8 ms·

"I had to make this decision because our very future as an essential service for the cities of the world — our being there for millions of people and businesses

"I had to make this decision because our very future as an essential service for the cities of the world — our being there for millions of people and businesses who rely on us — demands it." This is only one sentence in an otherwise fairly measured email, but it nevertheless annoyed me given the context. Uber is not an "essential service". They made this decision so that they can stay in business to make money for their shareholders. Portraying it as something noble is more than a little tone-deaf. I feel for the people affected and I hope they find new roles soon.

giglamesh 6y ago
There is a very simple way to determine if a service is essential or not. If it existed 15 years ago it might be essential, but if it did not, then it is definitely not essential. Human civilization arose and thrived for thousands of years without ride-share. We'll be fine (better off actually) without it.
- tomjen3 6y ago
  Why 15 years? Why not 50? Or 150? By those measures BTW, antibiotics, modern sewers and (for the most part) vacinations aren't essential. And indeed they aren't, for the survival of the human race. They are, however, very important for the survival of individual humans.
- ollerac 6y ago
  This is a terrible measure. The World Wide Web was invented only 30 years ago, yet it's arguably the single most essential service during this time. Without it, social distancing while keeping large parts of the economy alive wouldn't have even been an option. At the rate technology is becoming embedded into our daily lives, I think an arbitrary number of years is definitely not the way to decide whether something is essential. Context matters. What if instead of a pandemic that affects the lungs, the next one affects older people's ability to walk? Not very hard to imagine Uber being considered a 100% essential service at that point.
- drstewart 6y ago
  Well, you're right about one thing: that sure is a simple method. Useful? No. Effective? No. Meaningful? No. But definitely simple.
thoraway1010 6y ago
Ahh - the comment from the person with the multi-car garage, the tesla and the range rover. Walk me through what folks without good car / transit access should be using? If cab companies are "essential" then uber is essential and preferred to cab companies in many markets. A lot of folks on HN seems to be approaching this whole situation from the I have a ton of money, can work from home, have a car mental model.
- dbancajas 6y ago
  > ation from the I have a ton of money, can work fr is uber cheaper than cabs/public transpo w/o the VC subsidy? 15 years ago there was no uber and people were able to get by using public transpo.
  - nerfhammer 6y ago
    the idea that uber loses money on rides because of "VC" needs to die. uber is not VC funded anymore and hasn't been for a long time now. uber loses money on every ride because uber loses money overall because it spends a lot of money on other projects, not because the marginal cost/benefit of each ride is negative.
    - dbancajas 6y ago
      If they spin off the ride sharing part of the company how much are they earning? do you know?
      - mqnfred 6y ago
        The ridesharing line of business has been profitable for at least a year from what I can tell. The plan was for it to cover all the other costs by EoY 2020, incl. HQ expenses and other bets like Eats.
  - Reubend 6y ago
    Centuries ago, people got by with horses. Does that mean that cars aren't essential? Ridesharing services allow for an unprecedented level of mobility for those who don't already own cars.
kikokikokiko 6y ago
Tell that "Uber is not an essential service" to the millions of otherwise unemployable people that were able to feed their families using it. In countries like Brazil, where I'm from, the fall of Uber will have a gigantic impact. Gig economy apps BECAME ESSENTIAL parts of our lives, there's no denying it. But it was never sustainable. When everybody benefits from a product/service, other than the company that offers it, something is wrong. Uber only exists still, because of the FED's massive amount of money being printed and injected in the markets since 2008. Boomer's 401ks subsidized my Uber rides. The american taxpayers money created an amazing amount of wealth all over the world, lifted a lot of people from poverty. But now the party is over. Every unsustainable business eventually will die, just like the Dodos. I needed to write this, sorry. This ideia of Uber not being essential is such a miopic stance, it can only come from a person that can't see the impact, for the good, that gig economy apps had for the poor of the world.
- hobofan 6y ago
  The classification as an "essential service" has only to do with the service being essential to the _users_ of the service, and nothing to do with the workers. You are completely twisting the label of an essential service in a way that makes it effectively meaningless. For every worker that depends on their salary for their livelihood, their job is essential, but that has nothing to do with an "essential service".
- phatfish 6y ago
  All the gig economy apps do is ensure the poor stay poor. When you are working 10-12 hours a day to make ends meet and shoulder the all costs of the depreciating fix assets there is very little opportunity dig yourself out of that hole. Uber and similar companies are destroying the very small businesses (or squashing their margins into nothing) which traditionally are the environment that the poor can become entrepreneurs and build their own local business.
  - kikokikokiko 6y ago
    You have no idea what you're talking about. I presume you live in the US. You definitely have no sense at how much an average brazilian/argentinian/russian/indian guy can improve their financial life by driving for a ride sharing app. I know of engineers and lawyers down here that are making 2, 3 times more money than they used to make working a 9to5 job. I'm tired of seeing privileged people talking about how the poor, or how the uneducated people are SOOOO sumb that they can't see that "after all the expenses and depreciation" they are literally paying to work for Uber etc. Please, be a little bit more humble and stop trying to prohibit the people that NEED, or even the people that would RATHER work as an Uber driver than to slave on a regular job. It's their needs, it's their CHOICE, not yours.
matwood 6y ago
I dunno. I find services like Uber and Lyft pretty essential. In my smallish city, getting a cab pre-Uber was near impossible. My friends and I had the personal number of 2 cab drivers, and if neither of them picked up, good luck. Even with the highly publicized Uber failures, no Uber I've ever taken has been worse than many of the cabs I was in prior. Something as simple as knowing the price up front has been key when traveling. So sure, of course they want to stay an ongoing concern. But, services like Uber and Lyft have become essential to many people.
dreamcompiler 6y ago
Uber all but destroyed the existing taxi infrastructure in several major cities. So yeah, in many places they're now pretty essential. That said, the barrier to entry for an Uber-like service is quite low, so if Uber vanished from the face of the Earth it wouldn't take more than about a month to re-create it.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  The barrier for entry is dealing with municipal taxi commissions so you can actually operate the app. That alone probably require connections that a standard startup won’t be able to overcome.
wobbly_bush 6y ago
You are thinking of only US and similar countries where everyone already owns cars. In country like India, there were not much taxis before Uber came. An alternative was autorickshaw which took twice as long to go the same distance, had much worse safety features, exposed one to all the pollution all the time, not to mention the cheating of fares.
- IG_Semmelweiss 6y ago
  I know of a very senior family friend living in one of the flyover states. She doesnt drive following a car wreck. She had walk half a mile to wait out in the bitter rocky mountain cold at a bus stop to go to the Dr. Shes on social security. She told me she didnt have the money to take a cab, that is if she could even get a hold of one. Then uber came along. She learn to use uber on her own before even whatsapp. Yea, I'd call it downright essential.
fernandopj 6y ago
> Uber is not an "essential service". I agree given no other contexts, but let me refute anecdotally: Brazil for instance has become socially and economic dependable over Uber continuous success. Current situation goes like this: - Brazil has about 1 million rental cars. Uber drivers have already returned 80% of their vehicles [1][2]. Rentals are down 90%. As cities are beginning to announce harder lockdowns, these will only go further down. [3] - Rental companies stopped buying new cars for at least a year [4]. At least that matches the fact that almost no new cars are being made since March.[5] - Rental companies buy directly from manufactures, they're almost half of their sales [6]. And app drivers are a big chunk of their customers. - Car manufacturers are a big slice of every State's taxes they're in. Less car sales, thousand more layoffs. (lacking links here, sorry) IMHO, to sum up: at least here, to any politician or car-related executive, Uber success is critical. [1] https://www.jornalcruzeiro.com.br/sorocaba/locadoras-de-carros-tentam-manter-contratos/ https://www.jornalcruzeiro.com.br/sorocaba/locadoras-de-carr... (pt-br) [2] https://www.bol.uol.com.br/noticias/2020/03/23/coronavirus-sem-passageiros-motorista-de-aplicativo-devolve-carro-alugado.htm https://www.bol.uol.com.br/noticias/2020/03/23/coronavirus-s... (pt-br) [3] https://www.infomoney.com.br/mercados/sem-servico-160-mil-motoristas-devolvem-carros-locadoras-ja-alugam-por-r-10/ https://www.infomoney.com.br/mercados/sem-servico-160-mil-mo... (pt-br) [4] https://www.uol.com.br/carros/colunas/autodata/2020/05/15/locadoras-param-de-comprar-carros-e-aumentam-crise-nas-montadoras.htm https://www.uol.com.br/carros/colunas/autodata/2020/05/15/lo... (pt-br) [5] https://revistaautoesporte.globo.com/Noticias/noticia/2020/03/fabricas-de-carros-no-brasil-interrompem-producao-saiba-quais-ja-anunciaram-paralisacao.html https://revistaautoesporte.globo.com/Noticias/noticia/2020/0... [6] https://www.blogdaslocadoras.com.br/locadoras-de-carros/recorde-vendas-diretas-de-veiculos-correspondem-a-quase-metade-dos-emplacamentos-em-2019.html https://www.blogdaslocadoras.com.br/locadoras-de-carros/reco...
himinlomax 6y ago
You can't fault the guy for believing / wanting to believe that what he's doing is useful.
1024core 6y ago
I travel to India, a lot, as I have family there. Pre-Uber days, here's what it took to get an auto-rickshaw (also called "auto"): you walk up to the "auto stand" where you see some auto drivers lounging. As they see you walk up, they size you up; and immediately jack up the prices they're going to quote you as they see you don't seem a local. If you turn one of them down, the others will simply refuse to talk to you or even look at you. Then your best bet is to keep walking, looking for an idling auto driver. Post-Uber world: pull up the app, enter the destination address, and watch as the car approaches your location. Hop in, driver is incentivized to get you there as quickly as possible. Hop off at the destination, give him 5 stars, and you're on your way. Simple as that. For me, Uber was always an essential service in India.
- tinyhouse 6y ago
  I can relate as someone who was scammed at Heathrow pre-Uber.
- xenospn 6y ago
  I moved to LA in the pre-Uber days. Trips from LAX back home were miserable. When my ex-wife had the car and I needed to go somewhere - forget about it. Taxis were impossible to find, even in the middle of West Hollywood. I really don't like Uber, but they did change many peoples' lives.

giglamesh 6y ago

There is a very simple way to determine if a service is essential or not. If it existed 15 years ago it might be essential, but if it did not, then it is definitely not essential. Human civilization arose and thrived for thousands of years without ride-share. We'll be fine (better off actually) without it.

tomjen3 6y ago
Why 15 years? Why not 50? Or 150? By those measures BTW, antibiotics, modern sewers and (for the most part) vacinations aren't essential. And indeed they aren't, for the survival of the human race. They are, however, very important for the survival of individual humans.
ollerac 6y ago
This is a terrible measure. The World Wide Web was invented only 30 years ago, yet it's arguably the single most essential service during this time. Without it, social distancing while keeping large parts of the economy alive wouldn't have even been an option. At the rate technology is becoming embedded into our daily lives, I think an arbitrary number of years is definitely not the way to decide whether something is essential. Context matters. What if instead of a pandemic that affects the lungs, the next one affects older people's ability to walk? Not very hard to imagine Uber being considered a 100% essential service at that point.
drstewart 6y ago
Well, you're right about one thing: that sure is a simple method. Useful? No. Effective? No. Meaningful? No. But definitely simple.

thoraway1010 6y ago

Ahh - the comment from the person with the multi-car garage, the tesla and the range rover. Walk me through what folks without good car / transit access should be using? If cab companies are "essential" then uber is essential and preferred to cab companies in many markets. A lot of folks on HN seems to be approaching this whole situation from the I have a ton of money, can work from home, have a car mental model.

dbancajas 6y ago
> ation from the I have a ton of money, can work fr is uber cheaper than cabs/public transpo w/o the VC subsidy? 15 years ago there was no uber and people were able to get by using public transpo.
- nerfhammer 6y ago
  the idea that uber loses money on rides because of "VC" needs to die. uber is not VC funded anymore and hasn't been for a long time now. uber loses money on every ride because uber loses money overall because it spends a lot of money on other projects, not because the marginal cost/benefit of each ride is negative.
  - dbancajas 6y ago
    If they spin off the ride sharing part of the company how much are they earning? do you know?
    - mqnfred 6y ago
      The ridesharing line of business has been profitable for at least a year from what I can tell. The plan was for it to cover all the other costs by EoY 2020, incl. HQ expenses and other bets like Eats.
- Reubend 6y ago
  Centuries ago, people got by with horses. Does that mean that cars aren't essential? Ridesharing services allow for an unprecedented level of mobility for those who don't already own cars.

kikokikokiko 6y ago

Tell that "Uber is not an essential service" to the millions of otherwise unemployable people that were able to feed their families using it. In countries like Brazil, where I'm from, the fall of Uber will have a gigantic impact. Gig economy apps BECAME ESSENTIAL parts of our lives, there's no denying it. But it was never sustainable. When everybody benefits from a product/service, other than the company that offers it, something is wrong. Uber only exists still, because of the FED's massive amount of money being printed and injected in the markets since 2008. Boomer's 401ks subsidized my Uber rides. The american taxpayers money created an amazing amount of wealth all over the world, lifted a lot of people from poverty. But now the party is over. Every unsustainable business eventually will die, just like the Dodos. I needed to write this, sorry. This ideia of Uber not being essential is such a miopic stance, it can only come from a person that can't see the impact, for the good, that gig economy apps had for the poor of the world.

hobofan 6y ago
The classification as an "essential service" has only to do with the service being essential to the _users_ of the service, and nothing to do with the workers. You are completely twisting the label of an essential service in a way that makes it effectively meaningless. For every worker that depends on their salary for their livelihood, their job is essential, but that has nothing to do with an "essential service".
phatfish 6y ago
All the gig economy apps do is ensure the poor stay poor. When you are working 10-12 hours a day to make ends meet and shoulder the all costs of the depreciating fix assets there is very little opportunity dig yourself out of that hole. Uber and similar companies are destroying the very small businesses (or squashing their margins into nothing) which traditionally are the environment that the poor can become entrepreneurs and build their own local business.
- kikokikokiko 6y ago
  You have no idea what you're talking about. I presume you live in the US. You definitely have no sense at how much an average brazilian/argentinian/russian/indian guy can improve their financial life by driving for a ride sharing app. I know of engineers and lawyers down here that are making 2, 3 times more money than they used to make working a 9to5 job. I'm tired of seeing privileged people talking about how the poor, or how the uneducated people are SOOOO sumb that they can't see that "after all the expenses and depreciation" they are literally paying to work for Uber etc. Please, be a little bit more humble and stop trying to prohibit the people that NEED, or even the people that would RATHER work as an Uber driver than to slave on a regular job. It's their needs, it's their CHOICE, not yours.

matwood 6y ago

I dunno. I find services like Uber and Lyft pretty essential. In my smallish city, getting a cab pre-Uber was near impossible. My friends and I had the personal number of 2 cab drivers, and if neither of them picked up, good luck. Even with the highly publicized Uber failures, no Uber I've ever taken has been worse than many of the cabs I was in prior. Something as simple as knowing the price up front has been key when traveling. So sure, of course they want to stay an ongoing concern. But, services like Uber and Lyft have become essential to many people.

dreamcompiler 6y ago

Uber all but destroyed the existing taxi infrastructure in several major cities. So yeah, in many places they're now pretty essential. That said, the barrier to entry for an Uber-like service is quite low, so if Uber vanished from the face of the Earth it wouldn't take more than about a month to re-create it.

runawaybottle 6y ago
The barrier for entry is dealing with municipal taxi commissions so you can actually operate the app. That alone probably require connections that a standard startup won’t be able to overcome.

wobbly_bush 6y ago

You are thinking of only US and similar countries where everyone already owns cars. In country like India, there were not much taxis before Uber came. An alternative was autorickshaw which took twice as long to go the same distance, had much worse safety features, exposed one to all the pollution all the time, not to mention the cheating of fares.

IG_Semmelweiss 6y ago
I know of a very senior family friend living in one of the flyover states. She doesnt drive following a car wreck. She had walk half a mile to wait out in the bitter rocky mountain cold at a bus stop to go to the Dr. Shes on social security. She told me she didnt have the money to take a cab, that is if she could even get a hold of one. Then uber came along. She learn to use uber on her own before even whatsapp. Yea, I'd call it downright essential.

fernandopj 6y ago

> Uber is not an "essential service". I agree given no other contexts, but let me refute anecdotally: Brazil for instance has become socially and economic dependable over Uber continuous success. Current situation goes like this: - Brazil has about 1 million rental cars. Uber drivers have already returned 80% of their vehicles [1][2]. Rentals are down 90%. As cities are beginning to announce harder lockdowns, these will only go further down. [3] - Rental companies stopped buying new cars for at least a year [4]. At least that matches the fact that almost no new cars are being made since March.[5] - Rental companies buy directly from manufactures, they're almost half of their sales [6]. And app drivers are a big chunk of their customers. - Car manufacturers are a big slice of every State's taxes they're in. Less car sales, thousand more layoffs. (lacking links here, sorry) IMHO, to sum up: at least here, to any politician or car-related executive, Uber success is critical. [1] https://www.jornalcruzeiro.com.br/sorocaba/locadoras-de-carros-tentam-manter-contratos/ https://www.jornalcruzeiro.com.br/sorocaba/locadoras-de-carr... (pt-br) [2] https://www.bol.uol.com.br/noticias/2020/03/23/coronavirus-sem-passageiros-motorista-de-aplicativo-devolve-carro-alugado.htm https://www.bol.uol.com.br/noticias/2020/03/23/coronavirus-s... (pt-br) [3] https://www.infomoney.com.br/mercados/sem-servico-160-mil-motoristas-devolvem-carros-locadoras-ja-alugam-por-r-10/ https://www.infomoney.com.br/mercados/sem-servico-160-mil-mo... (pt-br) [4] https://www.uol.com.br/carros/colunas/autodata/2020/05/15/locadoras-param-de-comprar-carros-e-aumentam-crise-nas-montadoras.htm https://www.uol.com.br/carros/colunas/autodata/2020/05/15/lo... (pt-br) [5] https://revistaautoesporte.globo.com/Noticias/noticia/2020/03/fabricas-de-carros-no-brasil-interrompem-producao-saiba-quais-ja-anunciaram-paralisacao.html https://revistaautoesporte.globo.com/Noticias/noticia/2020/0... [6] https://www.blogdaslocadoras.com.br/locadoras-de-carros/recorde-vendas-diretas-de-veiculos-correspondem-a-quase-metade-dos-emplacamentos-em-2019.html https://www.blogdaslocadoras.com.br/locadoras-de-carros/reco...

himinlomax 6y ago

You can't fault the guy for believing / wanting to believe that what he's doing is useful.

1024core 6y ago

I travel to India, a lot, as I have family there. Pre-Uber days, here's what it took to get an auto-rickshaw (also called "auto"): you walk up to the "auto stand" where you see some auto drivers lounging. As they see you walk up, they size you up; and immediately jack up the prices they're going to quote you as they see you don't seem a local. If you turn one of them down, the others will simply refuse to talk to you or even look at you. Then your best bet is to keep walking, looking for an idling auto driver. Post-Uber world: pull up the app, enter the destination address, and watch as the car approaches your location. Hop in, driver is incentivized to get you there as quickly as possible. Hop off at the destination, give him 5 stars, and you're on your way. Simple as that. For me, Uber was always an essential service in India.

tinyhouse 6y ago
I can relate as someone who was scammed at Heathrow pre-Uber.
xenospn 6y ago
I moved to LA in the pre-Uber days. Trips from LAX back home were miserable. When my ex-wife had the car and I needed to go somewhere - forget about it. Taxis were impossible to find, even in the middle of West Hollywood. I really don't like Uber, but they did change many peoples' lives.