Slashdot Mirror
Uber CEO: We'll Run Your Errands
mpicpp writes with Uber's latest plans for expansion. The future of Uber is about pharmacies and rickshaws. So says CEO Travis Kalanick. One of several avenues for expansion is in a category of delivery that's about running errands. "In Los Angeles, we're doing something called Uber Fresh, which is you push a button and you get a lunch in five minutes," Kalanick told CNN's Fareed Zakaria. "In DC, we're doing Uber Corner Store. So imagine all the things you get at a corner store...FedEx isn't going to your nearest pharmacy and delivering something to you in five minutes," he continued. Another is in emerging markets, where the company may focus on rickshaws, rather than high-end black cars, Kalanick said.
So, they'll go to Subway, wait in line to be served, tell them what I want in my sub, pick up a bag of chips, fill the oversized cup with my choice of drink and then deliver it to me, all of that inside five minutes?
I'd rather wait for the McCopter to deliver my Big Mac and fries.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
And finding none.
Like the cab driver unions killed the car service?
Urban Fetch was this exact same idea in NYC, and it died a horrible death during the web 1.0 collapse. Does no one remember these things??
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Not like this won't be abused. I can see them getting pranked a lot with this idea.
I don't want to do a sig now
What's wrong with bringing a lunch to work or walking there, rather than "push button lunch/car emissions come out"
I think the title is relevant enough to justify a lack of any non-self-referential comment in the text.
Do they also walk dogs?
Looks like Uber is becoming the next Amazon by pursuing every possible angle to maintain growth while in search of nonexistent profits. Looking forward to the Uber Phone rollout.
Uber CEO translation: We are going to butt fuck local service economies and siphon money away from communities just like any other big box business.
sounds awesome for drug dealers
I've been excited about alternatives to taxi service. I've lived and dealt with taxi's in Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco and Denver. Denver is not a big city and has poor taxi coverage. I went to a concert Sunday, August 30th planning to use them to get home. Uber announced a rate multiplier of 2.5 times that night (making them much more expensive than a taxi, to gain more drivers) after I was already at the show... Limited taxi service sucks and something else is needed. But I can't seem to rely on Uber. It feels to me that they don't understand their own business model. (Being price competitive with taxi services.) Watching them branch into other areas doesn't excite me very much when I can't rely on the one thing they're supposed to be good at.
Isn't this ultimately what this kind of service (d)evolves into?
We will, of course, run all your errands for you without gathering the data for marketing and other purposes; because doing that would be just too easy...
He took too many risks. For no good. NO GOOD! The pizza got cold. What a shame!
As a former taxi driver, I gotta say SCREW UBER. The taxi industry can be corrupt, the drivers inept at times, but the whole idea behind it is that there are regulations, license restrictions, insurance coverage, hell, in-house mechanics, etc. that keep the cost of taxis somewhat reasonable and the whole service in some sort of humane bounds and more or less guarantees the drivers get paid reasonably. The very idea of calling up a taxi service to order lunch. Jesus H, have you heard of delivery drivers? As a former delivery driver, I gotta say SCREW UBER even more. Now, saying that, I have a friend who started a bike food delivery service, and that's an excellent idea. But it's also local. As in these ideas aren't inherently bad, but the way Uber goes about it, aaaaargh.
Every time I see a city kick Uber out of town, I cheer a little bit. This whole idea of "it's new so it must be good; destroying the old system must be good" is ridiculous. It can be true, but it's not necessarily true, and driving a taxi is more than just possessing a driver's license and a vehicle. It's a whole lot more. Does that mean something like Uber is inherently a bad idea? No, but the management of Uber has basically shown themselves to be uber-greedy assholes with extremely little regard for any of the reasons why these regulations exist in the first place, and having them replace every single taxi service (and food/etc. delivery?) in the whole world is insane. That's their goal. Like Amazon deciding to squash all competition in their realm, break into others, but then it turns out that they have legions of people working for them in absolutely horrible conditions for little pay, and this is how they can get away with cheap delivery. And destroy all of the bookstores, from chains to mom and pop local stores. You want to sell a used book anymore? Screw you buddy, it's available on amazon for $2. You want to publish a book? Screw you quite possibly b/c they've decided to essentially rewrite all of the contracts in their favor.
So yeah, it was a neat idea (Uber and Amazon), but years down the road, the true face of their corporate greed and irresponsibility rears its ugly self and all of the competition is already gone.. and nobody can compete anymore because it's so damn cheap and ubiquitous.
That's odd. The Uber CEO is on record saying he wants to get rid of drivers in order to make the service cheaper. How's he going to get them to run errands for people if they don't exist?
So if my restaurant is a 10 minute drive I'm guessing I'd be paying for the "cab fare" plus a fee? As a driver you'd have to be paying me pretty damn good for that delivery part as well.
You can order say a meal from Burger King and they'll deliver for $5 might be more now as I've used it years ago. They'll pick up anything from the corner store. Was great on those super hang over Sundays.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Hiro Protagonist will be an Uber driver.
Historically, governments justified the "certification" requirements imposed on people wishing to pursue various professions by the consumers' inability to share the information required to make an informed choice of a service provider.
For example, arriving to a new city, you don't know, what taxi company is decent and which hires serial rapists — the city hall should issue "medallions" to the good drivers and fight attempts by the non-vetted to provide the same services without paying the authorities their due.
Uber is showing, how the consumer feedback, that's easy to provide and is immediately available to anyone with a smart phone, obviates the need for such certifications — along with the associated costs and the abuse-potential. Taxi-services is not the only market, where things can (and should!) be changed by the pervasive smart-phones. Plumbers and electricians would be next on my list of professions, which should not require certifications (though some may seek approvals from non-governmental authorities like "Angie's List", if they choose to). Then restaurateurs — patrons could report roach-sightings just as well (or better) than a city's health-inspector. Then lawyers and eventually, even veterinarians and human doctors...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
bottom line: this Uber thing is competing with mules and drop bars.
The only problem with your critique is the actual fact that smartphones aren't that pervasive. I'm not even going to get into the issues with privatizing reviews of individuals that can influence their livelihoods.
That's nice in theory, but in practice it has problems which we are already starting to see with services like Uber.
The biggest problem is that the company that maintains the ratings also makes money from the people being rated. That is a conflict of interest with all kinds of opportunities for exploitation. For example, Uber is now forcing drivers of its premium service to also accept cheap fares, even if it is a money-loser for those drivers. On the flip side you have Angie's List which charges businesses for premium listings - they can pay to be at the top of the list even if their ratings are inferior to non-paying businesses. Yelp has similar problems charging businesses for the right to respond to reviews. These sorts of problems aren't new, the Better Business Bureau uses complaints to sell memberships to businesses because member businesses get unresolved complaints expired while complaints against non-members are permanent.
sudo make me a sandwich
I agree with the general idea but doctors.... do you really want the system that "certifies" doctors to be based on trial and error (someone has to be the first patient). Do you want to live in a world where everyone is a doctor until they kill someone and get a bad review? What about restarting with a fake identity after you kill a few too many patients? Then you move on to being a lawyer when changing your identity just gets too hard?
I think having some true authority "certify" that certain people are actually trained in certain professions is a good thing. The payment of money in excess of a small application fee for the certification is where problems start with corruption / protection of incumbent professionals.
Uber is showing, how the consumer feedback, that's easy to provide and is immediately available to anyone with a smart phone,
Right- anyone. That's exactly the problem. All you need to do to game the system as an Uber driver is put together a network of colluders to give you good reviews after you give them "rides". In the past, you only needed to find a few bad actors within the government- now literally anyone can help you with your racket.
> The only problem with your critique is the actual fact that smartphones aren't that pervasive.
There are lots of problems with that post, but smartphone ubiquity is not one of them. 58% of americans have a smartphone. That number is only going to increase as smartphones get cheaper. By the time something like Uber is in small town america nearly all cell phones will be smart phones. Today you can buy a $50 smart phone without a contract. You can't play 3d video games on it, but you can certainly run basic apps and log into simple websites which is all that is needed for this utopia of user-ratings.
Plumbers and electricians would be next on my list of professions, which should not require certifications
Prepare to be shocked.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Does that mean that we will soon have them in the US? Will Uber then lobby for more H1B visas since obviously no American is qualified for that job? ;)
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
This is quite a piece of idolotry. Let us start at the end first. For many jobs no one requires a certified plumber or electrician or anything. There is no requirement to get such a certification. For certain jobs it is a requirement to get a permit, but that is to protect lives. OTOH I am sure you would no problem if your family died because the water heater exploded or the house caught on fire because of the work of a plumber or electrician was faulty, because, after all, she had good recommendations from people who had no expertise in critiquing the actual work. In any case, such requirements as the exists, are demanded not by government but by bankers, insurance companies, and general sane people who do not want to die because the invisible hand, or magic ratings, or whatever, was a substitute for competence. It is intersting that th.s hair brained scheme was introduced after the previous hair brained scheme, to force some Uber drivers to work at or below cost, failed. You see some of the driver took the capitalistic idea of better service leading to more profits seriously,So they only wanted to serve the high end clientele, and invested resources to do so. But Uber told them they could not limit themselves to high end customers, and said if the drivers did not pick up any customer that Uber sent, they would be out of the network. This was absolutely Uber's right to do, after all the contractors could just leave, but I think it speaks to an issue with capitalistic fantasy. At some point the people who are taking a cut of everything the workers do, will want an increasingly large cut to support their increasingly inefficient operations, and to do that they will begin to compete on price instead of service. The contractors, as individuals, can make that choice on a case by case basis. Corporate, however, seeing only a lack of funding for their cocaine habit, are only able to make drastic decisions to increase funding for said habit. In any case, the Uber drivers still had the ability to strike, so they did, and Uber relented.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Is what's in your post history proving you're literally a transexual freak (and stalker using multiple sockpuppet accounts on /. as well as harassing others by anonymous coward posts too).
I know you're dreaming of the future here, but 58% of Americans is not ubiquitous.
I can't imagine anything worse than having a lifeless worker wandering around aimlessly completing menial tasks because working for a company named uber is something that the youth adores only due to an endless stream of propaganda. What an absolute disgrace that this considered innovation.
Seriously. April Fools come early? Or Late?
Rickshaws were outlawed in China ages ago, because it's a um....very demeaning method of transportation (not that there aren't tons of other demeaning things going on). You may as well strap a pipe and plaid top hat on to match your monocle while riding around in a f'n rickshaw, shouting "Good DAY, kind sir, good DAY" and "Jolly ho".
You have strong faith in an ideal free market. As one can see from the "Perfect Competition" entry in wikipedia, an imporant assumption of ideal free market is perfect information - All consumers and producers are assumed to have perfect knowledge of price, utility, quality and production methods of products. However, perfect information is never possible in the real world. While improvement in consumers' ability to share information would improve spreading of some information, many kind of information remain asymmetric. Some information are asymmetric because a producer or supplier always has more information than a consumer. For relatively simple jobs like taxi driving, the information advantage of the supplier is not very big. But for more specialize job that requires years of training, a supplier have much more information than a customer. Without certification from a professional body, it would be very difficult for consumers to judge if a supplier is competent or not, unless the consumers themselves undergo years of training to become experts themselves.
Historically, governments justified the "certification" requirements imposed on people wishing to pursue various professions by the consumers' inability to share the information required to make an informed choice of a service provider.
For example, arriving to a new city, you don't know, what taxi company is decent and which hires serial rapists — the city hall should issue "medallions" to the good drivers and fight attempts by the non-vetted to provide the same services without paying the authorities their due.
Uber is showing, how the consumer feedback, that's easy to provide and is immediately available to anyone with a smart phone, obviates the need for such certifications — along with the associated costs and the abuse-potential.
Unfortunately, somebody will have to be the first person to write the "Woke up in the morning upside down in a ditch with my pants missing. Would not use again." review.
In Europe and Asia there are already services like this.
Random example of such service in Geneva, Switzerland.
Pharmacies also operate their own such services (it's a popular job for high-schoolers to earn a few bucks).
Plus there is generally a delivery charge (or the restaurant gives up a cut). If each delivery is $5, zipping around from house to house would be a very good job if it's organized correctly.
And, unlike taxi service, can also be achieved with much lighter transportation vehicle (said drug-delivering high-schooler tend to do it with their motocycle scooter, e-bike, etc. also because it's easier to get a license for it) which overall can potentially lower emission and lower traffic in dense cities.
(well at least here in Europe where bikes, e-bikes, light motorcycle, etc. are very popular... in gaz-gurgling-SUV-land, well, YMMV).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
car emissions come out
Now, regarding the CO2 emissions, this might be solved by using a lighter vehicle for such errends.
To transport a few clients and their suit-cases to the airport, yes, a Uber driver needs a big-enough car.
BUT!
To carry and drop around a few lunchboxes or pharmacy bags, a Smart car, a motorcycle scooter or an e-bike is pretty well enough.
(Also european cities tend to have separate lanes for bikes, meaning that the Uber driver can bring your delivery while avoiding traffic jams).
Now on the other side, there are health benefits in taking a break and walking a bit to pick up your food.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Joking aside, cycle riskshaw *are* present in the occident.
Specially after the rise of e-bikes, they are all the crase in European big cities.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
How exactly would you do it? Are they going to be friends of yours? Will you be giving them good rides, while robbing others? And you'll still be a single bad driver of the Uber's "stable" of millions...
An entrenched incumbent — such as a health-inspector or taxi commissioner — is much harder to dislodge from government, than your imaginary bad driver would be. And what incentive will the government have of even attempting such dislodging? Only the general distaste for corruption — hardly a powerful force, unfortunately. On contrast, Uber's entire business is staked on the quality of the reviews so they are far more likely to keep their system functioning well.
You are yet to explain, how the racket would work: what exactly will the incentive be for the fraudulent reviewers... Remember, you can only give a review to a driver, if you've driven with him — and paid him (and Uber) real money. And the driver must maintain his rating above 4.3 — or he gets thrown out. So three upset passengers giving the "racketeer" 1-star reviews will negate ten 5-star responses from his buddies (53/13 = 4.07)...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Where I live (NJ), all electrical work must be done by a licensed electrician — nobody else would simply be issued a permit.
Yes, sure. The benevolent government bureaucrats in their omniscient wisdom just have higher concern for my life, than I do myself...
That would be great, if it were true. It is not. The work must be accepted by the city's employee, who is not personally responsible for it anyway — the installer is. The inspector may — depending on his disposition that day and his general opinion of the house-owner and the installer (their origins, religion, race, personal hygiene) — choose to overlook something fairly important, or make an issue of nothing just to delay the work and the family's moving-in. There is no oversight, no (meaningful) way to appeal, and no alternative.
So, you are suggesting, the work of certain professions simply can not be reviewed by the actual consumers — and the sole available fount of the necessary expertise, in your opinion, are the above-mentioned government workers — who do not even have any skin of their own in the game.
And, in a typically Illiberal fashion, you want to impose your opinion on the rest of us — instead of simply allowing people, who are as concerned as you claim to be, to hire independent inspectors — or relying on their insurance companies (or the morgage-holding banks) to hire them (the way they already hire various appraisers). At least, the insurer risks (substantial) money, if your house blows. On the other hand, if the insurer gets overzealous (as numerous building inspectors do), you can switch the insurer. You'll have a choice, in other words — without selling your house and moving to another town.
What "fantasy"? It works exactly the way Capitalism is supposed to — a moment Uber slips-up, various competitors (GetT, Lyft, others) will pick up the disgruntled drivers — many of them are already signed with all of these companies anyway.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Unfortunately, nothing prevents just the same from happening with regular taxis — you've surrendered an essential liberty (of hiring whoever you want) in exchange for security and, predictably, lost both. It will just be less likely to happen with Uber — because the company's entire business is staked on the quality of the reviews (and drivers).
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It is based on trial and error today. Ever heard of hospital interns? Or student-dentists — working under supervision of seasoned doctors (supposedly) — people agree to be treated by them in exchange for steep discounts. This risk/cost balancing can — and should — be left to individuals, if they are as free as the citizens of this country like to fancy themselves.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The growing proliferation of smart phones perfects the information access to the degree, where various governmental certifications are no longer necessary.
The professional body itself need not be governmental. A consumer may not be able to judge the quality of electrical work, but comparing certification authorities is much easier. It will never be perfect, but it is unlikely to be worse than the current situation.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.