5 ms·

They solved the "hail a taxi by pressing a button on your smartphone problem". It's not really subsidized, if they weren't setting piles of money on fire tryin

by soup10 11y ago

They solved the "hail a taxi by pressing a button on your smartphone problem". It's not really subsidized, if they weren't setting piles of money on fire trying to grow really fast(and taking moonshots on autonomous cars), they would definitely be profitable.

Kalium 11y ago
Having used the apps that literally hail a taxi through a smartphone button, I feel compelled to note that Uber has solved a lot more than that. They've also solved the utterly miserable taxi experience that follows pressing the button.
- iiiggglll 11y ago
  A few years ago I would have agreed with that, but I recently switched to Flywheel in SF because I was tired of the Uber drivers wandering around downtown's one-way streets for half an hour every time I hailed one of them because they don't know the city. I'm not exactly thrilled about going back to taxis, but at least they don't act like it's their first day behind the wheel. (And with Flywheel they can no longer lie and tell me their credit card machine is "broken"...)
  - dantheman 11y ago
    Drivers not knowing the area, getting lost, etc are not restricted to Uber/Lyft - I've had many taxi rides in the US where the driver has no idea how to get places - in SF/NYC/LA/BOS/DC -- so not even restricted to 1 city.
  - Kalium 11y ago
    I used Flywheel exactly once. It led to a driver taking an incredible series of wrong turns, wasting a bunch of my time, and me spending nearly double what I needed to. All because the driver took a lot of wrong turns, didn't know the area at all, and didn't rely on technology. In SF.
2anon4this1 11y ago
In many cities uber is paying drivers a guaranteed $40 per hour to drive regardless of fares during peak times. In many places uber is currently an unsustainable, heavily subsidised operation which would fail in free market conditions, but because of their big stash of VC $$ they are able to survive while eating away at taxi driver market share.
- geofft 11y ago
  Yup, in NYC, Uber is paying a guaranteed $35K/6 months revenue to new drivers (provided they're online 200 hours per month and accept 90% of trips, but you know). I don't know how much of this they expect to pay out, but taxis work really well in this city (compared to, say, SF), so my guess is that they're competing aggressively. If they raised prices instead of subsidizing the shortfall to $35K, would the popular response to Uber be different?

by soup10 11y ago

Kalium 11y ago

Having used the apps that literally hail a taxi through a smartphone button, I feel compelled to note that Uber has solved a lot more than that. They've also solved the utterly miserable taxi experience that follows pressing the button.

iiiggglll 11y ago
A few years ago I would have agreed with that, but I recently switched to Flywheel in SF because I was tired of the Uber drivers wandering around downtown's one-way streets for half an hour every time I hailed one of them because they don't know the city. I'm not exactly thrilled about going back to taxis, but at least they don't act like it's their first day behind the wheel. (And with Flywheel they can no longer lie and tell me their credit card machine is "broken"...)
- dantheman 11y ago
  Drivers not knowing the area, getting lost, etc are not restricted to Uber/Lyft - I've had many taxi rides in the US where the driver has no idea how to get places - in SF/NYC/LA/BOS/DC -- so not even restricted to 1 city.
- Kalium 11y ago
  I used Flywheel exactly once. It led to a driver taking an incredible series of wrong turns, wasting a bunch of my time, and me spending nearly double what I needed to. All because the driver took a lot of wrong turns, didn't know the area at all, and didn't rely on technology. In SF.

2anon4this1 11y ago

In many cities uber is paying drivers a guaranteed $40 per hour to drive regardless of fares during peak times. In many places uber is currently an unsustainable, heavily subsidised operation which would fail in free market conditions, but because of their big stash of VC $$ they are able to survive while eating away at taxi driver market share.

geofft 11y ago
Yup, in NYC, Uber is paying a guaranteed $35K/6 months revenue to new drivers (provided they're online 200 hours per month and accept 90% of trips, but you know). I don't know how much of this they expect to pay out, but taxis work really well in this city (compared to, say, SF), so my guess is that they're competing aggressively. If they raised prices instead of subsidizing the shortfall to $35K, would the popular response to Uber be different?