4 ms·

Pretty crazy with Juul, WeWork, DoorDash, and Uber / Lyft all struggling (or showing their true colors) that all the things they sought to kill are coming back.

by admn2 7y ago

Pretty crazy with Juul, WeWork, DoorDash, and Uber / Lyft all struggling (or showing their true colors) that all the things they sought to kill are coming back. Taxis, cigarettes, picking up your own food! It's amazing to me that people were having food delivered from a half mile away.

luckydata 7y ago
They weren’t try to kill anything, they just wanted a piece of the action.
thdrdt 7y ago
This is because most of them start with heavy investments. But when time has come to make their own money they will discover it is not so easy as thought.
paggle 7y ago
With the food delivery and meal kits and stuff, they were just selling that stuff for less than it costs. I provided thousands of dollars of revenue for Blue Apron style meal kits and food delivery. As soon as they charged market rate for them, I stopped.
Barrin92 7y ago
>Pretty crazy with Juul, WeWork, DoorDash, and Uber / Lyft all struggling Given that the entire value-added of a company like Uber is getting a taxi to you slightly faster it's not surprising at all. Uber didn't make cars cheaper, drivers faster or added productivity in any other way plus they have a gigantic and expensive tech overhead, so it was never at all clear to me how they're supposed to be both competitive and more profitable than a regular bunch of taxi companies. It's just like movie pass. As long as you have investors throwing money at you you can pretend that you're actually doing something but selling people a dollar for 75 cents isn't a business.
- wilde 7y ago
  That’s an oversimplification. Uber’s primary innovations were social. They convinced riders that it was safe to jump into a stranger’s car, and drivers that it was safe to run an illegal taxi business. They managed to do both of these things effectively in large enough volumes to change how people think about taxis. Both of these things seem boring and normal now, but they were radical a decade ago.
  - Barrin92 7y ago
    that's not an innovation that captures any unique value for Uber and more of a positive externality if anything, because strangers still want to be paid and if anything customers aren't willing to pay them more than a regular taxi company. On an economic level, if anything Uber suffers from inefficiencies because every driver being their own insurer, repairman and so on is a disdavantage compared to employment by a traditional taxi business. Which is of course why taxi drivers organise in firms to begin with. In a way, the entire sharing business model is a sort of weird backwards move that wilfully ignores the division of labour.
    - wilde 7y ago
      That’s the billion dollar question. Uber chose to commoditize their drivers from a very early stage. This made sense when most of the drivers were actual ride shares and amateurs. As the driver population professionalized, I do wonder if Uber missed a bet to move from being an aggregator to being a platform. In the Azores, taxi drivers will hand you their card and build a relationship with you. Is there room in US cities for more specialization than UberX vs Uber Black? I don’t know, but I think it might have accrued more durable value to the Uber ecosystem if they had let the drivers build differentiated personal brands.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  the value add of uber is that you can use your phone's GPS and a map to tell someone where to pick you up instead of calling up the taxi company and describing where you are. I know taxi companies are starting to implement this stuff, but they didn't seem to be in a big hurry to do it before uber/lyft showed up. I haven't tried in a while, but I bet the smaller cab companies still don't have anything like this. even if their value add is just getting a driver to me a little faster, this isn't nothing. the difference between a five minute and a ten minute expected wait isn't just five minutes of wasted time; at the margin, it's whether the customer decides to purchase a ride at all.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
    I tried to take a cab exactly once, in Los Angeles. I Google searched for a number. They asked me where I was, exact address. I didn't know the exact address. Even on Google maps it took a bit to figure out the exact address. After some back and forth, they inform me that they don't operate in that location and give me the number to another company. I call the other company. They tell me the cab will be there in 20 minutes, maybe. I said, "what do you mean maybe?" I was already cutting it pretty close on a flight. Uber had just gotten into LA a couple of months back. I downloaded Uber and within a couple of minutes, I had a ride on the way, and I could see exactly where the driver was and how long it would take to get there. Hate the company, but the product definitely added value.
- listenallyall 7y ago
  Of course Uber added productivity -- it enabled a bunch of people who previously were sitting on their couch doing nothing, to become paid drivers. And while Uber didn't make cars faster, they made a car TO YOU faster. Usually within 5 minutes, whereas most taxi pickups (outside NYC, etc) could easily be 15-60 minutes, if they came at all.

by admn2 7y ago

luckydata 7y ago

They weren’t try to kill anything, they just wanted a piece of the action.

thdrdt 7y ago

This is because most of them start with heavy investments. But when time has come to make their own money they will discover it is not so easy as thought.

paggle 7y ago

With the food delivery and meal kits and stuff, they were just selling that stuff for less than it costs. I provided thousands of dollars of revenue for Blue Apron style meal kits and food delivery. As soon as they charged market rate for them, I stopped.

Barrin92 7y ago

>Pretty crazy with Juul, WeWork, DoorDash, and Uber / Lyft all struggling Given that the entire value-added of a company like Uber is getting a taxi to you slightly faster it's not surprising at all. Uber didn't make cars cheaper, drivers faster or added productivity in any other way plus they have a gigantic and expensive tech overhead, so it was never at all clear to me how they're supposed to be both competitive and more profitable than a regular bunch of taxi companies. It's just like movie pass. As long as you have investors throwing money at you you can pretend that you're actually doing something but selling people a dollar for 75 cents isn't a business.

wilde 7y ago
That’s an oversimplification. Uber’s primary innovations were social. They convinced riders that it was safe to jump into a stranger’s car, and drivers that it was safe to run an illegal taxi business. They managed to do both of these things effectively in large enough volumes to change how people think about taxis. Both of these things seem boring and normal now, but they were radical a decade ago.
- Barrin92 7y ago
  that's not an innovation that captures any unique value for Uber and more of a positive externality if anything, because strangers still want to be paid and if anything customers aren't willing to pay them more than a regular taxi company. On an economic level, if anything Uber suffers from inefficiencies because every driver being their own insurer, repairman and so on is a disdavantage compared to employment by a traditional taxi business. Which is of course why taxi drivers organise in firms to begin with. In a way, the entire sharing business model is a sort of weird backwards move that wilfully ignores the division of labour.
  - wilde 7y ago
    That’s the billion dollar question. Uber chose to commoditize their drivers from a very early stage. This made sense when most of the drivers were actual ride shares and amateurs. As the driver population professionalized, I do wonder if Uber missed a bet to move from being an aggregator to being a platform. In the Azores, taxi drivers will hand you their card and build a relationship with you. Is there room in US cities for more specialization than UberX vs Uber Black? I don’t know, but I think it might have accrued more durable value to the Uber ecosystem if they had let the drivers build differentiated personal brands.
leetcrew 7y ago
the value add of uber is that you can use your phone's GPS and a map to tell someone where to pick you up instead of calling up the taxi company and describing where you are. I know taxi companies are starting to implement this stuff, but they didn't seem to be in a big hurry to do it before uber/lyft showed up. I haven't tried in a while, but I bet the smaller cab companies still don't have anything like this. even if their value add is just getting a driver to me a little faster, this isn't nothing. the difference between a five minute and a ten minute expected wait isn't just five minutes of wasted time; at the margin, it's whether the customer decides to purchase a ride at all.
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
  I tried to take a cab exactly once, in Los Angeles. I Google searched for a number. They asked me where I was, exact address. I didn't know the exact address. Even on Google maps it took a bit to figure out the exact address. After some back and forth, they inform me that they don't operate in that location and give me the number to another company. I call the other company. They tell me the cab will be there in 20 minutes, maybe. I said, "what do you mean maybe?" I was already cutting it pretty close on a flight. Uber had just gotten into LA a couple of months back. I downloaded Uber and within a couple of minutes, I had a ride on the way, and I could see exactly where the driver was and how long it would take to get there. Hate the company, but the product definitely added value.
listenallyall 7y ago
Of course Uber added productivity -- it enabled a bunch of people who previously were sitting on their couch doing nothing, to become paid drivers. And while Uber didn't make cars faster, they made a car TO YOU faster. Usually within 5 minutes, whereas most taxi pickups (outside NYC, etc) could easily be 15-60 minutes, if they came at all.