'Uber Is Doomed', Argues Transportation Reporter (jalopnik.com)

When an Uber self-driving car ran a red light last year, they blamed and suspended the car's driver, even though it was the car's software that malfunctioned, according to two former employees, ultimately causing Uber cars to run six different red lights. But technical issues may be only the beginning. An anonymous reader writes: Jalopnik points out that in 2016 Uber "burned through more than $2 billion, amid findings that rider fares only cover roughly 40% of a ride, with the remainder subsidized by venture capitalists" (covering even less than the fares of government-subsidized mass transit systems). So despite Google's lawsuit and other recent bad publicity, "even when those factors are removed, it's becoming more evident that Uber will collapse on its own."

Their long analysis argues that the problems are already becoming apparent. "Uber, which didn't respond to questions from Jalopnik about its viability, recently paid $20 million to settle claims that it grossly misled how much drivers could earn on Craigslist ads. The company's explosive growth also fundamentally required it to begin offering subprime auto loans to prospective drivers without a vehicle."
Last month transportation industry analyst Hubert Horan calculated that Uber Global's losses have been "substantially greater than any venture capital-funded startup in history."

Comments

Sounds good to me

[dugancent]

Few companies rival the dishonesty, misogyny and downright shadiness of Uber. The quicker they are gone and a better company can fill their shoe (Lyft perhaps?), the better.

Nothing of value will be lost.

Re:Sounds good to me

[penguinstorm7261]

That's a bit of a ridiculous response: tipping is far from universal and, frankly, is often used as an excuse to pay less than minimum wage--wait staff in Canada generally gets less than the minimum wage on the *legal* basis that their tips make up for it. For the employer it's a win, but for consumers and staff it's not always. I've pointed this out to coffee shop employees: by putting a tip jar out they create an environment where tipping is expected and the norm. This puts their employer in the position to argue that they should be paid less than minimum wage...because, tipping. So here's a radical idea: charge me the value of your service and I'll pay the value of your service--whether it's a ride in a car, a good bolognese or a latte.

Re:Sounds good to me

[gordo3000]

you mean switch to the system they use in most of the world?

Re:Sounds good to me

[mrvan]

This comment does have merit. One of the really annoying things about traditional taxis is the uncertainty cost.
- You almost never know beforehand because the cost is calculated en route
- in some countries (thailand, vietnam, probably more) they try to avoid using the meter if you don't know what you're doing
- After the journey seemingly random extras can get added for luggage, toll roads, airport fees etc. In civilized countries most are probably legit, but as a visitor how do you know?
- Tips add to the uncertainty. If you travel a lot, you need to learn tipping customs for each country you visit.

With uber, you see the total price on the app, including service and all extras, before you book the ride. I hate their business model and their disrespect for local laws and practice, but in Europe I almost totally avoid cabs because of the reasons above, and a decent app would go a long way towards making me use taxis more often.

Maybe, but maybe not

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon had huge operating losses for much of its history. Investors shrugged it off because they could see Bezos knew what he was doing.

Now, the Uber CEO? Not as talented or surefooted as Bezos, certainly. But Uber is #1 in an industry that looks a lot like eCommerce did 10-15 years ago.

And notice that both companies got scorched by workplace culture exposes in the New York Times.

Re:Maybe, but maybe not

[BarbaraHudson]

Problem is that, unlike Amazon, which has huge barriers to entry (those warehouses cost money, and so do the schmoes who schlep the stock around inside), anyone can create a web app and let people post that they're looking to "share a ride from point A to point B". The drivers bear all the capital and running costs, as well as the legal risk.

Re:Maybe, but maybe not

[Hylandr]

Too much hate out for Uber right now for this to be real. It's exceeded the plausibility curve.

One has to question the integrity of one or two disgruntled employee's. There's no shortage of employee's going non-linear over a legitimate firing and the current culture in America in the younger crowd is to cry racism, sexism, rape, misogyny, Hitler, poor management, receding hairline, ringworm, uneven tire-wear, low sperm count, poor gas mileage, clogged drains, poor phone service, etc just to do as much damage as you can.

I wonder what this woman's HR file looks like, and before anyone starts talking about screenshots, those too, are easy to fake.

Lets remember that we need to treat all news from the entertainment industry with a grain of salt. There's big money in cabs and it's not outside the realm of possibility that this is part of a concerted attack on Uber.

Re:Maybe, but maybe not

[drinkypoo]

One has to question the integrity of one or two disgruntled employee's.

Does one? One does not, because we're not seeing reports about Uber by just one or two disgruntled employees. Also, you don't know how to use apostrophes. Someone should take those away from you.

Lets remember that we need to treat all news from the entertainment industry with a grain of salt. There's big money in cabs and it's not outside the realm of possibility that this is part of a concerted attack on Uber.

It's not outside the realm of possibility that you have something valid worth saying, but I scanned your comment, and nope. You're just using FUD against victims.

Re:Maybe, but maybe not

[Hylandr]

Also,

It has yet to be established if this person is a victim. Accusation is not evidence. Lets have a real investigation by a non-vested third party like the police. Then lets see where it goes.

It could be proven she's right, or she has charges filed for filing a false report. In the meantime it's all he-said she-said.

A case study in overexpansion

[Applehu Akbar]

If I were running Uber, I would have had it concentrate on an assortment of US cities that are friendly to open-market taxi service, rather than blowing its budget fighting City Hall in every monopoly city in the world. By being profitable and having the capital to treat its drivers well in the short term while getting ready for self-driving cars in the long term, it would eventually expand into monopoly cities because the customers would demand it.

Re:A case study in overexpansion

[quantaman]

If I were running Uber, I would have had it concentrate on an assortment of US cities that are friendly to open-market taxi service, rather than blowing its budget fighting City Hall in every monopoly city in the world. By being profitable and having the capital to treat its drivers well in the short term while getting ready for self-driving cars in the long term, it would eventually expand into monopoly cities because the customers would demand it.

The risk with that strategy is every city you ignore is going to start its own Uber clones, clones that are going to get favourable treatment from local regulators and be the favourites of local consumers.

If you don't have a presence in that market users are going to flock to the local start-up and one of those start-ups might take off and become your main competitor. Uber has a bit of a paper empire, all they really have is their network and mind-share, and ride-sharing apps are a natural monopoly in the same sense as social networks. They're trying to establish their monopoly so they become the Facebook and not the Myspace.

I remember the same predictions about Amazon

[JoeyRox]

Amazon is subsidizing its prices with losses and venture capital. Amazon will never be profitable. Amazon's advantage over B&M will disappear after they start charging sales tax. Amazon's shipping expenditures are too high. Blah blah blah.

Re: Bloggers

[monkeyzoo]

If he's ever used Uber though, he should be watching his back. They have a track record of using their geolocation data to find out where journalists they don't like live and personally threatening and doxing them.

If this company dies, the sooner the better. It's hard to imagine a more evil corporation, despite the fact they had a damn good product idea.

Uber’s 10 Worst Actions—Threats, Lies, Sexism & Shady Business Deals
http://observer.com/2016/02/ub... [observer.com]

Re:The sharing of table scraps economy not viable?

[BarbaraHudson]

It's the new definition of the "shared economy". You take the risks, they take the profits. They just copied Wall Street and "too big to fail" with their version of "sharing", where profits are private and risk is public.

Re:Less than public transit?

[Dunbal]

Uber's venture capitalists and investors are eventually going to get skittish.

Which is why there was such a rush to try and IPO it over the past few years. That way the founders and investors could get out with their cash and Wall St. (read - your 401(k)) would be left holding the bag. After all, the Fed is pumping so much printed money into the system something has to soak up all that extra cash. Nowadays it's IPO's. But god help us when the bottom drops out of the market NEXT time...

Iron grip?

[Anonymous Coward]

In reality Uber don't own the infrastructure (the cars and the people), they just provide the app. There's no loyalty to apps, and the drivers look at tomorrow's paycheck not yesterday's.

Uber has an enormous barrier to entry

[rsilvergun]

namely that what they're doing (treating employees as contractors) is patently illegal. It's a minor miracle they haven't been shut down like several other "It's Uber for X" services when the governments demanded they pay minimum wage, benefits and various mandatory insurances.

Uber's legal risk is monumental. I'm not sure if it's luck or connections that have kept them going but you can't just do what Uber's doing because what they're doing is not legal...

Re: Volentary Expenses.

[Type44Q]

...Uber is a very simple software company that could operate on a shoe string budget of half a dozen employees and a few servers.

Six engineers and six thousand lawyers, you mean?

Re:Uber is pursuing the wrong thing

[TheRealMindChild]

Their push to automatic cars destroys the very thing that made them popular to begin with. Uber isn't a car manufacturer, and not an automotive tech company.

Google wasn't an OS or a phone company, either.

Re:Uber is pursuing the wrong thing

[quantaman]

Uber is a taxi company, it made a name and got support by creating jobs and employing people. Their push to automatic cars destroys the very thing that made them popular to begin with. Uber isn't a car manufacturer, and not an automotive tech company. Any beating they get is well deserved at this point, because they put social engineering above society. The CEO should, but of course won't, be thrown out on their behind.

Yeah, the self-driving car focus is odd, I'm sure there's opportunities for some cool AI managing the Uber fleet, but they've never distinguished themselves as an elite R&D company. They'd be a big consumer of self-driving cars but I don't see them as a manufacturer.

I really think they're in a situation where they have too much VC money and don't know what to do with it. Their fundamental issue is how to turn their network profitable before the traditional Taxi companies are able to get their own app out there.

Re: Bloggers

[Anonymous Coward]

just because someone can speak and write in an articulate fashion doesn't make them a liberal...

Maybe you haven't noticed, but conservatism is now nothing more than a cargo cult praying to a pumpkin pol pot. So yeah, in today's world, being able to write coherently does make you a liberal.

Re: Bloggers

[Calydor]

Yes, they had a damned good product idea.

Then they ABANDONED that idea in favor of seeing just how much shit they could get away with before the collective governments of the planet came down on them like a bag of bricks.

Seriously, it's been years since you could call Uber "ride-sharing" with a straight face.

Re: Bloggers

[DrXym]

Their product idea is to be a taxi operator but without abiding by the safeguards, and regulations that protect passengers or even the drivers themselves - police background checks, vehicle safety checks, adequate insurance, employee rights etc. Unsurprisingly this has lead to all kinds of adverse consequences for the company.

If they're still burning through money after all that then there is something seriously fucked up with their product idea and their business model. I won't miss them if they go under. More likely they'll try to do an IPO and pass the buck onto some other saps. The founds and 1st round of investors will take the money and run.

Re: Bloggers

[TheRaven64]

There are a few things that make Uber better than a taxi company, from a customer's perspective:

• They tell you up-front how much it will cost.
• They handle the payment automatically.
• They aren't geographically limited, so you can use the same app all over the world, not have to try to work out which taxi company is reputable when you're travelling.
• Start and end points are put on the map by the customer, so there's never a 'oh, I thought you meant the other Foobar Road' issue (I've hit this in Boston, where you have several overlapping cities that have many of the same street names, so you start heading in one direction before realising that the driver thought you meant somewhere else).

The problem for Uber is that there's absolutely nothing stopping the taxi companies adopting all of these. Many will already do fixed-price trips. If you have a corporate account, they'll happily just bill the company rather than the rider. An open protocol for interfacing with their dispatcher system and allowing them to provide locations of taxis that could be dispatched and quotes would let a federated system work. Some individual taxi companies already have apps that let you provide GPS start and endpoints.