Rideshare services - Uber, Lyft, Hailo, etc.

I kind of feel sorry for Uber drivers in some ways because unlike a plastic/vinyl taxi, they can't just hose out the backseat after someone pukes on it. And I always ask Uber drivers if someone has puked in their car, because the number of affirmative responses is shocking.

I would guess over half of the uber traffic in my small city is drunk ppl or people who were drunk getting a ride to their car the next day

I don't see how it happens without them lobbying to damage public transit though

Why would you harbor the slightest doubt they will do exactly this

I have zero doubt! Question is rather whether they will succeed.

Someone should do a study to see how many previously libertarian-leaning Uber drivers are still inclined to lean in that direction after firsthand experience with an unregulated industry.

cognitive dissonance is a thing

Some parent friend of mine is convinced that services like Uber is keeping more high school kids from driving drunk.

That seems reasonable to me and what's more I think it's the single best argument for rideshare services

but hey i'm just some parent

there was some article I didn't bother to read that had a headline about Uber not affecting the number of drunk driver arrests, buuuuut... I would be tempted to say that doesn't mean there are fewer drunk drivers on the road when you consider the number arrested was always a small percentage of the people who were driving intoxicated

lol I have a sixteen year old Eephus, it does seem reasonable so it's kind of a constant discussion. Many parents I know put the Uber/Lyft apps on their kids' phones.

I thought uber lets you put in a credit card?

they do, mine is a debit though. I guess they probably run it as a credit charge though? that would make it a 'credit card' charge dispute, yes, though in my friend's case, she needed the money back ASAP.

On balance I think the general phenomenon of car-hailing apps (I refuse to call them "ridesharing" bc that's fucking stupid and ridiculous and inaccurate) is a good thing, like an example of technology closing a huge gap in a long available service. I just really dislike Uber, and I do think it's a case where the philosophy and personality of the CEO is still reflected in the company in a way beyond just being your average faceless capitalist exec. My hope is just to see at least a few good options thrive in the market and for Uber to lose its dominance before it completely conquers the space.

But I think there's a good chance that they do lose their dominance, because ultimately it's just a fucking app, and it should be getting easier by the day for others to build equally good apps. Plus Uber's insistence on a non-employee model means its drivers can drive for other services at the same time, making it harder for them to hold on to dominance.

i find it odd how yall seem to use ride-hailing sites near-exclusively yet seem to be cheering their demise. it would suck for me if they ceased to exist, i take cabs semi-frequently but usually at off-peak hours and have saved so much dough since getting the apps. also the peace of mind of just seeing the car and knowing it's coming. i took a cab to the airport a few weeks ago and i was shitting bricks waiting for it to show up, which took like 15 mins

Plus Uber's insistence on a non-employee model means its drivers can drive for other services at the same time, making it harder for them to hold on to dominance.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Thursday, August 25, 2016 2:32 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya this is a good thing imo that ppl advocating Full Employee status overlook

i find it odd how yall seem to use ride-hailing sites near-exclusively yet seem to be cheering their demise. it would suck for me if they ceased to exist, i take cabs semi-frequently but usually at off-peak hours and have saved so much dough since getting the apps. also the peace of mind of just seeing the car and knowing it's coming. i took a cab to the airport a few weeks ago and i was shitting bricks waiting for it to show up, which took like 15 mins

― flopson, Thursday, August 25, 2016 1:34 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I neither use them exclusively nor cheer in general for their demise. If I'm coming home from the office late and cab it, a yellow cab is pretty much always a better option since they just stream down my avenue at all hours -- I get a cab instantly instead of waiting a few mins, and the price is usually about the same.

From an airport it's kind of a toss-up and depends on the cab stand line. Sometimes on work travel I use an app just so I have a saved receipt and don't have to worry about losing the little stubby cab receipt. With kids I pretty exclusively use Uber because of the carseat option, although it's an extra $10 per ride which kind of sucks. 95% of my travel is by subway or my own car anyway.

afaik lyft is pretty much floating their business as the alt-uber right now

read this as "alt-right uber" at first

I don't use ride-hailing apps exclusively at all but I definitely use them. I use them when I'm traveling in a city where you can't hail on the street -- that's a lot of cities, so I definitely find the apps useful.

I would never use one at home: the only reason I wouldn't be using my own car or bike is for airport trips. Coming home from the airport, there's cabs sitting right there, so why wait for the app to call one? Going to the airport, I know when I'm going and want to arrange it in advance, and the apps won't let me do that. Yes I know there are cities / cab companies where you book a cab the night before and it doesn't show up; not mine.

My hope is just to see at least a few good options thrive in the market and for Uber to lose its dominance before it completely conquers the space.

When I say "I use them" I mean I use Lyft. In my experience it works exactly as well as Uber -- actually, I would say I have had rare bad experiences with Uber and zero bad experiences with Lyft, and I haven't used Uber in more than a year. There's definitely no good reason to use Uber if you don't like the company.

I've uh never driven buzzed but if I ever had I certainly haven't since learning about uber. Anecdotal totally theoretical example.

fwiw my boss, who is extremely liberal for an ex-vc, likes juno's service, business model and politics. i used it once and the guy was very obsequiously chatty, kind of like uber in its early days. coverage is spotty though, and they won't pick up from the airport which is almost the only time i use cabs.

but i'm sorry to be confused about this but why use a hailing service from the airport? at the airport there are cabs RIGHT THERE.

if you're in a rush then it's usually quicker to take a city bus and two subways before rather than join the friday evening taxi line at la guardia. jfk sometimes not much better.

also there's no fixed fare to brooklyn from jfk, so a yellow cab to my house can cost ~$40 more than a lyft

yeah I have heard of hour-long taxi lines at a few airports, it makes any other option appealing
although when I read a complaint about the taxi line in montreal my first thought was "wtf, the airport bus goes straight to the major bus/subway transit hub" but for people going away from the city core or carrying a ton of luggage that probably doesn't help

it's hard to convince people that public transport with a couple transfers will be faster than a single car sometimes, though

"afaik lyft is pretty much floating their business as the alt-uber right now"

I think lyft has actually been around longer but when they started their business model was totally different. at any rate, I use them most of the time since I don't like Uber's executives, but the drivers all seem to work for both.

I occasionally drive for both Uber and Lyft (bc daycare is expensive etc). Uber was ridiculously easy to start. They give you no training, you provide basic documents, undergo a background check that takes less than 24 hours, and then you're on the road with pretty much no preparation. Lyft actually has a "mentor driver" come meet with you, inspect your car, and take a ride with you. My mentor driver actually still texts me periodically to see if I'm ok, which is weird, but whatever. While I've found that I make more money with Lyft, way more people use Uber, so I'm forced to drive more often for them. But yes, in case you hadn't suspected, they're a terrible company and Lyft in comparison at least seems to treat their drivers (and passengers) like human beings.

interesting, thx. figures Uber would have that agglomeration bonus ('everyone's using it')

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/09/13/2173631/mythbusting-ubers-valuation/

Strong stuff from the pink 'un!

Ahhh someone was just telling me about Juno the other day. Maybe I'll use them this winter sometime, although the distances I have to go always make cabs unfeasible for regular use--a $50 trip home hurts more than taking the subway.

in depth on juno http://brokelyn.com/juno-vs-uber-nyc/

Uber is officially a company and has to pay minimum wage and holiday breaks according to an employment tribunal:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37802386

Uber will appeal.

Employer, rather than company ^.

in your face Uber

Juno is interesting to me - I have their app but haven't used it yet (don't use rideshare in general all that often). As of a couple months ago they didn't offer child seats, and when I emailed customer service they responded quickly with a nice reply that they were looking into it. Next time I need a cab on my own I'll try it. Coverage already seems pretty good -- the app shows lots of cars both near my home and work at any given time.

Passengers have faced a history of discrimination in transportation systems. Peer transportation companies such as Uber and Lyft present the opportunity to rectify long-standing discrimination or worsen it. We sent passengers in Seattle, WA and Boston, MA to hail nearly 1,500 rides on controlled routes and recorded key performance metrics. Results indicated a pattern of discrimination, which we observed in Seattle through longer waiting times for African American passengers—as much as a 35 percent increase. In Boston, we observed discrimination by Uber drivers via more frequent cancellations against passengers when they used African American-sounding names. Across all trips, the cancellation rate for African American sounding names was more than twice as frequent compared to white sounding names. Male passengers requesting a ride in low-density areas were more than three times as likely to have their trip canceled when they used a African American-sounding name than when they used a white-sounding name. We also find evidence that drivers took female passengers for longer, more expensive, rides in Boston. We observe that removing names from trip booking may alleviate the immediate problem but could introduce other pathways for unequal treatment of passengers.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w22776

yeah, remove names from booking, just like - oh shit - cabs? And then watch them never pick up north of 110th, just like - oh shit - cabs!

Fuck all these fucking companies.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/banks-passed-uber-share-sale-120000739.html

Uber apparently not offering much transparency on its financials even for the ultra-wealthy who can invest in its non-public shares.

I'm not surprised. Isn't their entire "business" modelled on subsidizing every ride with VC cash?

their problem is they are hemorrhaging money to get to a defendable business model (fleets of self-driving cars) and in the meantime they have an undefendable commodity business model with a razor thin profit margin (or possibly loss), that keeps losing chunks to competitors (e.g. NYC) and failing expensively in new markets (e.g. china)

One thing I don't understand -- right now Uber supposedly benefits from not owning its vehicles, shifting the burden onto the driver. When it moves to self-driving cars, won't it have to own them?

I mean not only the cars, but it will probably need some kind of warehousing and servicing facilities - can't just run the cars 24/7 and never repair or park them. While labor costs will be lower, other overhead and fixed costs will presumably be much higher, no? Just seems like a weird trajectory.

maybe!

A lot of corporations get around owning real estate by having what's a nearly permanent lease with the build-to-purpose contractor who built the building. So instead of building and owning a building, you work with a property management and construction conglomerate to build exactly what you want, but you're technically leasing.

Uber could pretty easily do the same by either contracting with an existing company that does fleet management services, or start their own fleet management company that is separate from the main corporation.

It's kind of like how Apple doesn't own any hardware manufacturing plants, but they strongly subsidize and develop equipment for their contractors to use. Owning real estate and factories that could go dormant for periods of time is less of an asset than liability.

There's also the matter of what happens when cars get rotated out -- do they resell them on the private market? If so, why not just contract with one of the huge car rental chains out there that already does fleet management -- the larger Enterprise or Hertz franchises are already set up for car washing/vacuuming, inspection, and sale after a certain number of miles/years accumulates. All this would do is remove all the paperwork for car rental and figure out the logistics of when the car is returning.

Watching this little black car on the map slowly make his way here in 20 mins despite being a couple miles away

https://twitter.com/kurtopsahl/status/802764934736015360

"Heads up @uber users. The 11/23 update (version 3.222.4) removes the "While using" location privacy setting, now only Always or Never."

https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/12/01/2180647/the-taxi-unicorns-new-clothes/

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver-part-one-understanding-ubers-bleak-operating-economics.html

Uber has to subsidize its operations to the tune of a couple billion a year even after nerfing its drivers' rates. From the FT blog behind the firewall:

We recently spoke to one of Uber’s earliest London drivers, who declined to be named. He told us that to survive he had to forge a driver syndicate which collectively owns the underlying car capital. With more drivers than cars to hand, the cars can be fully utilised 24 hours a day improving the return on capital invested. To economise further, the drivers take turns with shifts, step-in for each other if and when they need leave and recruit temporary staff if and when they find themselves under staffed. They also mutualise the costs and the insurance. Yet, even then, he said “it’s really hard to make the economics work” and that “when Uber increased its margin from 20 per cent to 28 per cent it knocked our profitability in half”.

What this amounts to, of course, is the re-constitution of the very economies of scale which Uber inadvertently demolished when it went about its atomising driver process. But if a quasi professional corporate structure like this can’t make ends meet within the Uber network, what hope does any single driver have? Uber is surviving on plain old worker naivety.

so these guys created an ad hoc taxi company to drive for uber semi-profitably and then the bottom dropped

amazing

There is no evidence that Uber’s rapid growth is driving the rapid margin improvements achieved by other prominent tech startups as they “grew into profitability.”

is this really happening for that many? that theyve become profitable i mean