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Three things about "how Uber works": 1. It started out burning huge amounts of investor capital, basically transferring all of that money to drivers and in the
by pwinnski 4y ago
Three things about "how Uber works":
1. It started out burning huge amounts of investor capital, basically transferring all of that money to drivers and in the form of subsidized rides, to riders.
2. It works today by a combination of the above and underpaying drivers, who generally make less than minimum wage when they manage to cover their completely costs at all. Despite this, prices have gone up dramatically, so that taxis are once again competitive on a price basis.
3. Uber was profitable in 2018, and not before nor since[0]. Deeply, profoundly unprofitable. Why would anyone want to be the Uber of anything?
0. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/UBER/uber-technologies/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/UBER/uber-technolo...
- illiarian 4y ago1. Is basically price dumping using unlimited investor money and is blatantly illegal. But since it "this great big disruptive innovation unicorn", no one batted an eye. And still no one bats an eye in 3. :)
- chx 4y agoIt always underpaid drivers. It exploited drivers not calculating car amortization costs and sometimes not even gas correctly. Also, people do not calculate the value of their time spent waiting (unpaid) and the cost to drive to the pick up (also unpaid). I guess Haraszti laughed his ass off when he learned of this bullshit. https://www.amazon.com/worker-workers-state-Piece-rates-Hungary/dp/0140219889 https://www.amazon.com/worker-workers-state-Piece-rates-Hung... He basically have proven the socialist state was paying factory workers only when their machine was actually working on a piece and then per the minute. And of course wrote a book criticizing the entire system on the side.