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'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."
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."
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.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
Jalopnik is a big step above random basement bloggers. Most car companies do respond to them.
rube? What am I missing?
Mostly random stuff.
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.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Who'd have thunk it?
Uber's not special. If you want to open a lemonade stand you're free to do so. The second you start feeding people en masse then society has a right to make sure your kitchen is clean and you aren't accidentally poisoning people. They're transporting people in bulk, that means some oversight from a public safety perspective is warranted and that means everything that goes along with the rest of the economy including not lying to people about income.
The sharing economy will change things, but only so far. Is the medallion system we've used up until now for taxies ripe for reform? Sure! Why not have a sanity check to bring it into the 21st century. However, pretending the rest of the world, including vehicle inspections, truth in advertising laws and the like do not exist is not the sharing economy, it's being a dumbass.
Like Napster, this may only evolve into a different set of problems.
We'll see if taxis survive self-driving cars.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
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.
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.
The government is providing a public service though in these cases, so there is no expectation to turn a profit. Uber's venture capitalists and investors are eventually going to get skittish.
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.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
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]
incandescent bulbs=taxis. CFL=Uber. LED=autonomous.
I bet you got a little more turned-on with each of those adjectives...
While I respect what companies like Uber are doing, it seems they could care less about the existing rules and why they're even there. And I'm not talking about the artificial scarcity of the medallion system or taxi company monopolies or the lack of flexibility in for-hire transportation, because that does need to be addressed.
What I'm talking about is a company that repeatedly flouts existing regulatory framework because it wants to "revolutionize" for-hire transportation. Drivers don't have to undergo local training (e.g. London drivers who have to memorize the road system in London prior to licensure). Driver vehicles are not required to undergo commercial-grade inspections for safety. Drivers are specifically disallowed by Uber from purchasing commercial insurance for their vehicles, as Uber claims that they will insure passengers up to $1M per passenger. Either the Uber driver is in violation of state insurance laws because they don't have the minimum required insurance, or Uber is in violation of those same laws by not being a licensed insurer with all of the regulatory and reporting burden of an insurer in that state. Want to guess where that leaves an Uber passenger in a crash?
Even if we ignore all of that, now we come to the self-driving vehicle which, even with GPS, lasers and camera AI, has to match years of a trained natural neural network of the most complex organism known on this planet with tremendous amounts more context to make not only technical but ethical decisions and keep not only the passengers safe, but also the car they're in, other people's cars and property, and most of all other lives that are on the road.
It's not an impossible problem to bound to a certain acceptable level, but not within the timeframe that Uber hopes. When considering its fundamental underpinning is compromised by its ethics and its arrogance that is being challenged by governmental and non-governmental entities, and is subsidized by free-flowing VC money, I can't say that the prediction of the demise of Uber is unlikely.
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...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Uber is paying a huge cost to corner the market while it is till a new and opening market. But all of these costs are voluntary and could be given up in a day.
At the end the of the day, Uber is a very simple software company that could operate on a shoe string budget of half a dozen employees and a few servers.
But the investors are obviously willing to spend billions building an iron grip on a transportation monopoly.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Sure but my Uber account works in 20+ countries worldwide, I don't have to sign up for the local transit whatever. That's a huge plus. Not only that but sales people use uber religiously as they don't even need to expense their uber travel, they just charge it to the company card, that's a massive, massive boost. Uber and AirBnB are the largest business expenses in total number of line items for many companies these days. You can't auto-expense every single local transit app automatically, with uber comes that convenience. As someone traveling in Hawaii, California, Texas, London and Hungary it's really nice to be able to just open the app, plug in the location, and have someone drive you there without having to worry about the local currency, working out how to sign up for the service in Hungarian or Maltese or whatever. Step off the plane and GO. I don't care if it's 5% more, for the three days I'm going to be there, the cost difference just doesn't matter.
moox. for a new generation.
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.
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
and quick. Mostly cheap. There were so many recently out of work people who still have cars from when they had jobs that Uber didn't have trouble finding employees.
The reason they might be doomed is they're subsidizing those rides with investment capital. OTOH they might be like Amazon, e.g. allowed by investors to operate at a loss with the expectation of massive profits when they clear up their legal troubles (allowing them to pay much, much less than minimum wage while paying no benefits whatsoever) and finish crushing/buying out any competition.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Self driving cars are the future. Once there is self driving cars, the taxis will be as cheap as private cars on per mile basis when averaged over entire year. Most people would stop owning cars and large families may keep only one car. Also, this naturally leads to all electric cars as well. The taxis will take people to work in rush hour and then will charge themselves and will be ready in the evening.
Any business that depends on traditional car ownership is in peril. Gas stations, repair places, parts, dealers, car insurance, paid parking etc. Even auto makers are in big trouble because you will need far fewer taxis as they can service more people per vehicle.
Previously Amazon was allowed leeway by its investors because it had a path to profitability. What Uber hasn't demonstrated is if it has a path to profitability. A lot of issues that could be referred to a "growing pains" or "sustainability issues" haven't really Uber yet. Its entire black car fleet is still new and hasn't had to be replaced or have major repairs yet. The question that Uber has to answer is if it can wean itself off of VC money, stay solvent and maintain the same level of service as it has now. If Uber cannot demonstrate this the VC will dry up, the owners will cash in/sell out and walk away from Uber with pocket full of cash and a flaming wreck of a company behind them.
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
It was completely clear by anyone that could read a general ledger that Amazon made the choice to be not profitable, but to expand and to turn their revenue back into the business. Their day to day P/L in fact looked very healthy early, it was simply the case they spend their money building datacentres / warehouses / accqusitions / (insert method of business growth here), which on the ledger for a financial year is a loss but pays dividends down the road. Remove a lot of the business expansion and you have a company that at it's core has a very sound day to day balance sheet and business plan, ie the fundamentals are excellent. Which is why investors tolerated losses or no dividends and Amazon now is extremely large and very healthy.
Uber have neither a solid day to day balance sheet nor business plan. This wont be tolerated long. Uber are burning cash with no solid outcome in sight. A ledger reading shows a company where the fundamentals are NOT good, the day to day P/L is very bad. It is now becoming clear investors are not going to tolerate this bleed for much longer.
Not only that but sales people use uber religiously as they don't even need to expense their uber travel, they just charge it to the company card, that's a massive, massive boost.
I've expensed lyft rides too before pretty sure.
I mean, it's nothing new. Color temperature has been a thing for years, it's just that incandescents could only really do one of them. Neons have a completely different color temperature, and LEDs can actually span the range between incandescents and neons, and then some if you go for the smart bulbs that can literally give you a rainbow if you ask for it.
You're being given choice. I'd say that's pretty nice.
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.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Yeah, I still don't see how it applies to the original submission. Are you saying the submission is poorly written?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Uber is a taxi company, it made a name and got support by creating jobs and employing people.
That part is correct.
Their push to automatic cars destroys the very thing that made them popular to begin with.
Wow, that is so wrong. It enhances what Uber does in many ways:
1) It allows more cars to be at places where and when real humans do not want to drive.
2) Because there is less need to draw as many human drivers to a place and time to meet demand, surge pricing can be lower.
3) It means less employment of drivers but possibly never zero, it just shifts where humans might work. Also humans will need to be employed monitoring the fleet.
4) As more and more cars are self driving, why wouldn't you simply not buy a car and instead use the increasingly cheaper Uber car that can drop by your house on a schedule?
5) Uber is one of the leaders today in self driving car research, so it's not even like they would necessarily wait for other companies to produce viable self driving cars. They are deploying them today.
The conclusion I see is that critiques of Uber are really, really wrong and fueled by a raving ignorant mob of hate that has been trying to sink Uber for years. Didn't work then, will not work now.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Wow, that comment title. Now that I got you attention: it's exactly that.
Let unicorns be unicorns. If there is a market for it, let it be. There are investors, drivers, and passengers willing. So the company doesn't show a profit? Who cares. Do you know how many sports associations (with financial definitions) actually make a profit? I'll give you the European example: more than half, including the top-tier-most soccer clubs are technically bankrupt. Do you see them going down anytime soon? Hell no! And there are people investing like it's the risk capital panacea.
Now when I see an article bashing at a company with terms like "subprime", it reminds me of the 2007 real estate and mortgage crisis. Saying stuff like "fares are 40% subsidized by venture capitalists" is yet another great remark at the target of such bullshit. They WANT stock price to go down, it is widely known that saying shit about a company is the best way to bring it down. Why do you think Trump talks so much crap about China? This holds especially true when the company ahs no public stock but only a very speculative valuation, but it applies generally, and in some instances, it is considered a crime.
Only if the TCO of said automated vehicles over their amortized life is lower than the cost of sub-contracting the whole thing for the same duration.
I'd mod you up if I had points.
To put it another way, Uber are a taxi company, but its the pretence that they are a ride sharing app that is supposed to make all their bad business practices look like a disruptive technology instead. If it was a ride sharing app then any monetary exchange would be a private matter between driver and passanger and not something fixed by Uber.