5 ms·

> 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) Scaling a mobi

> 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) Scaling a mobile app is trivial compared to running a transit company. BART owns/maintains infrastructure (including an underwater tunnel) and vehicles, provides benefits (health, retirement, etc) to their drivers, and operates a multi-jurisdictional police force. Uber meanwhile hired a couple of tech bros (paid largely in stock instead of actual currency), pays their drivers near minimum wage with no benefits (as they're not actually employees), and disregards as many laws as possible (so there's little-to-no cost to enter a new market). It's not surprising they've been able to scale. What's surprising is how expensive their service still is.

wuunderbar 8y ago
> tech bros What's your point with this?
- kevinmgranger 8y ago
  Out of everything in the comment, I think this is the point least worth discussing.
- andrei_says_ 8y ago
  I imagine a nod at the extremely sexist company culture and the complete absence of a moral compass. This may be related https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-on...
kemitche 8y ago
In the same breath you complain that they don't pay their drivers enough and that their service is too expensive. Drivers aren't going to get more than a few percentage points increase without increasing the price to the end user.
- inferiorhuman 8y ago
  > 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 severely.
  - smt88 8y ago
    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.
    - code_duck 8y ago
      Won't there be some point at which they're established and don't need to work so hard at those things?
      - smt88 8y ago
        Probably not. Riders and drivers are both primarily price-driven. They have little or no brand loyalty. It's a low-margin, race-to-the-bottom type of business. 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).
        code_duck 8y ago
        It seems to me that they are very well known at this point, and don't have significant competition. I don't see why they would be spending so much money for marketing... maybe in the past, maybe in the future. I must not understand the market. I'm sure there's plenty of analysis of this out there, so I should read some articles.
    - 8y ago
jcims 8y ago
I'm no Uber fanboy, but the app provides on-demand, door to door transportation service for (more or less) the entire BART market area.
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  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.
  - askafriend 8y ago
    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 well aware of it). There is a ton that goes into scaling a marketplace in general - let alone an on-demand one with thousands of corner cases, real time demand forecasting, real time fare calculations, real time capacity planning, customer support operations, etc.
    - selectodude 8y ago
      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 giving away shit for free.
      - askafriend 8y ago
        You know Uber builds it's own mapping services right? And in fact, the guy who helped lead those efforts is the guy responsible for creating Google Earth which later formed the basis for Google's entire mapping efforts (which he led). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_McClendon 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.
praneshp 8y ago
> operates a multi-jurisdictional police force. operates a joke of a police force.
- jakecopp 8y ago
  Better than none, and using the public's resources.
  - praneshp 8y ago
    It's actually not better than none, but feel free to believe whatever you want to.
    - inferiorhuman 8y ago
      Regardless of how good or bad BART PD is, running a police force is an operational cost Uber doesn't incur.
      - praneshp 8y ago
        Didn't object to that!

wuunderbar 8y ago

> tech bros What's your point with this?

kevinmgranger 8y ago
Out of everything in the comment, I think this is the point least worth discussing.
andrei_says_ 8y ago
I imagine a nod at the extremely sexist company culture and the complete absence of a moral compass. This may be related https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-on...

kemitche 8y ago

In the same breath you complain that they don't pay their drivers enough and that their service is too expensive. Drivers aren't going to get more than a few percentage points increase without increasing the price to the end user.

inferiorhuman 8y ago
> 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 severely.
- smt88 8y ago
  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.
  - code_duck 8y ago
    Won't there be some point at which they're established and don't need to work so hard at those things?
    - smt88 8y ago
      Probably not. Riders and drivers are both primarily price-driven. They have little or no brand loyalty. It's a low-margin, race-to-the-bottom type of business. 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).
      - code_duck 8y ago
        It seems to me that they are very well known at this point, and don't have significant competition. I don't see why they would be spending so much money for marketing... maybe in the past, maybe in the future. I must not understand the market. I'm sure there's plenty of analysis of this out there, so I should read some articles.
  - 8y ago

jcims 8y ago

I'm no Uber fanboy, but the app provides on-demand, door to door transportation service for (more or less) the entire BART market area.

CydeWeys 8y ago
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.
- askafriend 8y ago
  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 well aware of it). There is a ton that goes into scaling a marketplace in general - let alone an on-demand one with thousands of corner cases, real time demand forecasting, real time fare calculations, real time capacity planning, customer support operations, etc.
  - selectodude 8y ago
    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 giving away shit for free.
    - askafriend 8y ago
      You know Uber builds it's own mapping services right? And in fact, the guy who helped lead those efforts is the guy responsible for creating Google Earth which later formed the basis for Google's entire mapping efforts (which he led). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_McClendon 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.

praneshp 8y ago

> operates a multi-jurisdictional police force. operates a joke of a police force.

jakecopp 8y ago
Better than none, and using the public's resources.
- praneshp 8y ago
  It's actually not better than none, but feel free to believe whatever you want to.
  - inferiorhuman 8y ago
    Regardless of how good or bad BART PD is, running a police force is an operational cost Uber doesn't incur.
    - praneshp 8y ago
      Didn't object to that!