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> 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
by 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 agoUber'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 agoWon't there be some point at which they're established and don't need to work so hard at those things?
- smt88 8y agoProbably 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 agoIt 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.
- inferiorhuman 8y ago> Uber's driver and rider acquisition costs (marketing, promotions, ads, etc.) are astronomical. Which is hilarious to me. Uber is spending a ton of money, and very little of it trickles down to the people that make Uber possible (the drivers).
- haldean 8y ago"we lose money on each sale but we make up for it in volume"