April 16, 20196 yr "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
April 16, 20196 yr Lyft's newest ridesharing innovation is... the taxi stand. https://sfist.com/2019/04/15/lyft-reverts-to-old-timey-taxi-line-in-san-diego-airport-test/ Edited April 16, 20196 yr by BigDipper 80 “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
April 17, 20196 yr 12 hours ago, BigDipper 80 said: Lyft's newest ridesharing innovation is... the taxi stand. https://sfist.com/2019/04/15/lyft-reverts-to-old-timey-taxi-line-in-san-diego-airport-test/ This makes sense--and is one of the reasons I still use old-fashioned taxis from airports. So much easier to walk out to the taxi stand and hop in a cab. I'm sure the taxi drivers will fight this.
May 4, 20196 yr Here's what really happens when you try to replace transit with ridesourcing: ‘Uber Was Supposed To Be Our Public Transit’ Laura Bliss Apr 29, 2019 Innisfil, Ontario, decided to partially subsidize ride-hailing trips rather than pay for a public bus system. It worked so well that now they have to raise fares and cap rides. ...Normally, though, raising transit fares when ridership is growing is backwards logic. While passenger fares almost never cover the full cost of service, more passengers riding fixed-route buses and trains should shrink the per-capita public subsidy, at least until additional routes are added. On a well-designed mass transit system, the more people using it, the “cheaper” it gets. But the opposite is happening in Innisfil. Only so many passengers can fit in the backseat of an Uber, and the ride-hailing company, not the town, is pocketing most of the revenue. With per-capita costs essentially fixed, the town is forced to hike rates and cap trips as adoption grows. But this can create a perverse incentive: Fare bumps and ridership drops tend to go hand-in-hand on traditional systems. It was heavily subsidized, to people overconsumed it. Plus the "nuisance rides" -- the tiny little ones where a ride is initiated over a singe cheap object -- totally happened. Same old situation that you see with underused transit lines. One driver, engine and set of tires per 1-5 people is horribly inefficient, expensive and requires heavy subsidies. Plus, now the private sector has to take a cut! The only real money being saved over public transit is that the Uber vehicle is getting a few more MPG and of course the driver makes less while Uber gets more money to throw in its toilet.
May 10, 20196 yr As predicted by many, Uber IPO was a flop: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/technology/uber-stock-price-ipo.html
May 14, 20196 yr https://www.axios.com/uber-ipo-investor-losses-d9b01daf-ece4-47d2-8f68-fe56dd98321b.htm By the numbers: From 2016 onwards, per PitchBook, Uber raised $15.35 billion at $48.77 per share; it then raised another $8.6 billion in its IPO on Thursday at the slightly lower price of $45 per share. Those numbers dwarf the $5.6 billion that Uber raised before 2016. As of the close of trade on Friday, the market has now spoken: Uber shares are actually worth $41.57. The bottom line: A whopping 81% of the $29.55 billion in equity that Uber has raised is underwater. IPO investors have lost $655 million, while investors from 2016 and 2018 have between them lost $2.27 billion. Losers: Investors who bought Uber shares 3 years ago have lost 15% of their money, before fees. The opportunity cost is even greater: Investors in the S&P 500 have seen their money grow by 50% over the same period. Winners: Lyft shares are also trading well below their IPO price, which didn't help the Uber offering. But so far all of Lyft's pre-IPO investors remain in the money. The most that any of them paid was $47.35 per share. Why it matters: Uber is the ultimate minotaur — a company where billions of dollars of private-market funding were supposed to create a self-fulfilling prophecy of dominance and market power. It hasn't worked out like that. To make billions of dollars out of Uber, like Benchmark Capital did, the secret is to invest millions of dollars in the Series A and then allow other investors to invest the extra billions needed to scale the business and fund ongoing losses. Our thought bubble, from Axios' Dan Primack: Uber loses more money than any other company to ever go public. It's the sort of thing that everyone ignores until they don't.
May 17, 20196 yr MIT study: Even with robot drivers, ride-hailing still expensive Even with robots behind the wheel, MIT researchers Ashley Nunes and Kristen D. Hernandez conclude that ride-hailing will still be more expensive than conventional ownership on a per-mile basis. Examining the San Francisco market, the researchers found the price for an automated taxi would range between $1.58 and $6.01 per mile vs. $0.72 for the per-mile cost of conventional vehicle ownership. https://www.autonews.com/mobility-report-newsletter/mit-study-even-robot-drivers-ride-hailing-still-expensive Sorry bro, the way taxis were able to turn a profit is that they were fully-depreciated $2,000 cars with in-sourced maintenance and parts. Take that away and there's no way to win without subsidies.
May 17, 20196 yr 15 minutes ago, GCrites80s said: Sorry bro, the way taxis were able to turn a profit is that they were fully-depreciated $2,000 cars with in-sourced maintenance and parts. Take that away and there's no way to win without subsidies. I don't get how people don't get that. A traditional cab company had absolutely zero staff making $100k+. They had a few dispatchers, a few mechanics, maybe an accountant/payroll person, and then some sort of "boss" who managed it all for a rarely-seen owner. Maybe another manager who bought and sold cars and negotiated spare parts prices. Maybe they bought fuel in bulk. It wasn't very complicated. There were few computers involved, and zero proprietary software. The Uber app was horrendously expensive to develop and keep functioning. Plus there are all sorts of expenses that traditional cab companies didn't have. Thousands upon thousands of staff making $100k+.
June 6, 20196 yr "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
June 6, 20196 yr 1 hour ago, KJP said: This is one of the dilemmas of the comeback of U.S. cities -- newcomers to transit-rich areas don't use the services and displace people who relied upon them to areas that don't have rail service or decent (or any) bus service.
June 7, 20196 yr Yeah, and when enemies of transit are or were funding rideshare companies it fuels that displacement. Single moms don't want to have to move entire families on scooters or pay for Uber just because some tech bro said you don't need transit if you have scooters and Uber.
July 29, 20195 yr Uber lays off 400 people in its marketing department: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/29/technology/uber-job-cuts.html The article states that its marketing staff totals 1,200...which is 1,200 more than all traditional cab companies combined.
August 8, 20195 yr Uber and Lyft each reported staggering losses today. But this detail from today's NY Times article [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/07/technology/lyft-earnings-revenue.html?action=click&module=RelatedCoverage&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer] is amazing: Quote In an interview, Lyft’s chief financial officer, Brian Roberts, said a fierce price war with Uber had abated, allowing Lyft to cut back on the amount it spends on discounted rides. The company spent $180 million on sales and marketing in the quarter, about 19 percent of its revenue. Last year, it spent almost 35 percent of its revenue on sales and marketing. That was a “mic-drop moment” for Lyft and would be “music to Wall Street,” Mr. Roberts said. “We want to win on brand preference and customer experience, not on coupons. We are trying to drive profitable growth, not growth at all costs.” Lyft’s financial performance has been in the spotlight since it went public in March. Ride-hailing is a costly business because providers continually pay large sums to recruit drivers and passengers. How much do traditional cab companies spend on marketing? 1%?
September 3, 20195 yr Travis Kalanick buys $36 million condo in Manhattan: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/30/realestate/a-new-duplex-penthouse-for-travis-kalanick-ubers-co-founder.html?rref=realestate&module=Ribbon&version=context®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Real Estate&pgtype=Multimedia
September 3, 20195 yr 1 hour ago, jmecklenborg said: Travis Kalanick buys $36 million condo in Manhattan: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/30/realestate/a-new-duplex-penthouse-for-travis-kalanick-ubers-co-founder.html?rref=realestate&module=Ribbon&version=context®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Real Estate&pgtype=Multimedia Jam Pad 2.0 https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-ceo-hosted-jam-sessions-at-his-home-for-entrepreneurs-to-hash-out-business-ideas-2015-9 FYI if you have a few hours for podcasts in you life this episode of the Dollop is quite entertaining.
September 11, 20195 yr California will soon reclassify Uber/Lyft drivers as employees: https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/09/ab5-california-gig-work-employment-law-uber-lyft-drivers/597568/ The days of "independent contractors" are numbered. The cost of a rideshare ride is going to go way up and this will accelerate the demise of Uber and Lyft - which is inevitable anyway.
September 11, 20195 yr I feel the 2020s is going to be the decade known as when we found out a lot of this internet garbage that we worshiped as our salvation is worthless from a financial perspective. There's just no money in it if it is saddled with the need for profitability.
September 11, 20195 yr 14 minutes ago, jmecklenborg said: The days of "independent contractors" are numbered. The cost of a rideshare ride is going to go way up and this will accelerate the demise of Uber and Lyft - which is inevitable anyway. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-uber-hiring-old-post-office-20190909-va4mtjmgkfh7bnlrub736fbw5q-story.html%3foutputType=amp That doesn't sound like a company facing imminent demise. I get you're very anti-Uber, but clearly the 58 billion dollar company isn't closing anytime soon.
September 11, 20195 yr Quote Uber has been around for a decade, and it has already burned through many billions of dollars in investor money to get where it is today, and there is still no functioning business model in sight. But Uber is not going to run out of money any time soon. It has already extracted so much from investors, including during the IPO, that it is still swimming in nearly $12 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash. Even Uber will need some time to burn it all. https://wolfstreet.com/2019/08/08/how-can-a-company-lose-5-2-billion-on-3-2-billion-in-revenue-uber-shows-how/ The truck brokering side business could also end up being a disaster. If there were some way for "tech" to figure out a better way to do it, it would have been done by now. TQL, etc., aren't idiots. They've been doing what they do for 20+ years. It's like with real estate - we've had 20+ years for Silicon Valley to relegate realtors to history's dustbin, but they haven't figured out how to do it. It might turn out that there is no tech substitute, ever, for the hands-on effort required to buy and sell the most expensive objects that most people ever buy and sell. On the surface, freight brokering seems a lot easier, since the money and consequences are smaller, but it turns out that there is a ton that goes on so far as getting loads from Point A to B. A broker often does a lot more than connect a buyer with a seller and negotiate a price. I have heard of freight brokers petitioning the governor of a state to permit hazmat loads that are otherwise not permitted.
September 11, 20195 yr Everybody though travel agents would be the first to go (back in the '90s) but turns out that talking to people about their travel experiences is way better than a computer.
September 11, 20195 yr They're trying and trying and trying but can't figure out how to kill off real estate agents: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-buying-and-selling-a-home-could-soon-be-as-simple-as-trading-stocks-2019-09-11 What they're trying to do, fundamentally, is turn ordinary retail buyers and sellers into institutional buyers and sellers. That's never going to work with established neighborhoods because "identical" homes are never actually identical. Buying unseen property only works when the building is brand-new. After five years, identical units in a condo building aren't identical at all. Even if they pinpoint the "proper" sales price of a home, they can't streamline the process. There is still a title company. There is still a mortgage (most likely). Who negotiates repairs or reductions in sales price after the inspection? How does a transaction maintain a comfortable arms-length character if the buyer and seller start talking face-to-face? We arrived at the way homes are bought and sold in the United States, with a pair of fiduciary agents, as a way to protect buyers and sellers from getting completely ripped off. Let's throw it out and see what happens so our sales commission drops from 6% to 4% and that commission goes to San Francisco Bros instead of locals. Same with taxis - we arrived at the medallion system after decades of lawlessness in the early 1900s. It's an ugly system, but it worked. It was profitable. Uber and Lyft are superficially handsome, and we enjoy a squirt of dopamine when we dwell on its cleverness, but its solutions to 2-3 problems with traditional cabs came at the cost of at least as many issues that traditional cabs solved. Primary amongst those is...profitability.
September 11, 20195 yr Anything that is just adding internet to something that already existed is no longer impressive.
September 11, 20195 yr On 7/29/2019 at 7:02 PM, jmecklenborg said: Uber lays off 400 people in its marketing department: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/29/technology/uber-job-cuts.html The article states that its marketing staff totals 1,200...which is 1,200 more than all traditional cab companies combined. They also laid off 435 people in their engineering and product teams yesterday.
September 11, 20195 yr 1 hour ago, GCrites80s said: Everybody though travel agents would be the first to go (back in the '90s) but turns out that talking to people about their travel experiences is way better than a computer. I'm not so sure about that. The current crop of travellers is largely early boomers, unfamiliar with technology and much preferring the phone to texting or the 'net. That won't be the case with the Xers and millenials.
September 11, 20195 yr 2 hours ago, GCrites80s said: I feel the 2020s is going to be the decade known as when we found out a lot of this internet garbage that we worshiped as our salvation is worthless from a financial perspective. There's just no money in it if it is saddled with the need for profitability. The thing is, success isn't built by the 'net alone. That's been clear since 2000 or so. It's built on making the desirable achievable, and on taking advantage of those who do not want to change their business model for reasons their customer base does not share, and had no need to until suddenly, they did. The process of getting a cab is a classic example. It hadn't changed since probably the 50s, except for cell phones replacing payphones (something else that would "never happen"). Calling, waiting, talking: lots of wasted time and room for error. Waiting some more while the dispatcher figures out who is available.
September 11, 20195 yr Just now, E Rocc said: The process of getting a cab is a classic example. It hadn't changed since probably the 50s, except for cell phones replacing payphones (something else that would "never happen"). Calling, waiting, talking: lots of wasted time and room for error. Waiting some more while the dispatcher figures out who is available. They weren't paying tech engineers or marketing people. Their costs were way lower. Which meant the owners made money and the drivers made a living.
September 11, 20195 yr What companies like that find is that people who have enough time to put hours and hours into that kind of internet research beforehand don't have much money. Whereas people who don't tend to be busy and have a lot of money. I don't feel this is going to change that much in the future. Spending an hour with an agent is the easy button.
September 11, 20195 yr 22 minutes ago, GCrites80s said: What companies like that find is that people who have enough time to put hours and hours into that kind of internet research beforehand don't have much money. Whereas people who don't tend to be busy and have a lot of money. I don't feel this is going to change that much in the future. Spending an hour with an agent is the easy button. I'm not saying you're wrong right now, but I do suspect it will change. I'm not blessed with an abundance of time, but I absolutely positively have to do 'net research before I buy or agree to anything, to the point that if a company is trying to push initial contact to the phone I suspect an upselling attempt at best, or a scam. I find more agreement with this from younger people.
September 11, 20195 yr 7 hours ago, GCrites80s said: I feel the 2020s is going to be the decade known as when we found out a lot of this internet garbage that we worshiped as our salvation is worthless from a financial perspective. There's just no money in it if it is saddled with the need for profitability. I just wish that more people realized, most "tech companies" are not tech companies, they are a [something else] company that just happens to use technology to do the thing they do. Uber is an unregulated taxi service and food delivery company. Amazon is primarily a retailer and logistics company (although they have a very big part of the company that is actually a tech company, building out data centers and whatnot). I think our next big market crash is going to happen when investors suddenly realize that many of the "tech companies" that they have been giving a free pass for years are actually just unprofitable [something else] companies.
September 11, 20195 yr 49 minutes ago, taestell said: I just wished that more people realized, most "tech companies" are not tech companies, they are a [something else] company that just happens to use technology to do the thing they do. Uber is an unregulated taxi service and food delivery company. Amazon is primarily a retailer and logistics company (although they have a very big part of the company that is actually a tech company, building out data centers and whatnot). I think our next big market crash is going to happen when investors suddenly realize that many of the "tech companies" that they have been giving a free pass for years are actually just unprofitable [something else] companies. The most egregious violator might be The Boring Company. 30+ companies around the world manufacture tunnel boring machines. Does anyone really think that Elon Musk and the guys he has hired are capable of making massive breakthroughs that the 1,000+ engineers around the world who have been working on this for 50 years can't come up with?
September 12, 20195 yr 5 hours ago, jmecklenborg said: They weren't paying tech engineers or marketing people. Their costs were way lower. Which meant the owners made money and the drivers made a living. What I don't understand about Uber/Lyft is, this tech should have long since been paid for. If you think about the apps, they haven't changed all that much since their inception, at least in terms of their core mission. Order ride, ride comes to be, pay for it via the app once dropped....
September 12, 20195 yr 10 minutes ago, Cleburger said: What I don't understand about Uber/Lyft is, this tech should have long since been paid for. If you think about the apps, they haven't changed all that much since their inception, at least in terms of their core mission. Order ride, ride comes to be, pay for it via the app once dropped.... When I drove 2014/15, the app updated all the time. Like every 2-3 months with a fairly significant redesign. Word is now spreading that Uber / Lyft are looking to put a referendum on the 2020 ballot in California that would exempt them from the independent contractor bill. So tens of millions, if not over $100 million, of investor money will pay an army of shills to knock on every door in the state.
September 12, 20195 yr 7 minutes ago, jmecklenborg said: When I drove 2014/15, the app updated all the time. Like every 2-3 months with a fairly significant redesign. As a rider, I haven't really noticed. And once again, the fundamental design is there. They may make it look prettier, etc, but the core business has been designed and paid for. It works and people like it, for the most part.... The way I see it, they have to stroke off the investors by proving they can bring in other revenue streams (like Uber eats, Uber jetski, and whatever....)
September 12, 20195 yr When I started driving in 2014, you were given an Uber-issued iphone 4. That was just a data device and didn't function as a phone. You still needed your own phone. Then sometime in late 2014 they recalled all of the iphones and the driver app could now work on your own iphone. There have been many changes to how the driver app functions since then. There has been a lot of reprogramming of the way drivers can choose rides -- i.e. requests that will go in a particular direction, usually toward the driver's house and not away.
September 12, 20195 yr On 9/18/2014 at 6:29 PM, UrbanSurfin said: I think taxis are overregulated and that Uber and Lyft are underregulated. Taxis are overregulated to limit competition. The cab companies have always wanted it that way. Look at the extensive geographical tests required (in the era of Google Maps) for Cleveland drivers, and the strict limits on "city vs. suburban" limos in Chicago. Uber and Lyft are flexible and regulators often can't keep up with such.
September 12, 20195 yr 15 hours ago, jmecklenborg said: They weren't paying tech engineers or marketing people. Their costs were way lower. Which meant the owners made money and the drivers made a living. They had a de facto monopoly, often enforced by government regulation. No customer focus at all, it was was it was.
September 12, 20195 yr Uber and Lyft already essentially have a duopoly forced by lack of profitability with the business model.
September 12, 20195 yr 55 minutes ago, GCrites80s said: Uber and Lyft already essentially have a duopoly forced by lack of profitability with the business model. It's a soft duopoly in that they need to keep their customers more or less content. The cab companies had an enforced monopoly. Big difference.
September 12, 20195 yr But when full competition exists the service doesn't exist. Would you rather have full competition or the service? Edited September 12, 20195 yr by GCrites80s
September 12, 20195 yr Well we're really going to see what happens when silicon valley rideshare goes poof. The only way Uber and Lyft don't become penny stocks by 2025 is if one of their side businesses becomes profitable. Maybe they could get into web hosting like Amazon. Like roaches, the old cab companies will carry on as if the whole Uber/Lyft thing never happened.
September 12, 20195 yr I think they are going to survive if and when the Venture Capital money dries up but they will have to raise prices. Perhaps they might let drivers use older vehicles to increase the driver pool Edited September 12, 20195 yr by thebillshark www.cincinnatiideas.com
September 12, 20195 yr 15 hours ago, Cleburger said: What I don't understand about Uber/Lyft is, this tech should have long since been paid for. If you think about the apps, they haven't changed all that much since their inception, at least in terms of their core mission. Order ride, ride comes to be, pay for it via the app once dropped.... Software doesn't really work like that, though. Even if you're not adding a lot of new features on a regular basis, once you have an app that out there that's being used by millions of people every day, you need a pretty significant organization of developers, QA testers, system administrators, etc., just to keep the thing up and running, fix bugs, make sure it stays compatible with all the new smartphones coming out every year, etc.
September 25, 20195 yr The video of this incident is pretty disturbing. The Lyft driver gets out of his car and attacks his rider when the rider videos his behavior. Unfortunately, the guy is suffering chronic injuries: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/lawsuit-attack-by-lyft-driver-ended-scpa-grads-music-career/ar-AAHPHmd?ocid=spartandhp
September 25, 20195 yr That's how you know something's a crummy job: the place is so terrified of not being able to replace unskilled labor that they ignore huge faults that went on for years.
September 27, 20195 yr Institutional investors have ignored Uber and Lyft...because they do not and never will make money. And they very well might not exist at all in five years: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/business/tech-ipo-market.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage Quote The rejection threatens Silicon Valley’s favored approach to building companies. The formula relies on gobs of money from venture capitalists to paper over losses with the expectation that Wall Street investors will eventually buy shares and make everybody rich. If mutual funds and pension funds are no longer willing to buy once the companies go public, fledgling companies are unlikely to find funding in the first place. The problem is that Uber and Lyft are nearly 10 years old and are nowhere close to profitability in their core business. It turns out that it's way, way more expensive for a national cab company to operate than it was for local ones. Nobody wants to say out loud that it's never going to work, but investors are doing as much by simply ignoring the stocks.
September 27, 20195 yr Amazon would be in the crapper too in the exact same way if it wasn't for webhosting, search tech and that people "like" it. People "simply can't believe" that a company with revenue that high and such a large user base can't make money of off trying to sell everything made. So they refuse to.
September 27, 20195 yr 1 hour ago, GCrites80s said: Amazon would be in the crapper too in the exact same way if it wasn't for webhosting, search tech and that people "like" it. People "simply can't believe" that a company with revenue that high and such a large user base can't make money of off trying to sell everything made. So they refuse to. I don't recall Amazon having free shipping at the beginning. The main advantage was that you didn't have to pay sales tax, so the shipping costs didn't bother people. Now those two items have switched. People seem to like not paying for shipping more than not paying sales tax.
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