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It's basically an inefficient, but effective way to siphon money from the poor and middle class and deposit it into the bank accounts of the wealthy by utilizin
by jjeaff 3y ago
It's basically an inefficient, but effective way to siphon money from the poor and middle class and deposit it into the bank accounts of the wealthy by utilizing the equity the poor and middle class have in their vehicles.
- asimpletune 3y agoYeah, it's crazy how much of the end-game of so much tech essentially boils down to something like this.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> to siphon money from the poor and middle class and deposit it into the bank accounts of the wealthy by utilizing the equity the poor and middle class have in their vehicles What poor and middle class assets does SoftBank manage? (EDIT: Nvm. I misread “vehicle” as an investment vehicle.)
- HWR_14 3y agoHe meant Uber. Uber is siphoning residual equity in people's vehicles into cash for Uber by underpaying for depreciation.
- dpflan 3y agoWell said. Would like to see an economic / accountant analysis of this.
- mrguyorama 3y agoGo look it up, it's been done before. Uber basically required you buy a new car in certain circumstances, and don't pay enough to keep up with gas, repairs, and value loss of running a car around.
- sokoloff 3y agoUber allows 16 year old cars in my city. If you're driving a paid-off 5+ year old Honda or Toyota, I think Uber's paying enough for you to turn a decent profit from driving for them. https://www.uber.com/us/en/drive/boston/vehicle-requirements/ https://www.uber.com/us/en/drive/boston/vehicle-requirements... It probably isn't paying enough for you to buy a brand new car with a loan and drive that around for them. But they're not making you do that, either...
- skybrian 3y agoIf we translate that from financial to real-world terms, it means that people aren't getting paid enough to cover wear and tear on their cars. I think that depends on how much you paid for the car and how long it will last (depends on quality, how good the maintenance is, and luck). Also, cash pays the rent and lower depreciation doesn't (unless you sell the car), so some people may prefer this to borrowing money.
- prepend 3y agoYet they are evidenced by people driving for Uber. I’ve driven a Prius for Uber and think so fared quite well using the irs mileage deduction rate to offset almost all my revenue and paid nearly no tax, legally and covered actual depreciation. It’s funny to think 10 years of drivers are somehow idiots.
- ipaddr 3y agoWait until you find out how much cars are now when you have to replace your car 10 years earlier.
- prepend 3y agoI think I’m already aware. I’m comfortable with my decision. I haven’t driven in 5 years and I still drive my prius and probably have 100k miles left.
- ipaddr 3y agoAre you aware if you would have continued to drive and put on 100 more k for Uber you wouldn't be driving that prius today.
- prepend 3y agoI don’t understand your point. You keep asking obvious questions. Of course if I currently have 100k left and I drove 100k miles I would have zero left and a new car. Yes, of course I’m aware. I have done the math and am comfortable with my decision. I made extra money and it worked out fine. I understand depreciation and it’s the cost of goods. Are you aware that many jobs have supplies that are used up in the performance of your job? It’s pretty basic arithmetic that there are many scenarios where driving for Uber is a perfectly fine choice. Not everyone is driving an F150 and sitting in traffic. Lots of people drive efficient cars and are happy. The reason people drive for Uber for many years isn’t because they are somehow dumber than you and not aware of basic things.
- _Parfait_ 3y agoYou completely missed the point made here, which was a very good one.
- Mistletoe 3y agoThe poor and middle class don't have investments. Source: all my co-workers and girlfriend's relatives that meet me with blank stares when I ask if they are saving for their retirement or maxing the company match for the 401k. Not judging that- the reality is somewhere in between they can't afford to do much but stay alive due to inflation and housing costs out of control and that they need to stop getting $7 Dutch Bros. coffee every day, DoorDash every night, and Taylor Swift tickets for $1000.
- maerF0x0 3y agoThis is one thing that terrifies me. I'm sacrificing today to save for tomorrow while the masses are doing the opposite. And in a decade or 3 when I have assets they can out vote me and take it all back via taxes or rules that change the game Some examples are like - I paid off my student debt by not going to coachella or doing optional things (that I observed others doing). They might get it cancelled for free. They got Coachella + Education, I only got Education. Rinse and repeat for all sorts of delayed gratification steps.
- Apocryphon 3y agoYou can still go to Coachella today. Jeff Bezos did, after all.
- nly 3y agoThis is guaranteed to happen. Boomers have been rigging the system as a large voting cohort since coming of age.
- maerF0x0 3y agoBoomers might mostly be dead in 30 yrs, but yeah a concern in 10.
- shp0ngle 3y agoIt doesn't get the wealthy especially rich either, looking at the losses. Who gets rich on Uber and similar apps are all the programmers that visit this website, we make good money on all those schemes. We get paid really well. We are who really gets the best deal in all this. (Now I need to hide away before the flying shoes hit me.)
- mym1990 3y agoThe wealthy got rich at the IPO stage at the expense of the public, much like most tech IPOs.
- spaceman_2020 3y agoas an end user, I got a pretty good deal for quite a while. I'm always surprised that VCs assume that customers are morons and will keep buying the same product even when its not a good deal anymore. Uber's terms of the deal changed, so I don't buy the product anymore. Simple as.
- bombcar 3y agoThe goal is to kill all the alternatives so you have no choice. Uber wanted to kill all taxis everywhere, then they'd have a monopoly.
- SoftTalker 3y agoUber wanted to attack all the things that were bad about legacy taxi service. They did, and it was better for many people. But they were foolish if they thought taxi services would not respond and competitors would not emerge. Ultimately they wanted their cars to be self-driving. They don't want to pay drivers at all. But there was and is no proof that it is possible in the time frame of their runway.
- crazygringo 3y agoNobody's forced to work for Uber. It's not "siphoning" money from anybody. Drivers are driving for it because it's the best job available -- often because of the flexibility that lets them do it around other scheduled commitments. Take that opportunity away and they become worse off, not better.
- maerF0x0 3y agoYou're not directly wrong, but many who are against uber/softbank/capitalists would mix in an implicit assumption that the investor class use desperation as a tool to force short term beneficial actions despite long term consequences. You can make $100 today to afford an airbnb and a cheese burger, but you'll have lost money when the repair bill (or purchasing the next car) comes due.
- hn_throawlles 3y agoor if you wanna be a much blunter in saying this: because this society NEEDS that there exists poor people, essentially people unable to refuse a shitty job.
- maerF0x0 3y agodepending on what you mean by Needs, i actually disagree. For example we could all be a lot richer with automation ... it seems the price of goods typically plummet once they're automated and saturated. Eg: food, iirc food production uses like 95% less people than in the past and is cheaper than it's ever been (practically free, and the very poor can get it for free at foodbanks etc). I do think if we automate the production of lots of things the price will eventually drop as economics says it will. The hard part is the things we cannot automate but also need.
- hn_throawlles 3y agothe real issue is not about what I mean by "Need" the real difficulties in these arguments come from defining (or trying to) what we mean by "this society", in part because society has many distinct (but intertwined) components in regards to food, and those things we need but cannot automate, it's not so simple. because of how capitalism works at dropping costs, in many cases what we actually get is lesser quality things that we absolutely need (like food). When this gets really really nasty is when applied to education. made cheaper because everybody needs one, but also made shittier, thereby creating people who cannot refuse certain propositions and choices. shitty education (shitty food) directly contributing to the continued 'availability' of poor people who cannot refuse shitty deals. in this light it could almost be concluded that this system is self-sustaining? ugh.
- johntiger1 3y agoNo, it's a way I can get a safe and reliable ride anywhere in the world, without getting scammed by a local taxi (not just Uber, but Lyft, Ola, Bolt etc.)
- henry2023 3y agoSafety and reliability are not mutually exclusive with exploitative. It can be both.
- prepend 3y agoSadly, taxis were never both until Uber. Even in Manhattan, getting a taxi at 2am was a crap shoot. I can an Uber in the suburbs at 2am anywhere in the country. That’s neat.
- bryant 3y ago> Even in Manhattan, getting a taxi at 2am was a crap shoot. I can an Uber in the suburbs at 2am anywhere in the country. You certainly can call an uber, yes. Whether they come through or whether they find a suitable reason to cancel on you... that's a crapshoot.
- CamperBob2 3y agoIt's just plain bad faith not to acknowledge that the scenario you describe was 10x more likely to happen with taxis.
- eganist 3y agoAnecdata: it's happened more frequently with me and ubers rather than cabs. So no, not bad faith, just my experience. I apologize that your experience was different. And likewise to all the downvotes who figured my experience was false lol.
- 3y ago
- adrr 3y agoThen why isn’t it financially successful? If riding sharing costs are much lower than incumbents like taxis shouldn’t it be raking in cash?