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I mean one company prints money, and the other has some of the biggest losses in tech industry. What do you expect? If anything, Uber has invested in too much

I mean one company prints money, and the other has some of the biggest losses in tech industry. What do you expect? If anything, Uber has invested in too much tech for the sake of being tech heavy, which may not be best suited for their business (outside self-driving, which needs heavy tech investment).

blackflame7000 7y ago
Yea but self-driving would instantly turn Uber into a cash cow and it's not that far away. Edit: By not that far away I'm talking 5-15 years. I'm not talking next week. Amazon burned cash for at least 20 years.
- inimino 7y ago
  > not that far away [Citation needed]
  - blackflame7000 7y ago
    https://waymo.com/ https://waymo.com/ I wasn't referring to Uber's technology specifically, only that self-driving cars are what is required to make Uber as successful as they hope to be.
- jfk13 7y ago
  > it's not that far away That's a pretty optimistic view; many people don't seem to share it.
- sabujp 7y ago
  I've been wondering about this for years, do you have any data to actually back that up? Seeing how teslas are "very close" to self driving why doesn't uber up the game and go full self driving with lidar.
  - outside1234 7y ago
    The last 1% of corner cases is the hard, potentially decades long problem, that also happens to kill people, that is unsolved.
- paxys 7y ago
  True self driving (no driver, no steering wheel) is far enough away that we don't know for sure if it will ever actually happen.
  - blackflame7000 7y ago
    Well, obviously the people at Google think it's possible or they wouldn't keep investing in Waymo.
    - paxys 7y ago
      I never said it was impossible, it's just not an absolute certainty or just around the corner as people make it out to be. It's at best a research project.
    - rsj_hn 7y ago
      Google invests in a lot of moonshot projects, and also shuts down projects regularly. To their credit, they are willing to invest in high risk/high reward stuff, so the fact that Google is investing in something doesn't actually mean that this thing will succeed, or not be cancelled in the future. But remember that there is a lot of value between "no computer on board" and "fully self-driving". Cars already have things like lane assist technology, smarter cruising technology, collision avoidance, software to help maintain distance between the car ahead of you, smarter breaking, better mapping and routing technology. These are valuable features that can generate revenue even if fully automated self-driving cars never happen, or happen in 100 years. These are also features that can help older drivers with slower reaction times stay behind the wheel and keep driving, thus increasing the number of human drivers.
      - blackflame7000 7y ago
        The whole Alphabet move was to stop wasting so much money on moonshot projects that didn't have a clear path to profitability.
        dragonwriter 7y ago
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  This is untrue. It doesn't take into account the fact Uber has externalised a bunch of stuff like maintenance onto its drivers. Bringing it in house would sink them imo, human capital or not.
  - blackflame7000 7y ago
    If the maintenance of cars out weighted the profitability for the driver there would be no Uber drivers at all.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > If the maintenance of cars out weighted the profitability for the driver there would be no Uber drivers at all. This assumes drivers that correctly allocate the source of maintenance costs among all uses of the vehicle in assessing cost/benefit of driving for Uber.
      - blackflame7000 7y ago
        No, it assumes that when a driver can no longer make ends meet since they are paying more in maintenance than they are earning, they will no longer have money for gas to be an Uber driver, thus quitting.
        dragonwriter 7y ago
        > No, it assumes that when a driver can no longer make ends meet since they are paying more in maintenance than they are earning, they will no longer have money for gas to be an Uber driver, thus quitting. So, it assumes no new supply of drivers misjudging costs, and no drivers with multiple income streams that fail to recognize the source of maintenance costs and that Uber is losing money. It's basically a “no one will buy lottery tickets or engage in other less-than-break-even gambling for non-entertainment purposes” argument, except that gambling venues are usually required to publish their net payout stats, while Uber isn't.
    - 7y ago
- WarDores 7y ago
  Why would Uber necessarily reap outsized benefits from self driving though? In my mind, "ridesharing" would be even more commoditized, with price and safety being the two main factors in consumer choice.
deleted 7y ago
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blackflame7000 7y ago

Yea but self-driving would instantly turn Uber into a cash cow and it's not that far away. Edit: By not that far away I'm talking 5-15 years. I'm not talking next week. Amazon burned cash for at least 20 years.

inimino 7y ago
> not that far away [Citation needed]
- blackflame7000 7y ago
  https://waymo.com/ https://waymo.com/ I wasn't referring to Uber's technology specifically, only that self-driving cars are what is required to make Uber as successful as they hope to be.
jfk13 7y ago
> it's not that far away That's a pretty optimistic view; many people don't seem to share it.
sabujp 7y ago
I've been wondering about this for years, do you have any data to actually back that up? Seeing how teslas are "very close" to self driving why doesn't uber up the game and go full self driving with lidar.
- outside1234 7y ago
  The last 1% of corner cases is the hard, potentially decades long problem, that also happens to kill people, that is unsolved.
paxys 7y ago
True self driving (no driver, no steering wheel) is far enough away that we don't know for sure if it will ever actually happen.
- blackflame7000 7y ago
  Well, obviously the people at Google think it's possible or they wouldn't keep investing in Waymo.
  - paxys 7y ago
    I never said it was impossible, it's just not an absolute certainty or just around the corner as people make it out to be. It's at best a research project.
  - rsj_hn 7y ago
    Google invests in a lot of moonshot projects, and also shuts down projects regularly. To their credit, they are willing to invest in high risk/high reward stuff, so the fact that Google is investing in something doesn't actually mean that this thing will succeed, or not be cancelled in the future. But remember that there is a lot of value between "no computer on board" and "fully self-driving". Cars already have things like lane assist technology, smarter cruising technology, collision avoidance, software to help maintain distance between the car ahead of you, smarter breaking, better mapping and routing technology. These are valuable features that can generate revenue even if fully automated self-driving cars never happen, or happen in 100 years. These are also features that can help older drivers with slower reaction times stay behind the wheel and keep driving, thus increasing the number of human drivers.
    - blackflame7000 7y ago
      The whole Alphabet move was to stop wasting so much money on moonshot projects that didn't have a clear path to profitability.
      - dragonwriter 7y ago
cameronbrown 7y ago
This is untrue. It doesn't take into account the fact Uber has externalised a bunch of stuff like maintenance onto its drivers. Bringing it in house would sink them imo, human capital or not.
- blackflame7000 7y ago
  If the maintenance of cars out weighted the profitability for the driver there would be no Uber drivers at all.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > If the maintenance of cars out weighted the profitability for the driver there would be no Uber drivers at all. This assumes drivers that correctly allocate the source of maintenance costs among all uses of the vehicle in assessing cost/benefit of driving for Uber.
    - blackflame7000 7y ago
      No, it assumes that when a driver can no longer make ends meet since they are paying more in maintenance than they are earning, they will no longer have money for gas to be an Uber driver, thus quitting.
      - dragonwriter 7y ago
        > No, it assumes that when a driver can no longer make ends meet since they are paying more in maintenance than they are earning, they will no longer have money for gas to be an Uber driver, thus quitting. So, it assumes no new supply of drivers misjudging costs, and no drivers with multiple income streams that fail to recognize the source of maintenance costs and that Uber is losing money. It's basically a “no one will buy lottery tickets or engage in other less-than-break-even gambling for non-entertainment purposes” argument, except that gambling venues are usually required to publish their net payout stats, while Uber isn't.
  - 7y ago
WarDores 7y ago
Why would Uber necessarily reap outsized benefits from self driving though? In my mind, "ridesharing" would be even more commoditized, with price and safety being the two main factors in consumer choice.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]