurs to take them to beat index funds returns). Like everybody has to be a corporate slave otherwise doesn't have right to exist. It's obvious those smaller/independent companies are the target of Uber/Lyft, sucking life off another class of people that would otherwise have bearable conditions of their existence. This is frankly a highway to hell for everyone.

rayiner 9y ago
But taxi companies have regulatory capture. How are giant VC funded companies dumping service into the market below cost supposed to compete with that?
curun1r 9y ago
It might have something to do with taxi drivers specifically since they're not known for being the most honest and decent service providers. Whether it's scams like letting air out of their tires, not starting the meter or taking longer routes or discriminatory practices like avoiding certain neighborhoods and driving by minorities to pick up white people (yes, this is a thing and a friend and I had it happen reliably enough that it became a running joke), the pre-Uber cab situation was pretty bad and there wasn't much riders could do about it. I admit to some schadenfreude at seeing taxi drivers struggle after so many years of putting up with their BS.
- bitL 9y ago
  OK, probably because I live in Germany where taxis work fine my perspective is different.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
splintercell 9y ago
This whole problem exists not because taxis didn't embrace technology soon enough, but because in 1936 they put a cap on issuing new medallions in NYC. Which meant that since then, irrespective of the economic growth and the number of people, the number of taxi cabs became severely restricted. This created an artificially increased prices for taxies. In the year 2011 a taxi cab medallion was sold for $1 Million in 2011 [1]. Taxi Cab industry is a heavily regulated industry which was screwing only one group of people, i.e. the consumers. This is why there is little love for the cab industry in America. For more economic analysis on this, check out the lecture by Murray Rothbard given in 1989 at NY Polytechnic [2]. 1. https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/2-taxi-medallions-sell-for-1-million-each/ https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/2-taxi-medalli... 2. https://mises.org/sites/default/files/Government%20Cartels%20Murray%20N%20Rothbard.mp3 https://mises.org/sites/default/files/Government%20Cartels%2... [Part about taxi cab medallions start from 29:21]