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I get that people don't like it when the price of things go up. But surely people can see that the Uber pricing was unsustainable? The VC money was subsidising

I get that people don't like it when the price of things go up. But surely people can see that the Uber pricing was unsustainable? The VC money was subsidising our transport (yay) but clearly that couldn't last. So, as prictable to everyone , prices go up, drivers get less, and Uber are hoping riders will have grown so used to the convenience so as not to care. Expect a flood of stories along these lines in the coming year.

jzl 3y ago
Yeah, that’s exactly what the reporter was trying to get him to admit. He says so basically, but Dara refuses to admit it.
mixmastamyk 3y ago
Prices go up; drivers should get more.
- bruce511 3y ago
  Of course they -should- get more. But the economics of uber aren't working for either uber or the drivers. Uber is super convenient. And also (used to be) super cheap. Cheaper than taxis, because a) they used VC money to cover costs and b) because they moved vehicle costs to the driver. Driving is fundamentally underpaid (it's basically unskilled labor) but if you ignore vehicle costs (which most drivers do) it looks OK. Factor In vehicle costs and it gets bad. Remove all job security and work-place benefits and it's, well, not good. So uber loses money, the drivers lose money, (or, more charitably, are just badly paid) - the real winners were riders. But the free money is over. So the prices are jacked - the first time to make Uber profitable, and likely the second time to keep drivers from abandoning the system. Customers will bleat, but the -economics- don't lie. It costs a lot for the convenience of anywhere-to-anywhere-anytime-by-yourself transport. If it's not costing the rider a lot then someone us getting screwed. Sure, removing labor will change thd equation (self driving cars), but I fear even then the ancillary effects of "riders with no adult supervision" will add a lot of overhead.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    If they want to be profitable long-term, they'll have to give up that short-term thinking. I could see a 50/50 split being reasonable.
pdntspa 3y ago
How the fuck was uber's pricing unsustainable? They aren't manufacturing anything physical. The core business doesn't need tons of employees. They're aren't paying extra for drivers' gas or mileage. The app is conceptually simple. Where is all the money going? Why is it WhatsApp can serve most of the fucking world with something like 100 people but Uber needs a huge staff?
- twelve40 3y ago
  well when they started, the whole concept of ridesharing was unproven. They didn't just set out to replace taxis, the idea was to offer a service initially so cheap that people who otherwise wouldn't even think about getting a car, would start doing it on a regular basis (same with Eats). So yes, i'm pretty sure they have been subsidizing rides, and in certain markets probably still are. So now the question is: can this market - where some people even grew accustomed to commuting to work on Uber - sustain itself, or is it too expensive and people will just revert to the old mode where (outside of NY) getting a cab was a rare event. tldr - i don't think it's the staff that's the expensive part. Also, they do a bunch of non-trivial things with maps, etc, so not quite a simple crud app.
  - pdntspa 3y ago
    Of course... the specifics of routing so many rides at scale is certainly non-trivial. But in 2019 they had 26k employees, 32k in 2022 according to https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/UBER/uber-technologies/number-of-employees https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/UBER/uber-technolo...
    - twelve40 3y ago
      dunno... that's probably a lot, but unlike say twitter, they do a lot more stuff. With Eats, you have to coordinate with restaurants locally, etc etc. So while it sounds a bit bloated, i think there are worse examples elsewhere in tech. But I don't think it matters very much at all. If people are the problem, they can be quickly cut. But if their market fundamentally shrinks or is unable to pay for itself, you can't really fix that.
mrwh 3y ago
It was, in retrospect, a weird time. Because absolutely yes, everyone knew it was unsustainable and could not logically last forever, yet I think it lasted long enough that we forgot that part, and got used to it, and here we are. Very similar (intimately connected in fact) to the low interest rate world we also started to think was normal.

jzl 3y ago

Yeah, that’s exactly what the reporter was trying to get him to admit. He says so basically, but Dara refuses to admit it.

mixmastamyk 3y ago

Prices go up; drivers should get more.

bruce511 3y ago
Of course they -should- get more. But the economics of uber aren't working for either uber or the drivers. Uber is super convenient. And also (used to be) super cheap. Cheaper than taxis, because a) they used VC money to cover costs and b) because they moved vehicle costs to the driver. Driving is fundamentally underpaid (it's basically unskilled labor) but if you ignore vehicle costs (which most drivers do) it looks OK. Factor In vehicle costs and it gets bad. Remove all job security and work-place benefits and it's, well, not good. So uber loses money, the drivers lose money, (or, more charitably, are just badly paid) - the real winners were riders. But the free money is over. So the prices are jacked - the first time to make Uber profitable, and likely the second time to keep drivers from abandoning the system. Customers will bleat, but the -economics- don't lie. It costs a lot for the convenience of anywhere-to-anywhere-anytime-by-yourself transport. If it's not costing the rider a lot then someone us getting screwed. Sure, removing labor will change thd equation (self driving cars), but I fear even then the ancillary effects of "riders with no adult supervision" will add a lot of overhead.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  If they want to be profitable long-term, they'll have to give up that short-term thinking. I could see a 50/50 split being reasonable.

pdntspa 3y ago

How the fuck was uber's pricing unsustainable? They aren't manufacturing anything physical. The core business doesn't need tons of employees. They're aren't paying extra for drivers' gas or mileage. The app is conceptually simple. Where is all the money going? Why is it WhatsApp can serve most of the fucking world with something like 100 people but Uber needs a huge staff?

twelve40 3y ago
well when they started, the whole concept of ridesharing was unproven. They didn't just set out to replace taxis, the idea was to offer a service initially so cheap that people who otherwise wouldn't even think about getting a car, would start doing it on a regular basis (same with Eats). So yes, i'm pretty sure they have been subsidizing rides, and in certain markets probably still are. So now the question is: can this market - where some people even grew accustomed to commuting to work on Uber - sustain itself, or is it too expensive and people will just revert to the old mode where (outside of NY) getting a cab was a rare event. tldr - i don't think it's the staff that's the expensive part. Also, they do a bunch of non-trivial things with maps, etc, so not quite a simple crud app.
- pdntspa 3y ago
  Of course... the specifics of routing so many rides at scale is certainly non-trivial. But in 2019 they had 26k employees, 32k in 2022 according to https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/UBER/uber-technologies/number-of-employees https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/UBER/uber-technolo...
  - twelve40 3y ago
    dunno... that's probably a lot, but unlike say twitter, they do a lot more stuff. With Eats, you have to coordinate with restaurants locally, etc etc. So while it sounds a bit bloated, i think there are worse examples elsewhere in tech. But I don't think it matters very much at all. If people are the problem, they can be quickly cut. But if their market fundamentally shrinks or is unable to pay for itself, you can't really fix that.

mrwh 3y ago

It was, in retrospect, a weird time. Because absolutely yes, everyone knew it was unsustainable and could not logically last forever, yet I think it lasted long enough that we forgot that part, and got used to it, and here we are. Very similar (intimately connected in fact) to the low interest rate world we also started to think was normal.