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Uber/Seamless/Postmates/Airbnb or any other middleman service. There's no reason why they should be getting away with extracting 30-40% of the revenue for faci

by m_ke 7y ago

Uber/Seamless/Postmates/Airbnb or any other middleman service. There's no reason why they should be getting away with extracting 30-40% of the revenue for facilitating a simple transaction.

jsf01 7y ago
And despite all that they’re still unprofitable. How would this be feasible as an open source project?
- m_ke 7y ago
  Because they're blowing insane amounts of money fueling unsustainable growth to satisfy their investors. This requires burning cash on user acquisition and hiring thousands of engineers to solve problems that they didn't need to have. Craiglist is handling as much traffic as all of them with around 50 employees.
chrisshroba 7y ago
Doesn’t this ignore all the regulatory hurdles these companies have had to deal with to be able to be that middleman? Uber, for example, has done a whole lot of work, not all legal, to get cities to agree to let them operate. I suspect that a few kids in a garage trying to be the next Uber are going to end up stumped when cities tell them no (and they won’t have the lobbying power to make cities reconsider)
- m_ke 7y ago
  I'm saying that we could use an open alternative for existing services, not that an open solution should have been first. Uber spent a lot on lawyers and broke a lot of laws to clear the hurdles, making it much easier for someone to come in and provide a similar service at a fraction of the cost. There's no reason why someone building an open solution couldn't work with the cities and get their endorsement.
jakemal 7y ago
I think this is something that seems reasonable at first, but in practice would get incredibly unwieldy. There is much more to what they do than connect buyers and sellers. They also resolve conflicts, navigate different laws in countless locales, and handle payments/chargebacks to name a few. These companies are also taking a giant cut but still losing money. Granted they are spending money on things that an open source alternative wouldn't necessarily spend money on, but I don't think very many of them are anywhere close to being profitable even without the extra spending.
- m_ke 7y ago
  In some cases they did pave the way and "resolve" legal challenges, which makes it a lot easier for an open platform to come in and take over. All of these companies are following the ridiculous 0 to 1 monopoly model of growth and are wasting a ton of money trying to capture any market that they can get their hands on. It's not sustainable and the gig workers are paying the price. There's no doubt that they're providing a valuable service that could have spurred growth for the middle class, but instead they're using VC money to undercut existing businesses in hope of building the next Google.
ailideex 7y ago
And yet with taking 30-40% of revenue (as you claim) Uber is still running at a loss.
- m_ke 7y ago
  Uber and Lyft take 35-40% of each ride, that's the number that multiple drivers have told me and this article confirms it https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-and-lyft-take-rates-higher-than-admit-jalopnik-2019-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-and-lyft-take-rates-hig... I also know a few people at food delivery companies and they all take around 35% of each order.
  - ailideex 7y ago
    Sure, but my point stands - 35-40% is not enough to turn a profit for them.
    - m_ke 7y ago
      That's because they're buying growth. Their last quarter revenue was almost $4 billion, you can definitely serve millions of daily rides for way less than that. My point is that you could have an open source version of these services that could be managed by local governments or not for profits.
      - ailideex 7y ago
        > That's because they're buying growth. That is the idea I guess. > Their last quarter revenue was almost $4 billion, you can definitely serve millions of daily rides for way less than that. How do you calculate this? Sure if you were just you with car, you could - but not sure this is exactly a workable business model without uber - if it was then people would presumably not use uber. > My point is that you could have an open source version of these services that could be managed by local governments or not for profits. You could have open source versions - but the source code is a small part of the operation - and I'm not sure why I would want to government to run it - or why people should not be allowed to profit from it. If the issue is that workers are being exploiter maybe a better option is to see if there is some reasonable regulation to be put in place or why there is such low demand relative to the supply of labour.

by m_ke 7y ago

Uber/Seamless/Postmates/Airbnb or any other middleman service. There's no reason why they should be getting away with extracting 30-40% of the revenue for facilitating a simple transaction.

jsf01 7y ago

And despite all that they’re still unprofitable. How would this be feasible as an open source project?

m_ke 7y ago
Because they're blowing insane amounts of money fueling unsustainable growth to satisfy their investors. This requires burning cash on user acquisition and hiring thousands of engineers to solve problems that they didn't need to have. Craiglist is handling as much traffic as all of them with around 50 employees.

chrisshroba 7y ago

Doesn’t this ignore all the regulatory hurdles these companies have had to deal with to be able to be that middleman? Uber, for example, has done a whole lot of work, not all legal, to get cities to agree to let them operate. I suspect that a few kids in a garage trying to be the next Uber are going to end up stumped when cities tell them no (and they won’t have the lobbying power to make cities reconsider)

m_ke 7y ago
I'm saying that we could use an open alternative for existing services, not that an open solution should have been first. Uber spent a lot on lawyers and broke a lot of laws to clear the hurdles, making it much easier for someone to come in and provide a similar service at a fraction of the cost. There's no reason why someone building an open solution couldn't work with the cities and get their endorsement.

jakemal 7y ago

I think this is something that seems reasonable at first, but in practice would get incredibly unwieldy. There is much more to what they do than connect buyers and sellers. They also resolve conflicts, navigate different laws in countless locales, and handle payments/chargebacks to name a few. These companies are also taking a giant cut but still losing money. Granted they are spending money on things that an open source alternative wouldn't necessarily spend money on, but I don't think very many of them are anywhere close to being profitable even without the extra spending.

m_ke 7y ago
In some cases they did pave the way and "resolve" legal challenges, which makes it a lot easier for an open platform to come in and take over. All of these companies are following the ridiculous 0 to 1 monopoly model of growth and are wasting a ton of money trying to capture any market that they can get their hands on. It's not sustainable and the gig workers are paying the price. There's no doubt that they're providing a valuable service that could have spurred growth for the middle class, but instead they're using VC money to undercut existing businesses in hope of building the next Google.

ailideex 7y ago

And yet with taking 30-40% of revenue (as you claim) Uber is still running at a loss.

m_ke 7y ago
Uber and Lyft take 35-40% of each ride, that's the number that multiple drivers have told me and this article confirms it https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-and-lyft-take-rates-higher-than-admit-jalopnik-2019-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-and-lyft-take-rates-hig... I also know a few people at food delivery companies and they all take around 35% of each order.
- ailideex 7y ago
  Sure, but my point stands - 35-40% is not enough to turn a profit for them.
  - m_ke 7y ago
    That's because they're buying growth. Their last quarter revenue was almost $4 billion, you can definitely serve millions of daily rides for way less than that. My point is that you could have an open source version of these services that could be managed by local governments or not for profits.
    - ailideex 7y ago
      > That's because they're buying growth. That is the idea I guess. > Their last quarter revenue was almost $4 billion, you can definitely serve millions of daily rides for way less than that. How do you calculate this? Sure if you were just you with car, you could - but not sure this is exactly a workable business model without uber - if it was then people would presumably not use uber. > My point is that you could have an open source version of these services that could be managed by local governments or not for profits. You could have open source versions - but the source code is a small part of the operation - and I'm not sure why I would want to government to run it - or why people should not be allowed to profit from it. If the issue is that workers are being exploiter maybe a better option is to see if there is some reasonable regulation to be put in place or why there is such low demand relative to the supply of labour.