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Uber and Lyft are 100% a win though. - It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before. It is safer, more predictab

Uber and Lyft are 100% a win though. - It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before. It is safer, more predictable with timing, and more predictable with pricing. - Uber drivers make more money today than taxi drivers used to/or do today. There are also way more job openings in this than there used to be, with less friction to get involved. The world is not a zero sum game. Technology made this a win-win long-term although there were already some people caught in the middle with old business models. However, that really cant be a reason for us not to move on.

kanzenryu2 5y ago
Maybe ask female employees of Uber if they agree with that
NikolaNovak 5y ago
>>> Uber drivers make more money today than taxi drivers used to/or do today. Hmmm, That must depend on the market as it's not necessarily the case based on discussions I had with both in Ottawa. (note, when Uber first started, that was the perceived story - almost "free money!" for bored white collar workers with a car and few hours to spare here and there. I've had people in $50k, $60k cars drive me around, to "meet new people and have fun". However, once full-time professionals joined the ranks, and did math on maintenance and insurance and fuel etc, the story RAPIDLY changed).
- handmodel 5y ago
  I guess I'm skeptical that taxi driver who takes on less rides is making more money after the cut they give to their company. Or, if you were starting an independent taxi service that you'd make more money taking your own calls and doing your own maintenance anyway. I'm not surprised its gone down - probably a sign that it used to be very profitable even if not as much so now. I do know plenty of people that can repair cars themselves (one of whom has been uber driving foe years) so perhaps it will only work out for those people. Which seems like a 100% decent outcome.
  - NikolaNovak 5y ago
    >>I guess I'm skeptical that taxi driver who takes on less rides is making more money after the cut they give to their company. There's an implicit assumption there that taxi driver gets less rides and I don't see why that is necessarily true. More broadly, I think both Uber and Taxi drivers have significant distribution, and it appears there are both Uber & Taxi drivers who are better or worse at maximizing their rides and income. I've seen both drivers who just "do what app/dispatch tells them" (and are constantly complaining about their income level or nature of rides), and drivers who actively seek out timing, areas and locations that give good rides. This is not the same as parking in front of hotel and hoping for a long drive - it's a fairly active dynamic work. Overall though, active engaged Taxi drivers seemed to find it a more predictable, profitable engagement that sufficed as main income for their family; whereas I have not gotten that sense from Uber drivers in the 12-18 months prior to Covid. Of course, while I took taxi or uber twice a day for several years in Ottawa, this is still anecdata and limited sample - absolutely! But that's largely my point - we discuss Uber and Taxi as if the situation in London and San Francisco and New York and Ottawa and so on is the same - and it absolutely is not. One thing that seems to often be missed in these discussions as well is edge cases; even if in a place Uber is a great alternative for 80-90% of folks, I find it is far less dependable if you're in a less active area, during less active time, and/or need Uber planned for a specific time.
gentleman11 5y ago
> It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride Due to a decade of massive losses. This isn’t their real long term cost. It is a scam to make people think it’s cheaper and run normal taxis out of business
ipaddr 5y ago
Cab drivers had goals to own a medallion. That medallion value rose allowing someone to retire. What we have is slightly higher pay until your car breaks. No retirement plan. The drivers lose out. The customer rides in someone's personal car pays a little less sometimes but a lot more (demand pricing) when they really need it. Uber/Lift lose money on each ride but will rise prices as soon as they can once you have fewer choices. Zero sum indeed..
- nybble41 5y ago
  Basing your retirement plan around the continuing artificial scarcity of taxi medallions is not smart. The city has no obligation to keep the medallions scarce; their value can drop to zero overnight due to changing regulations (or a drop in demand for taxi services, e.g. because a better public transportation system was implemented) and they won't owe you a dime. You'd be far better off working with Uber instead and putting the money you saved by not needing to buy a medallion into a diversified retirement portfolio.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    Medallions don't come out of thin air. It's the cities that provide them. The cities want this, because taxis are meant to be a component of the city transportation system. They're not there to compete with public transit, they're there to augment it - to service the needs that a bus or a train can't. A medallion comes with a requirement to fulfill those needs, as the city sees fit. The relationship between public mass transit, and private taxis (and private mass transit) was cooperative. The relationship between city transportation systems and Uber is hostile.
    - nybble41 5y ago
      The cities don't provide medallions, they mandate them and limit the supply. The default state without the city's intervention (i.e. no medallions needed to operate a taxi) is equivalent to having a superabundance of medallions. As you say, they do this in order to bring taxis in line with their plans for city-wide public transportation. Which is not to say that they wouldn't discard the medallion system the moment something better came along to fulfill a similar role. The city has no particular interest in maintaining the market value of the medallions; they remain scarce only because the city prefers to limit the number of taxis on the roads, and as a concession to the taxi industry so that they will acquiesce to the city's rules with less of a fight. If demand for taxis drops below the number the city is willing to tolerate, for whatever reason, you shouldn't expect the city to prop up the value of the medallions just because you're counting on it as your retirement plan.
phamilton 5y ago
Getting a ride _from_ the airport is 100% easier and more predictable by just hitting the taxi line. Ordering an Uber in a crowded place is so much less efficent.
gfxgirl 5y ago
It is NOT cheaper in SF. 2 miles costs at least $20 and can be as high as $40. I don't think I've been anywhere in the world where prices are that high for taxis and there are plenty of places in the world where taxis are plentiful. I'm happy the services exist but they are not cheap, at least not here.
- dfsegoat 5y ago
  > It is NOT cheaper in SF. 2 miles costs at least $20 and can be as high as $40 Can confirm. Arrived at SFO late the other night (1130pm-ish) and Uber wanted $80 to take me from Passenger pickup, to my longterm parking lot which was probably 3 miles away. I ended up taking a Taxi for $12 + tip.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  I’ve never had a non-surge Uber/Lyft exceed the equivalent Flywheel/street-hail in SF. I occasionally used to try these services (I have thousands of rides so this used to be relevant). Lyft/Uber are way better.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- handmodel 5y ago
  It isn't the case they are more expensive than taxi's where I am. I take it now that isn't the case everywhere. And even in in the SF area I don't believe that taxi's would be cheaper if you lived slightly out of the core areas and had to call one to drive out to you. I am also still extremely skeptical they contribute to higher prices though. If Uber and Lyft did not exist I believe (just a theory) that taxi prices would be much higher. Perhaps someone who lives in a city where ubers are banned could state if taxi prices have grown over the years.
cafard 5y ago
Will Uber and Lift continue to be a win when the VCs start wanting to see some of their money back? Or will the prices start rising back to the old taxi rates, then past?
- stale2002 5y ago
  I've heard these arguments for years, depending on the company. How long do things have to go on, for people to stop believe that prices are going to massively rise? I heard the same thing about amazon. That the inevitable huge price increases are coming. Hasn't happened yet.
- wallawe 5y ago
  I'm confused by this comment. They both went public two years ago so VCs have all cashed out.
  - deminature 5y ago
    People don't understand the difference between VC backed startups and public companies backed by institutional and retail investors
- sombremesa 5y ago
  We're talking about public companies. You can safely use the term investors, the term "VC" is irrelevant, except for drama. Now that we're talking about public companies, there are a lot of them. Any concern about price gouging you might have should extend to all these companies. If not, why not?
  - satellite2 5y ago
    Not sure if it's accurate, but the feeling is that recently, tech companies went public before being profitable or while barely being so. On top of that, their valuation is higher on a PE ratio basis than classical ones. So it feels that they'll have to change something big to meet expected returns. And the fear is that, as they succesfully managed to kill the incumbent, they are free to change the most obvious parameter, the pricing.
dralley 5y ago
>- It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before. Is it? Or are venture capitalists just footing the bill? Whatever model of "price" you use needs to take into account the fact that not only are Uber and Lyft lighting enormous piles of Saudi money on fire to "gain marketshare" but that the actual drivers are being paid peanuts. This isn't pure win, it's more like Nestle handing out free baby formula in Africa to destroy the "domestic market" so to speak.
- icholy 5y ago
  I never understood why uber needs 2000+ engineers on staff.
  - foobiekr 5y ago
    In order to pretend to be a tech company. Same reason they pretended to work on flying taxis and self-driving cars. The multiple for high tech companies is greater than the multiple for taxi companies or even basic Web2.0-style one-trick app companies.
  - nefitty 5y ago
    Their client seems to work on almost any Android and iphone, including a web client, has possibly hundreds of screens, supports multiple languages, regions, currencies…
- handmodel 5y ago
  What market did they destroy? The money went directly to US engineers and US drivers. The US should be blessed that Saudi is so bad with its money and so willing to subsidize Americans. It destroyed the money of people who had bought up medallions. That's it. Having medallions was not a long term solution when the city can now charge rideshare services for miles/minutes/rides on the road without any hard cap for politically connected incumbent players.
  - dralley 5y ago
    > What market did they destroy? The money went directly to US engineers and US drivers. The financially-sustainable transportation market. Companies without endless amounts of capital that actually have to break even or make a profit to keep the lights on. It's not just the medallions, they're literally selling the service itself at below-cost in many places and have been for years.
woodruffw 5y ago
Neither of these things is true in NYC: cabs charge a fixed rate to the area airports (Uber is at least twice that rate), and hack drivers have historically made reasonable money. Most of them have lost that stability, as well as (in some instances) their life savings due to the medallion crash.
- coryrc 5y ago
  Drivers are often not medallion owner.
- selestify 5y ago
  Investing in medallions (as investing in anything) is a risk. Cab drivers have lost job stability, but others have benefitted.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    Sure. But this is a different claim from the OP’s. Nobody is entitled to returns on investments, but the claim that ridershare apps are either affordable or good for cabbies is farcical in NYC, at the minimum.
- speby 5y ago
  Yes, the medallion crash.... because medallions were a political "tool" which controlled supply, making them artificially way more valuable than they otherwise should have been.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    The medallions were an economic tool, instituted during the Great Depression, to regulate a spiraling industry. Whether or not they “should” be valuable is a nonsense framing: they were introduced to enforce scarcity, which makes them valuable. Neither of us has to like them to recognize their outsized value and function in the welfare of a large number of peoples’ lives. But to the larger point: medallions made NYC yellowcabs more expensive than the market demands, and they’re still cheaper than ridesharing.
the_rectifier 5y ago
In most countries Uber has been a disaster for drivers, to the point of outllawing it.
- 1024core 5y ago
  I travel to India frequently. Before Uber (or their local variant, Ola) came along, getting a taxi was nearly impossible in middle-tier cities. The only option was an auto-rickshaw, whose drivers were notorious for gouging. And they formed a cartel: if you turned down one driver, the others would see that and refuse to give you a ride. Uber was a god-send. You call up the driver, watch him approach on your phone, step out when he's there. Regardless of where you were, you could get a ride from there to wherever you were going. Rides for which auto-rickshaws used to charge upwards of Rs. 300 (~$4), can now be had for Rs 150 or less ( < $2 ).
- handmodel 5y ago
  I agree it has probably been a disaster for existing taxi companies in every city. But only in the same way the internet has been a disaster for the phone book companies. Or that Netflix was bad for Blockbuster. Just because some countries don't value competition - and prefer to cater to existing entrenched lobbying groups - is not compelling evidence to the average American that Uber is bad.
TeMPOraL 5y ago
> It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before. On average, in certain locations. In others, not so much. And let's not forget surge pricing. Or people living, or wanting to get to a place, along low-profit routes. Or people with disabilities. > more predictable with pricing Depends. Regular taxis tended to cost a bit more, but had much lower variance. > Uber drivers make more money today than taxi drivers used to/or do today. That seems implausible at best. > There are also way more job openings in this than there used to be These aren't jobs, though. They're gigs. And highly unpredictable ones, wrt. your take-home pay. > The world is not a zero sum game. Technology made this a win-win long-term Absolutely true. The problem isn't technology, it's businesses - particularly businesses that purposefully play a negative-sum game, where the losing side is society at large. Externalizing risk, costs, performing regulatory arbitrage. Making owners much better off, customers a bit better off, at the cost of making everyone else slightly worse off. And much like with greenhouse emissions - a bit here, a bit there, barely measurable puff, up until it adds up to a global crisis - these companies are killing civilized society, one VC-subsidized shiny app at a time.
- handmodel 5y ago
  I would love a carbon tax but if that existed I don't see how you can blame Uber for making society worse. In additions to all the economic gains you talk about it has saved thousands of lives a year due to less drunk driving. Additionally, it has enabled millions of people in cities to skip buying a new car/any car which saves tons of emissions. More predictable as in you know the fair before you get in. I did have to take a taxi in Los Angeles from the airport earlier this year and the guy wouldn't tell me how much it would cost. Gave me a ballpark that was $22 less than what it ended up being.
  - lazyasciiart 5y ago
    > it has saved thousands of lives a year due to less drunk driving According to Uber? > Additionally, it has enabled millions of people in cities to skip buying a new car/any car which saves tons of emissions. Citation needed. I believe the last analysis I read showed that most people used Uber etc to replace transit or walking, which means it adds to emissions. I've used taxis in multiple cities that I booked through an app and got a fare ahead of time. At this point Uber is "a taxi, but with no guarantee of quality* and no cap on how many of them are creating traffic" *GPS routing does no good when the driver clearly can't read a map and doesn't know where they are or how to follow directions.
hourislate 5y ago
Have you noticed a trend in this thread where everything is way more expensive in cities like NYC and SF. I wonder why that could be? I just used Uber for a 35 minute trip to the Airport in San Diego and it was $30. Pretty damn cheap and the driver was amazing.
specialist 5y ago
Regulations, guns, or both, define markets. Technological progress disrupts markets. The only thing that changes are the cast of winners and losers. Society sometimes prefers the greater good (fairness) by reigning in the powerful.
afterburner 5y ago
An exercise in offloading car depreciation and maintenance onto unsuspecting low-paid workers.
kodt 5y ago
Your first point was true, pre-pandemic. But is no longer true, at least not universally true. In some areas Uber and Lyft are now prohibitively expensive. What was once a $15 trip is now $40-50. You are better off going back to traditional taxi companies. They have also become very unreliable, with no available drivers in some areas or 40+ minute wait times, and then the driver cancels. The majority of drivers switched to food delivery it seems. Pre-pandemic you could get a driver within 5 minutes no problem in some areas, and now may be waiting 30+ minutes. I took a trip to Asheville and Uber/Lyft service was virtually non-existent, you had to rely on local cab companies to get around.
- AuryGlenz 5y ago
  That’ll all fix itself pretty quickly once the federal unemployment benefits stop, other than prices being somewhat higher due to fuel costs.
vkou 5y ago
> - It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before. It is safer, more predictable with timing, and more predictable with pricing. This is no longer true. In my town, now that the firehose of VC subsidies has dried up, Uber costs more than taking a cab, even without surge pricing.
boringg 5y ago
Uber and Lyft haven't yet reached profitability. They either have to raise prices, lower costs or expand cost effectively. Their full impact is not yet decided
bogomipz 5y ago
>"It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before. It is safer, more predictable with timing, and more predictable with pricing." No it's no longer cheaper "to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before." Especially if one considers "before" being before the pandemic. This increased price of Uber/Lyft has actually been quite a common news story of late[1][2][3]. Incidentally "why is uber so expensive right now 2021" on Google search has over 15 million results. What evidence is there that an Uber is safer than a taxi? Also how can a model with surge pricing be more predictable than a taxi which has regulated rates per mile and per minute? >"Uber drivers make more money today than taxi drivers used to/or do today. There are also way more job openings in this than there used to be, with less friction to get involved." Do you have a citation for Uber drivers making more money than taxis drivers? What is the true earning per mile for an Uber/Lyft driver when you factor in auto insurance, maintenance, repairs and vehicle depreciation? The "friction" to becoming a taxi driver is pretty minimal. One just needs obtain a hack license the requirements of which are pretty nominal.[4] Especially so if you don't already own a car. Uber/Lyft seem to be having great difficulty staffing up right now[5]. I'm not sure that would be the case if it really was such the great(100% win) opportunity you make it out to be. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/article/uber-lyft-surge.html https://www.nytimes.com/article/uber-lyft-surge.html [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/09/uber-lyft-drivers-price-hike/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/09/uber-ly... [3] https://www.curbed.com/2021/06/uber-lyft-expensive-new-york-city.html https://www.curbed.com/2021/06/uber-lyft-expensive-new-york-... [4] https://nycitycab.com/HackLicense.aspx https://nycitycab.com/HackLicense.aspx [5] https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/7/22371850/uber-lyft-driver-shortage-covid-bonus-stimulus https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/7/22371850/uber-lyft-driver-...

kanzenryu2 5y ago

Maybe ask female employees of Uber if they agree with that

NikolaNovak 5y ago

>>> Uber drivers make more money today than taxi drivers used to/or do today. Hmmm, That must depend on the market as it's not necessarily the case based on discussions I had with both in Ottawa. (note, when Uber first started, that was the perceived story - almost "free money!" for bored white collar workers with a car and few hours to spare here and there. I've had people in $50k, $60k cars drive me around, to "meet new people and have fun". However, once full-time professionals joined the ranks, and did math on maintenance and insurance and fuel etc, the story RAPIDLY changed).

handmodel 5y ago
I guess I'm skeptical that taxi driver who takes on less rides is making more money after the cut they give to their company. Or, if you were starting an independent taxi service that you'd make more money taking your own calls and doing your own maintenance anyway. I'm not surprised its gone down - probably a sign that it used to be very profitable even if not as much so now. I do know plenty of people that can repair cars themselves (one of whom has been uber driving foe years) so perhaps it will only work out for those people. Which seems like a 100% decent outcome.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  >>I guess I'm skeptical that taxi driver who takes on less rides is making more money after the cut they give to their company. There's an implicit assumption there that taxi driver gets less rides and I don't see why that is necessarily true. More broadly, I think both Uber and Taxi drivers have significant distribution, and it appears there are both Uber & Taxi drivers who are better or worse at maximizing their rides and income. I've seen both drivers who just "do what app/dispatch tells them" (and are constantly complaining about their income level or nature of rides), and drivers who actively seek out timing, areas and locations that give good rides. This is not the same as parking in front of hotel and hoping for a long drive - it's a fairly active dynamic work. Overall though, active engaged Taxi drivers seemed to find it a more predictable, profitable engagement that sufficed as main income for their family; whereas I have not gotten that sense from Uber drivers in the 12-18 months prior to Covid. Of course, while I took taxi or uber twice a day for several years in Ottawa, this is still anecdata and limited sample - absolutely! But that's largely my point - we discuss Uber and Taxi as if the situation in London and San Francisco and New York and Ottawa and so on is the same - and it absolutely is not. One thing that seems to often be missed in these discussions as well is edge cases; even if in a place Uber is a great alternative for 80-90% of folks, I find it is far less dependable if you're in a less active area, during less active time, and/or need Uber planned for a specific time.

gentleman11 5y ago

> It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride Due to a decade of massive losses. This isn’t their real long term cost. It is a scam to make people think it’s cheaper and run normal taxis out of business

ipaddr 5y ago

Cab drivers had goals to own a medallion. That medallion value rose allowing someone to retire. What we have is slightly higher pay until your car breaks. No retirement plan. The drivers lose out. The customer rides in someone's personal car pays a little less sometimes but a lot more (demand pricing) when they really need it. Uber/Lift lose money on each ride but will rise prices as soon as they can once you have fewer choices. Zero sum indeed..

nybble41 5y ago
Basing your retirement plan around the continuing artificial scarcity of taxi medallions is not smart. The city has no obligation to keep the medallions scarce; their value can drop to zero overnight due to changing regulations (or a drop in demand for taxi services, e.g. because a better public transportation system was implemented) and they won't owe you a dime. You'd be far better off working with Uber instead and putting the money you saved by not needing to buy a medallion into a diversified retirement portfolio.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Medallions don't come out of thin air. It's the cities that provide them. The cities want this, because taxis are meant to be a component of the city transportation system. They're not there to compete with public transit, they're there to augment it - to service the needs that a bus or a train can't. A medallion comes with a requirement to fulfill those needs, as the city sees fit. The relationship between public mass transit, and private taxis (and private mass transit) was cooperative. The relationship between city transportation systems and Uber is hostile.
  - nybble41 5y ago
    The cities don't provide medallions, they mandate them and limit the supply. The default state without the city's intervention (i.e. no medallions needed to operate a taxi) is equivalent to having a superabundance of medallions. As you say, they do this in order to bring taxis in line with their plans for city-wide public transportation. Which is not to say that they wouldn't discard the medallion system the moment something better came along to fulfill a similar role. The city has no particular interest in maintaining the market value of the medallions; they remain scarce only because the city prefers to limit the number of taxis on the roads, and as a concession to the taxi industry so that they will acquiesce to the city's rules with less of a fight. If demand for taxis drops below the number the city is willing to tolerate, for whatever reason, you shouldn't expect the city to prop up the value of the medallions just because you're counting on it as your retirement plan.

phamilton 5y ago

Getting a ride _from_ the airport is 100% easier and more predictable by just hitting the taxi line. Ordering an Uber in a crowded place is so much less efficent.

gfxgirl 5y ago

It is NOT cheaper in SF. 2 miles costs at least $20 and can be as high as $40. I don't think I've been anywhere in the world where prices are that high for taxis and there are plenty of places in the world where taxis are plentiful. I'm happy the services exist but they are not cheap, at least not here.

dfsegoat 5y ago
> It is NOT cheaper in SF. 2 miles costs at least $20 and can be as high as $40 Can confirm. Arrived at SFO late the other night (1130pm-ish) and Uber wanted $80 to take me from Passenger pickup, to my longterm parking lot which was probably 3 miles away. I ended up taking a Taxi for $12 + tip.
renewiltord 5y ago
I’ve never had a non-surge Uber/Lyft exceed the equivalent Flywheel/street-hail in SF. I occasionally used to try these services (I have thousands of rides so this used to be relevant). Lyft/Uber are way better.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
handmodel 5y ago
It isn't the case they are more expensive than taxi's where I am. I take it now that isn't the case everywhere. And even in in the SF area I don't believe that taxi's would be cheaper if you lived slightly out of the core areas and had to call one to drive out to you. I am also still extremely skeptical they contribute to higher prices though. If Uber and Lyft did not exist I believe (just a theory) that taxi prices would be much higher. Perhaps someone who lives in a city where ubers are banned could state if taxi prices have grown over the years.

cafard 5y ago

Will Uber and Lift continue to be a win when the VCs start wanting to see some of their money back? Or will the prices start rising back to the old taxi rates, then past?

stale2002 5y ago
I've heard these arguments for years, depending on the company. How long do things have to go on, for people to stop believe that prices are going to massively rise? I heard the same thing about amazon. That the inevitable huge price increases are coming. Hasn't happened yet.
wallawe 5y ago
I'm confused by this comment. They both went public two years ago so VCs have all cashed out.
- deminature 5y ago
  People don't understand the difference between VC backed startups and public companies backed by institutional and retail investors
sombremesa 5y ago
We're talking about public companies. You can safely use the term investors, the term "VC" is irrelevant, except for drama. Now that we're talking about public companies, there are a lot of them. Any concern about price gouging you might have should extend to all these companies. If not, why not?
- satellite2 5y ago
  Not sure if it's accurate, but the feeling is that recently, tech companies went public before being profitable or while barely being so. On top of that, their valuation is higher on a PE ratio basis than classical ones. So it feels that they'll have to change something big to meet expected returns. And the fear is that, as they succesfully managed to kill the incumbent, they are free to change the most obvious parameter, the pricing.

dralley 5y ago

>- It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before. Is it? Or are venture capitalists just footing the bill? Whatever model of "price" you use needs to take into account the fact that not only are Uber and Lyft lighting enormous piles of Saudi money on fire to "gain marketshare" but that the actual drivers are being paid peanuts. This isn't pure win, it's more like Nestle handing out free baby formula in Africa to destroy the "domestic market" so to speak.

icholy 5y ago
I never understood why uber needs 2000+ engineers on staff.
- foobiekr 5y ago
  In order to pretend to be a tech company. Same reason they pretended to work on flying taxis and self-driving cars. The multiple for high tech companies is greater than the multiple for taxi companies or even basic Web2.0-style one-trick app companies.
- nefitty 5y ago
  Their client seems to work on almost any Android and iphone, including a web client, has possibly hundreds of screens, supports multiple languages, regions, currencies…
handmodel 5y ago
What market did they destroy? The money went directly to US engineers and US drivers. The US should be blessed that Saudi is so bad with its money and so willing to subsidize Americans. It destroyed the money of people who had bought up medallions. That's it. Having medallions was not a long term solution when the city can now charge rideshare services for miles/minutes/rides on the road without any hard cap for politically connected incumbent players.
- dralley 5y ago
  > What market did they destroy? The money went directly to US engineers and US drivers. The financially-sustainable transportation market. Companies without endless amounts of capital that actually have to break even or make a profit to keep the lights on. It's not just the medallions, they're literally selling the service itself at below-cost in many places and have been for years.

woodruffw 5y ago

Neither of these things is true in NYC: cabs charge a fixed rate to the area airports (Uber is at least twice that rate), and hack drivers have historically made reasonable money. Most of them have lost that stability, as well as (in some instances) their life savings due to the medallion crash.

coryrc 5y ago
Drivers are often not medallion owner.
selestify 5y ago
Investing in medallions (as investing in anything) is a risk. Cab drivers have lost job stability, but others have benefitted.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  Sure. But this is a different claim from the OP’s. Nobody is entitled to returns on investments, but the claim that ridershare apps are either affordable or good for cabbies is farcical in NYC, at the minimum.
speby 5y ago
Yes, the medallion crash.... because medallions were a political "tool" which controlled supply, making them artificially way more valuable than they otherwise should have been.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  The medallions were an economic tool, instituted during the Great Depression, to regulate a spiraling industry. Whether or not they “should” be valuable is a nonsense framing: they were introduced to enforce scarcity, which makes them valuable. Neither of us has to like them to recognize their outsized value and function in the welfare of a large number of peoples’ lives. But to the larger point: medallions made NYC yellowcabs more expensive than the market demands, and they’re still cheaper than ridesharing.

the_rectifier 5y ago

In most countries Uber has been a disaster for drivers, to the point of outllawing it.

1024core 5y ago
I travel to India frequently. Before Uber (or their local variant, Ola) came along, getting a taxi was nearly impossible in middle-tier cities. The only option was an auto-rickshaw, whose drivers were notorious for gouging. And they formed a cartel: if you turned down one driver, the others would see that and refuse to give you a ride. Uber was a god-send. You call up the driver, watch him approach on your phone, step out when he's there. Regardless of where you were, you could get a ride from there to wherever you were going. Rides for which auto-rickshaws used to charge upwards of Rs. 300 (~$4), can now be had for Rs 150 or less ( < $2 ).
handmodel 5y ago
I agree it has probably been a disaster for existing taxi companies in every city. But only in the same way the internet has been a disaster for the phone book companies. Or that Netflix was bad for Blockbuster. Just because some countries don't value competition - and prefer to cater to existing entrenched lobbying groups - is not compelling evidence to the average American that Uber is bad.

TeMPOraL 5y ago

> It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before. On average, in certain locations. In others, not so much. And let's not forget surge pricing. Or people living, or wanting to get to a place, along low-profit routes. Or people with disabilities. > more predictable with pricing Depends. Regular taxis tended to cost a bit more, but had much lower variance. > Uber drivers make more money today than taxi drivers used to/or do today. That seems implausible at best. > There are also way more job openings in this than there used to be These aren't jobs, though. They're gigs. And highly unpredictable ones, wrt. your take-home pay. > The world is not a zero sum game. Technology made this a win-win long-term Absolutely true. The problem isn't technology, it's businesses - particularly businesses that purposefully play a negative-sum game, where the losing side is society at large. Externalizing risk, costs, performing regulatory arbitrage. Making owners much better off, customers a bit better off, at the cost of making everyone else slightly worse off. And much like with greenhouse emissions - a bit here, a bit there, barely measurable puff, up until it adds up to a global crisis - these companies are killing civilized society, one VC-subsidized shiny app at a time.

handmodel 5y ago
I would love a carbon tax but if that existed I don't see how you can blame Uber for making society worse. In additions to all the economic gains you talk about it has saved thousands of lives a year due to less drunk driving. Additionally, it has enabled millions of people in cities to skip buying a new car/any car which saves tons of emissions. More predictable as in you know the fair before you get in. I did have to take a taxi in Los Angeles from the airport earlier this year and the guy wouldn't tell me how much it would cost. Gave me a ballpark that was $22 less than what it ended up being.
- lazyasciiart 5y ago
  > it has saved thousands of lives a year due to less drunk driving According to Uber? > Additionally, it has enabled millions of people in cities to skip buying a new car/any car which saves tons of emissions. Citation needed. I believe the last analysis I read showed that most people used Uber etc to replace transit or walking, which means it adds to emissions. I've used taxis in multiple cities that I booked through an app and got a fare ahead of time. At this point Uber is "a taxi, but with no guarantee of quality* and no cap on how many of them are creating traffic" *GPS routing does no good when the driver clearly can't read a map and doesn't know where they are or how to follow directions.

hourislate 5y ago

Have you noticed a trend in this thread where everything is way more expensive in cities like NYC and SF. I wonder why that could be? I just used Uber for a 35 minute trip to the Airport in San Diego and it was $30. Pretty damn cheap and the driver was amazing.

specialist 5y ago

Regulations, guns, or both, define markets. Technological progress disrupts markets. The only thing that changes are the cast of winners and losers. Society sometimes prefers the greater good (fairness) by reigning in the powerful.

afterburner 5y ago

An exercise in offloading car depreciation and maintenance onto unsuspecting low-paid workers.

kodt 5y ago

Your first point was true, pre-pandemic. But is no longer true, at least not universally true. In some areas Uber and Lyft are now prohibitively expensive. What was once a $15 trip is now $40-50. You are better off going back to traditional taxi companies. They have also become very unreliable, with no available drivers in some areas or 40+ minute wait times, and then the driver cancels. The majority of drivers switched to food delivery it seems. Pre-pandemic you could get a driver within 5 minutes no problem in some areas, and now may be waiting 30+ minutes. I took a trip to Asheville and Uber/Lyft service was virtually non-existent, you had to rely on local cab companies to get around.

AuryGlenz 5y ago
That’ll all fix itself pretty quickly once the federal unemployment benefits stop, other than prices being somewhat higher due to fuel costs.

vkou 5y ago

> - It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before. It is safer, more predictable with timing, and more predictable with pricing. This is no longer true. In my town, now that the firehose of VC subsidies has dried up, Uber costs more than taking a cab, even without surge pricing.

boringg 5y ago

Uber and Lyft haven't yet reached profitability. They either have to raise prices, lower costs or expand cost effectively. Their full impact is not yet decided

bogomipz 5y ago

>"It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before. It is safer, more predictable with timing, and more predictable with pricing." No it's no longer cheaper "to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before." Especially if one considers "before" being before the pandemic. This increased price of Uber/Lyft has actually been quite a common news story of late[1][2][3]. Incidentally "why is uber so expensive right now 2021" on Google search has over 15 million results. What evidence is there that an Uber is safer than a taxi? Also how can a model with surge pricing be more predictable than a taxi which has regulated rates per mile and per minute? >"Uber drivers make more money today than taxi drivers used to/or do today. There are also way more job openings in this than there used to be, with less friction to get involved." Do you have a citation for Uber drivers making more money than taxis drivers? What is the true earning per mile for an Uber/Lyft driver when you factor in auto insurance, maintenance, repairs and vehicle depreciation? The "friction" to becoming a taxi driver is pretty minimal. One just needs obtain a hack license the requirements of which are pretty nominal.[4] Especially so if you don't already own a car. Uber/Lyft seem to be having great difficulty staffing up right now[5]. I'm not sure that would be the case if it really was such the great(100% win) opportunity you make it out to be. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/article/uber-lyft-surge.html https://www.nytimes.com/article/uber-lyft-surge.html [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/09/uber-lyft-drivers-price-hike/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/09/uber-ly... [3] https://www.curbed.com/2021/06/uber-lyft-expensive-new-york-city.html https://www.curbed.com/2021/06/uber-lyft-expensive-new-york-... [4] https://nycitycab.com/HackLicense.aspx https://nycitycab.com/HackLicense.aspx [5] https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/7/22371850/uber-lyft-driver-shortage-covid-bonus-stimulus https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/7/22371850/uber-lyft-driver-...