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I have a hard time verbalizing it but something about Uber creating all these millionaires sickens me. In no order: * The business is fundamentally based on i

by habosa 8y ago

I have a hard time verbalizing it but something about Uber creating all these millionaires sickens me. In no order: * The business is fundamentally based on ignoring the law. * They've done nothing but lose money, more than any private company ever. * The money keeping them afloat is very dirty (mostly from Saudi Arabia) * The culture is well-known to be awful. * The drivers are completely exploited, working long days with no security and taking huge financial and physical risk. * Their headquarters is at one of the most awful corners in the city, which they've done nothing to improve. And in the end they'll have to start making money. Which means either increasing their prices or increasing their cut. When that day comes we'll realize what we've lost. But yet, all the people who signed up and coded the app will be millionaires. Smells like society misallocating value.

joeblow9999 8y ago
This is just one interpretation. Let's not forget the model is innovative, and a vast improvement on the old way of getting a ride. There's no question they have created value and the folks who showed up to work to make it happen aren't necessarily evil, scofflaws, or toxic.
- bosie 8y ago
  > Let's not forget the model is innovative, and a vast improvement on the old way of getting a ride. I am genuinely not trying to be play dumb but what is the innovation or vast improvement? Apps like mytaxi were pretty much showing up before/after uber came to light, without violating laws or exploiting folks. Also, how does such a claim get balanced to the vast financial loss they seem to be accumulating? > created value For whom?
  - uwuhn 8y ago
    As someone who uses Uber and Lyft on a daily basis, and has done so for the past three years, their existence has measurably made my life better. Taxis were never an option due to a combination of cost, time, and inconvenience.
    - mdorazio 8y ago
      While I agree, it's important to note that the reason for all three of those improvements is billions in subsidies + exploited drivers. If Uber rides were not subsidized, they actually followed employment and licensing laws, and drivers actually accounted for their total expenses properly, the cost we be pretty close to what taxis charge, number of available drivers would decrease, and wait times would increase. The things you and I like about Uber a direct result of unsustainable economics.
      - sokoloff 8y ago
        I talk to most of my Uber drivers and almost always ask about the economics. Most of them seem to have a good grasp on the fundamentals and fall into one of two categories: subsidizing the car they already have and supplementing income or driving full-time in a car dedicated to ride-sharing. In the first case, they’re pretty obviously easily covering the marginal costs. In the second case, I can’t know, but they should able to evaluate it on their own pretty easily, just like the local snowplow operator. I don’t buy the narrative that the company is built on the backs of a bunch of exploited drivers (assuming you believe taxi drivers are not exploited; if you believe they are as well, that’s probably a different argument than the one I’m refuting).
      - adventured 8y ago
        > it's important to note that the reason for all three of those improvements is billions in subsidies + exploited drivers First, they're not exploited drivers. You could claim any worker is exploited at any and all times. It's not a statement with any grounding to it in this case. They are not being held hostage by Uber, this is the best labor market in two decades. You could claim all workers at every big and small company are all universally exploited. The person making $15 / hour should be making $30; the person making $30 / hour should be making $60. Second, almost every major tech company you can name exists due to initial venture capital or investor subsidies (including Apple, Amazon, Google, Salesforce, Workday, etc). Amazon bled a lot of red ink before they turned seriously profitable (not nearly so much as Uber granted), because they were investing massively to achieve scale. It was venture capital and investor money broadly that subsidized that build out and enabled them to have low prices. So what? It was widely claimed for 20 years that they couldn't generate a substantial profit, and now they are thanks to opportunities they grabbed hold of (perhaps Uber Eats will be that for Uber, or any number of other things).
  - freewilly1040 8y ago
    Traditional taxis are no less exploitive than Uber. The death of protections for rent seeking medallion holders is a net win for both consumers and drivers.
JesseAldridge 8y ago
* They created a transportation network that enables a huge chunk of the world to get from point A to point B quickly, safely, and cheaply. > something about Uber creating all these millionaires sickens me This feeling is called envy.
- moorhosj 8y ago
  Isn’t the point made that it’s “cheap-ness” is based on VC subsidization of each ride? People can critique things without being envious, no need for the snark.
- TAForObvReasons 8y ago
  It's hard to explain to people without a strong sense of morality and fairness, but many of us were taught to do the right thing, that "ends don't always justify the means", and that people who cheat or lie or steal or engage in other dubious activities will eventually be punished. If you read the parent post, there's a strong sense that the author doesn't believe the ends justify the means. Your comment suggests that it's ok to do morally reprehensible things in the favor of profits, which is why it's difficult to empathize with the parent. When you're taught to always do the right thing and not to engage in the profit-maximizing morality-disregarding behavior we see from companies like Uber, when you make the decision not to become employees of those companies, seeing that others did decide to work with those companies really forces you to re-evaluate how the world works. The first step in that process involves disgust reflecting on the bad actors.
  - kitkatkid 8y ago
    I have a strong sense of morality and fairness and want to do the right thing, which is why I love Uber (and Lyft, et al). A single entity managed to smash apart the corrupt, racist and unaccountable taxi cartels in thousands of cities. No more taxis refusing to pick up dark skinned riders, no more taxis refusing to drive to neighborhoods where those same people live. No more apathetic dispatchers who don't care that the taxi driver was drunk or the car was being driven by someone other than the license holder. No more exploitative cartels bidding up taxi medallions and forcing low-skilled immigrants to work 14 hour days while preventing competition. Ride sharing apps have fundamentally made the world a better place, especially for women and people of color. I feel far safer taking an Uber in an unfamiliar city than I ever did with the luck of a taxi, both in terms of physical safety and in terms of getting scammed.
viscanti 8y ago
> They've done nothing but lose money, more than any private company ever. This is a weird take for me. I don't mean to single you out but I see it everywhere. If I went and bought $100 worth of stocks, not many people would say I lost that money. Most people would agree that we have to wait and see how that investment works out. In every other context we call it "investing" (some investments work out and some lose money) but here it's just called "losing money" without even looking to see if it's a good or bad investment.
- mdorazio 8y ago
  That's a rather poor analogy. If you go and buy stocks you're buying a security that can be traded back to fiat currency at any point in time. That's... not what startups do. A better analogy would be taking out a loan for $100 with fuzzy repayment terms. If the ROI on that loan is negative, everyone would agree that you're losing money, investment terms be damned.
  - viscanti 8y ago
    > If you go and buy stocks you're buying a security that can be traded back to fiat currency at any point in time. It depends on the stock. But there are lots of types of investments. None of the rest are referred to as "losing money" until it's clear they lost money. The act of investing is investing. > If the ROI on that loan is negative, everyone would agree that you're losing money, investment terms be damned. My point is that it's too soon to say what the ROI is for Uber's investments. I remember lots of people lamenting the "losses" that Amazon had year-over-year, before they realized that it was actually a wildly profitable set of investments that the company had made, creating one of the largest companies in the world. No one is playing an investment term semantic game here. I'm simply expressing how silly (and misleading) it is when people refer to businesses investing in things as "losses" before they ever know how those investments play out. You only know how an investment turns out when you know how the investment turns out, not when the investment first starts.
    - mdorazio 8y ago
hestefisk 8y ago
What’s the source of the claims, ie Saudi Arabia being a major source of equity? Not trying to be difficult but it’s a set of pretty bold statements and could benefit from some of evidence.
- the_watcher 8y ago
  Uber very famously took $3.5B from the Saudi government: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-03/the-inside-story-of-how-uber-got-into-business-with-the-saudi-arabian-government https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-03/the-insid...
rockinghigh 8y ago
As an employee, I do not find the culture awful. I has improved considerably. As for the headquarters, Twitter, Square and Microsoft also have offices there. Do you also blame them? What do you expect these companies to do about homelessness?

by habosa 8y ago

joeblow9999 8y ago

This is just one interpretation. Let's not forget the model is innovative, and a vast improvement on the old way of getting a ride. There's no question they have created value and the folks who showed up to work to make it happen aren't necessarily evil, scofflaws, or toxic.

bosie 8y ago
> Let's not forget the model is innovative, and a vast improvement on the old way of getting a ride. I am genuinely not trying to be play dumb but what is the innovation or vast improvement? Apps like mytaxi were pretty much showing up before/after uber came to light, without violating laws or exploiting folks. Also, how does such a claim get balanced to the vast financial loss they seem to be accumulating? > created value For whom?
- uwuhn 8y ago
  As someone who uses Uber and Lyft on a daily basis, and has done so for the past three years, their existence has measurably made my life better. Taxis were never an option due to a combination of cost, time, and inconvenience.
  - mdorazio 8y ago
    While I agree, it's important to note that the reason for all three of those improvements is billions in subsidies + exploited drivers. If Uber rides were not subsidized, they actually followed employment and licensing laws, and drivers actually accounted for their total expenses properly, the cost we be pretty close to what taxis charge, number of available drivers would decrease, and wait times would increase. The things you and I like about Uber a direct result of unsustainable economics.
    - sokoloff 8y ago
      I talk to most of my Uber drivers and almost always ask about the economics. Most of them seem to have a good grasp on the fundamentals and fall into one of two categories: subsidizing the car they already have and supplementing income or driving full-time in a car dedicated to ride-sharing. In the first case, they’re pretty obviously easily covering the marginal costs. In the second case, I can’t know, but they should able to evaluate it on their own pretty easily, just like the local snowplow operator. I don’t buy the narrative that the company is built on the backs of a bunch of exploited drivers (assuming you believe taxi drivers are not exploited; if you believe they are as well, that’s probably a different argument than the one I’m refuting).
    - adventured 8y ago
      > it's important to note that the reason for all three of those improvements is billions in subsidies + exploited drivers First, they're not exploited drivers. You could claim any worker is exploited at any and all times. It's not a statement with any grounding to it in this case. They are not being held hostage by Uber, this is the best labor market in two decades. You could claim all workers at every big and small company are all universally exploited. The person making $15 / hour should be making $30; the person making $30 / hour should be making $60. Second, almost every major tech company you can name exists due to initial venture capital or investor subsidies (including Apple, Amazon, Google, Salesforce, Workday, etc). Amazon bled a lot of red ink before they turned seriously profitable (not nearly so much as Uber granted), because they were investing massively to achieve scale. It was venture capital and investor money broadly that subsidized that build out and enabled them to have low prices. So what? It was widely claimed for 20 years that they couldn't generate a substantial profit, and now they are thanks to opportunities they grabbed hold of (perhaps Uber Eats will be that for Uber, or any number of other things).
- freewilly1040 8y ago
  Traditional taxis are no less exploitive than Uber. The death of protections for rent seeking medallion holders is a net win for both consumers and drivers.

JesseAldridge 8y ago

* They created a transportation network that enables a huge chunk of the world to get from point A to point B quickly, safely, and cheaply. > something about Uber creating all these millionaires sickens me This feeling is called envy.

moorhosj 8y ago
Isn’t the point made that it’s “cheap-ness” is based on VC subsidization of each ride? People can critique things without being envious, no need for the snark.
TAForObvReasons 8y ago
It's hard to explain to people without a strong sense of morality and fairness, but many of us were taught to do the right thing, that "ends don't always justify the means", and that people who cheat or lie or steal or engage in other dubious activities will eventually be punished. If you read the parent post, there's a strong sense that the author doesn't believe the ends justify the means. Your comment suggests that it's ok to do morally reprehensible things in the favor of profits, which is why it's difficult to empathize with the parent. When you're taught to always do the right thing and not to engage in the profit-maximizing morality-disregarding behavior we see from companies like Uber, when you make the decision not to become employees of those companies, seeing that others did decide to work with those companies really forces you to re-evaluate how the world works. The first step in that process involves disgust reflecting on the bad actors.
- kitkatkid 8y ago
  I have a strong sense of morality and fairness and want to do the right thing, which is why I love Uber (and Lyft, et al). A single entity managed to smash apart the corrupt, racist and unaccountable taxi cartels in thousands of cities. No more taxis refusing to pick up dark skinned riders, no more taxis refusing to drive to neighborhoods where those same people live. No more apathetic dispatchers who don't care that the taxi driver was drunk or the car was being driven by someone other than the license holder. No more exploitative cartels bidding up taxi medallions and forcing low-skilled immigrants to work 14 hour days while preventing competition. Ride sharing apps have fundamentally made the world a better place, especially for women and people of color. I feel far safer taking an Uber in an unfamiliar city than I ever did with the luck of a taxi, both in terms of physical safety and in terms of getting scammed.

viscanti 8y ago

> They've done nothing but lose money, more than any private company ever. This is a weird take for me. I don't mean to single you out but I see it everywhere. If I went and bought $100 worth of stocks, not many people would say I lost that money. Most people would agree that we have to wait and see how that investment works out. In every other context we call it "investing" (some investments work out and some lose money) but here it's just called "losing money" without even looking to see if it's a good or bad investment.

mdorazio 8y ago
That's a rather poor analogy. If you go and buy stocks you're buying a security that can be traded back to fiat currency at any point in time. That's... not what startups do. A better analogy would be taking out a loan for $100 with fuzzy repayment terms. If the ROI on that loan is negative, everyone would agree that you're losing money, investment terms be damned.
- viscanti 8y ago
  > If you go and buy stocks you're buying a security that can be traded back to fiat currency at any point in time. It depends on the stock. But there are lots of types of investments. None of the rest are referred to as "losing money" until it's clear they lost money. The act of investing is investing. > If the ROI on that loan is negative, everyone would agree that you're losing money, investment terms be damned. My point is that it's too soon to say what the ROI is for Uber's investments. I remember lots of people lamenting the "losses" that Amazon had year-over-year, before they realized that it was actually a wildly profitable set of investments that the company had made, creating one of the largest companies in the world. No one is playing an investment term semantic game here. I'm simply expressing how silly (and misleading) it is when people refer to businesses investing in things as "losses" before they ever know how those investments play out. You only know how an investment turns out when you know how the investment turns out, not when the investment first starts.
  - mdorazio 8y ago

hestefisk 8y ago

What’s the source of the claims, ie Saudi Arabia being a major source of equity? Not trying to be difficult but it’s a set of pretty bold statements and could benefit from some of evidence.

the_watcher 8y ago
Uber very famously took $3.5B from the Saudi government: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-03/the-inside-story-of-how-uber-got-into-business-with-the-saudi-arabian-government https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-03/the-insid...

rockinghigh 8y ago

As an employee, I do not find the culture awful. I has improved considerably. As for the headquarters, Twitter, Square and Microsoft also have offices there. Do you also blame them? What do you expect these companies to do about homelessness?