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Google To Take On Uber With New Ride-Share Service (cnbc.com)
Finally, a major company is planning to compete with Uber in the ride-sharing service space. The Wall Street Journal reports today that Google is planning to debut its own ride-hailing service in San Francisco at "far cheaper rates." (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled, here's an alternate source.) The Mountain View-based company began a pilot program around its California headquarters in May, and enabled several thousand area workers at specific firms to use the Waze navigation app to connect with fellow commuters. Expect Google's service in the coming weeks, says the report. One key difference in Google's approach is that it aims to connect riders with drivers who are already headed in the same direction. The project is in compliance with Waze's aims to "make fares low enough to discourage drivers from operating as taxi drivers." From the report: Still, Google's push into ride-sharing could portend a clash with Uber, a seven-year-old firm valued at roughly $68 billion that largely invented the concept of summoning a car with a smartphone app. Google and Uber were once allies -- Google invested $258 million in Uber in 2013 -- but increasingly see each other as rivals. Alphabet executive David Drummond said Monday that he resigned from Uber's board because of the increasing competition between the companies. Uber, which has long used Google's mapping software for its ride-hailing service, recently began developing its own maps.Game on, Uber.
Finally, a major company is planning to compete with Uber in the ride-sharing service space.
I guess Lyft doesn't count?
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Goober :P
From the sounds of this, they seem to be focused on true "ride-sharing," in which people going in the same direction contribute to the cost of the trip, rather than Uber's taxi-like product. In effect, carpooling.
Being that Uber is already a minimum wage job outside of the weekend bar hours (Fri and Sat 5pm-3am averages $22 hr gross in the MSP metro and is the only time you can actually make decent money), I don't know what they have up their sleeve to make it even cheaper.
...I knew you were a flash in the pan.
And that would actually be ridesharing, as opposed to what Uber is, which let's you be a part time Taxi service.
Google gets so bored with ride-sharing service, they shut it down...
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
I'm skeptical that this is going to really threaten Uber. At $0.57/mile (and no per-minute fee) how many people are really going to want to deal with having a stranger in their car? Also bear in mind that since this is "true" ride sharing, none of the drivers are likely to make more than a few dollars a day, on average. What's the driver experience going to look like? Let's say I use Waze on my 10 mile commute to work and I get a pop up notification that says "earn up to $5.70 on your way to work if you pick up a random stranger." My reaction is probably going to be "meh, no thanks." This also will be heavily based towards standard commuting patterns (suburbs -> cities in the morning, the reverse in the evening). What about riders who want to go out to bars or restaurants at night? This isn't going to serve that group. From the rider perspective, once you get used to having a reliable platform that works (almost) everywhere, you're probably going to stick to it. This is also leaving out the fact that Google has had pretty bad luck launching consumer products, and they're terrible at customer service. What happens when as a driver I don't get paid out properly or on time? What do riders do if they're overcharged? What happens when someone gets sick in a car? Google simply doesn't have a good track record of addressing these types of customer issues.
That's right: Uber invented calling for a taxi (what for it) ON THE INTERNETS. Definitely worth 68B.
for fucks sake, it's a god damn taxi.
ride sharing..
that's when you see a notice on your work lunchroom's bulletin board, someone looking to SHARE a ride to work.. lives near you.. you take turns driving and picking each other up.. or if one of you is going to drive every day, then you might split the gas.
or it's a public transit agency that provides vans, vets a driver of that van, provides the insurance, and finds riders to fill it that are going from and to the same general area... all you do is, you guessed it, SPLIT THE COSTS.
uber is a fucking taxi, there's no ride 'sharing' involved. the driver is not going to the same destination except perhaps to pick up another FARE.
Does anyone else thing that Google is spreading itself too thin? I'm not sure that I see how this is related to anything Google is currently involved in.
I have to take exception to the idea that Uber invented summoning a car with a phone app. I've been able to call taxi companies with the "make a phone call" app for decades.
Winner takes monopoly control over the Taxi market.
Only difference being, Google is now the predator doing this to Uber, rather than Uber alone being the predator doing this to everyone else.
This is how 'competitive' markets work. The firms with more money, run at a deliberate loss as a cheaper service, until their competitors go bankrupt - and then when they have monopoly control over the market, that's the time to finally screw over the customer and rake in maximum profits, with price hikes and outright profit gouging - with the benefits of ample money and economies of scale, allowing them to fend off almost all potential competition (leaving the customer without much real choice).
Hell we may even see Google/Uber form an oligopoly instead, as why compete with each other (both being so well backed financially), when they can achieve the same market 'monopoly' (oligopoly) effects together, since their financial/profit interests converge here.
Google should stop trying to compete with every other company in every other space and stick with the things it's best at. The moment a better search engine is released their goose is cooked.
Page wanks it to nude photographs of Sergey Brin.
As others commented, this really seems to just be part of a "long play", ensuring a piece of the self-driving taxi business once it becomes possible. As heavily as Google has invested in self-driving vehicles, it seems obvious they wouldn't want to just give the whole market for self-driving cabs up to business like Uber or Lyft.
If they just want to establish their name in the market, in the meantime? Google could operate something like this at a loss, considering that "marketing expenses", as they evolve towards eliminating the human driver.
(I also get that the "original" part of this is supposed to be the idea that it works more like carpooling, where it tries to match up groups of people all headed the same direction to share costs. But really, I doubt that business model will be too effective. If people hailing a cab have to wait for others interested in heading the same way at the same time, they'll often find that's too slow except in major cities around "prime time" travel hours. And unless the driver has a full size van or bus or something -- you're not going to get that many people you can take around at one time.)
As a side note? I don't know what the experience of others has been, but I'm finding Uber going downhill. I was truly impressed with the service the first few times I used it, in the DC metro area. But more recently, like during our weekend trip in Ocean City, MD last weekend? I've had some struggles with the iPhone app where it offers to auto-fill your start location from the GPS location detected on its map. But I wind up where it gets my start and destination info reversed, or doesn't get the start location just right - so the driver goes to the wrong place to try to pick us up. Then, it seems like the drivers try to resolve it by calling me, but are invariably nearly impossible to understand due to bad cell connections and thick accents.
Meanwhile, the Lyft app just seems to get things right on the first try -- working more smoothly. Unfortunately, Lyft seems to have much less presence around here so most of the time, it says there are no available vehicles.
In GENERAL businesses should focus on their core competency. To what extent depends on a) available cash and b) projections for future growth in the core competency.
Google has a shit ton of cash. More cash than they can reasonably spend on search and adwords development. How about question (b), the future of search?
> The moment a better search engine is released their goose is cooked.
Indeed there have been many kings of search. Yahoo was on top at one point, and Altavista, and Hotbot. As you say, Yahoo fell when Google came up with a better search, and when someone else comes up with a better search, where will Google be? Google will have the #1 most used operating system in the world, a successful mapping and navigation company, a successful online office suite (Google Docs), the most popular email service in the world, etc etc.
In fact, "the moment a better search engine is released" Google will still be making $40 billion / year from its non-search businesses.
Every time Uber is mentioned it is called a ride sharing service, when it is demonstrably nothing of the sort. Ride sharing has existed for decades, and is entirely different to being a taxi service.