. It shouldn't cost Uber much to just run a website and payment system, but as long as investors and drivers have to subsidize the fares to attract customers...
It's a pretty complex and demanding "just run a website and payment system", but it's not billions of dollars a year hard. But if they have to subsidize the fares as they say (is that billions?), how will they eventually make money? Why won't Google or Apple or Ford or everyone else just come along with the self-driving cars and clean Uber's clock?
Patents is all I can come up with. (But then to explain Lyft and other existing competitors.)
What I don't quite understand is how Uber will make money at the end of the day!
Rich asshats throw money at them en mass looking for the next yuge moneymaker. Whats not to understand.
What's not to understand is the business plan which those investors are looking at, wherein they expect Uber to be a "yuge moneymaker". Do you have some insight into this? Because while it is obvious to you, slower people like myself don't get it. By what means will Uber become profitable so that the investors will get their money back and more?
At this point they are closer to a law firm than a ride sharing company. In fact, they probably will have more lawyers on staff than any other employee type given all their legal troubles.
I am even more curious about where this $20 million goes. Perhaps to increase the salaries of all those Uber drivers? No?
Uber drivers do not get salaries. They are paid by the mile.
It's only paid for miles while the passenger is in the car, of course. The miles getting to the pickup are not paid. And all expenses and vehicle cost and maintenance are paid by the drivers. There are no health care or other benefits.
Operating cost is about 60-70 centers per mile; drivers are paid about 100 cents. Rides are usually 2 miles, (plus 1 to 10 miles of unpaid overhead) with between zero and 4 rides per hour. Most rides are the minimum fare: driver gets $4 gross.
Typical gross income for a busy driver in a major city is about $12/hour (before expenses, taxes, healthcare, etc.) The net income is much less than half that.
Drivers often actually lose more than that, when they are dispatched to farther pickups. (Drive for 7 miles, in about 16 minutes, to pick up someone who is just going 1 mile down the block to get some smokes. Uber does not allow the driver to know the destination or length of trip until the passenger is actually accepted, picked up, and in the car.)
Most drivers talk about how much money they "made", and even though they admit it's only around $10/hour, that's before all their expenses, which they never count. Notice the high turnover of drivers, and how constantly desperate Uber is to hire new drivers.
What I don't quite understand is how Uber will make money at the end of the day! Currently, they are losing tremendous (more than a half-BILLION per quarter) amounts of money. The fare that a passenger pays, never covers Uber's cost for the trip. Maybe somehow when it's all fully self-driving cars, but that's very far off, and every car manufacturer and high-tech megacompany will compete with Uber.
Just about anyplace you could safely land a "flying car" you could also land a helicopter.
Not true. A helicopter can't be moving horizontally when it lands. A flying car with wheels could potentially be moving at 70+ MPH horizontally when it lands. Assuming they can avoid any blades that stick out beyond the sides of the vehicle, that design difference completely changes the equation.
Ok,, why do you think a helicopter with wheels couldn't land with a forward momentum of 70 MPH? It's obviously possible for them to go forwards while descending, I've seen it.
Yes, helicopters can take off or land while moving forwards. There is at least one helicopter that requires this if it is more heavily loaded. You usually don't see helicopters doing this because the big feature of a helicopter is vertical take off and landing! (Duh)
I haven't worn a timepiece since the 80s, so when I saw the headline, "What's The Best Nerd Watch", my reaction was: "Huh? It's not Slashdot? Dunno maybe ARS or stackexchange?"
In New Hampshire, no proof of residence or pre-registration is required. On voting day, anyone may show up, sign an affidavit that they live at any address in NH, and then vote. There is no ID or residency time requirement. Nothing is verified or validated.
I personally know people who live in RI who also vote in CT and MA where they had previous residences. (All Dems, btw.)
I personally know illegal aliens who vote in VA using false papers. (They work for outsourced IT on federal govt contracts, btw.) They voted for Hillary due to the "immigration" issue.
My personal experience leads me to believe that there is a fair amount of voter fraud, and that it could affect election results in key districts.
Legal experts agree that the President can pardon someone even if there has been no charge; they need only specify in broad terms. For example:
Now, Therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.
The reasons that Obama won't pardon Snowden are two: First, he doesn't want to. Second, it would beg the question of pardoning Hillary Clinton.
Actually the government can (and does) criminalize price gouging on certain items (like gas in case of an emergency or catastrophes.)
The result is simple: Without the extra incentive to get on the road and drive from Brooklyn or Long Island out to Manhattan and into a traffic nightmare with panicked people and possibly even bombs going off around you,...you won't get anyone coming to give you a ride. The Government cannot compel people to go to work. It can only arrange for you not to have any Ubers available, since the drivers are in their socks watching the Mets instead.
Except uber DOESN'T work with the free market. It ignores all of the laws and regulations for consumer protection and safety that other businesses have to follow, like adequate insurance.
Uber drivers do have insurance: they get it automatically from Uber.
(If the driver feels that Uber's insurance policy isn't adequate, because for example there is a high deductible for body damage, then the driver can purchase hybrid commercial-personal policies from the major insurance companies. Then that doesn't really have anything to do with public safety: the passengers were already fully covered by Uber.)
And of course the vehicles are subject to stringent safety inspections and standards (more than taxis are).
And Uber drivers are required to drive to any destination in the area (by law and by the company) do dont try to say that they are discriminating. Uber drivers don't even know what your destination will be, until you get all the way in the car.
And Uber drivers undergo a more stringent background check than taxi drivers in NYC.
I'm no fan of Uber, actually, but I don't see any "consumer protection and safety" issues. When you get into a cab, does the taxi company know exactly who you are, and where you are in real-time on the trip, and separately where the car is, and where you were dropped off? Uber is shitloads safer than a taxi.
Slashdot Mirror
Ransomware is web scale!
. It shouldn't cost Uber much to just run a website and payment system, but as long as investors and drivers have to subsidize the fares to attract customers...
It's a pretty complex and demanding "just run a website and payment system", but it's not billions of dollars a year hard.
But if they have to subsidize the fares as they say (is that billions?), how will they eventually make money?
Why won't Google or Apple or Ford or everyone else just come along with the self-driving cars and clean Uber's clock?
Patents is all I can come up with.
(But then to explain Lyft and other existing competitors.)
What I don't quite understand is how Uber will make money at the end of the day!
Rich asshats throw money at them en mass looking for the next yuge moneymaker. Whats not to understand.
What's not to understand is the business plan which those investors are looking at, wherein they expect Uber to be a "yuge moneymaker".
Do you have some insight into this? Because while it is obvious to you, slower people like myself don't get it.
By what means will Uber become profitable so that the investors will get their money back and more?
Considering that Europeans still have to suffer...
Yes, when I think about the terrible suffering that French people...
Umm, I know you Americans are bad at geography but French people don't speak English so they're not actually Europeans..
By at least 2294 (sd 38325.3) they will make it so.
At this point they are closer to a law firm than a ride sharing company. In fact, they probably will have more lawyers on staff than any other employee type given all their legal troubles.
mod parent up - LOL!!
I am even more curious about where this $20 million goes.
Perhaps to increase the salaries of all those Uber drivers? No?
Uber drivers do not get salaries. They are paid by the mile.
It's only paid for miles while the passenger is in the car, of course. The miles getting to the pickup are not paid.
And all expenses and vehicle cost and maintenance are paid by the drivers. There are no health care or other benefits.
Operating cost is about 60-70 centers per mile; drivers are paid about 100 cents.
Rides are usually 2 miles, (plus 1 to 10 miles of unpaid overhead) with between zero and 4 rides per hour.
Most rides are the minimum fare: driver gets $4 gross.
Typical gross income for a busy driver in a major city is about $12/hour (before expenses, taxes, healthcare, etc.)
The net income is much less than half that.
Drivers often actually lose more than that, when they are dispatched to farther pickups.
(Drive for 7 miles, in about 16 minutes, to pick up someone who is just going 1 mile down the
block to get some smokes. Uber does not allow the driver to know the destination or length of trip
until the passenger is actually accepted, picked up, and in the car.)
Most drivers talk about how much money they "made", and even though they admit it's only around $10/hour,
that's before all their expenses, which they never count. Notice the high turnover of drivers,
and how constantly desperate Uber is to hire new drivers.
What I don't quite understand is how Uber will make money at the end of the day!
Currently, they are losing tremendous (more than a half-BILLION per quarter) amounts of money.
The fare that a passenger pays, never covers Uber's cost for the trip.
Maybe somehow when it's all fully self-driving cars, but that's very far off,
and every car manufacturer and high-tech megacompany will compete with Uber.
Obviously caffeine does not reduce an inflammatory response.
Well, at least not on the Internet...
Not true. A helicopter can't be moving horizontally when it lands. A flying car with wheels could potentially be moving at 70+ MPH horizontally when it lands. Assuming they can avoid any blades that stick out beyond the sides of the vehicle, that design difference completely changes the equation.
Ok,, why do you think a helicopter with wheels couldn't land with a forward momentum of 70 MPH?
It's obviously possible for them to go forwards while descending, I've seen it.
Yes, helicopters can take off or land while moving forwards. There is at least one helicopter that requires this if it is more heavily loaded. You usually don't see helicopters doing this because the big feature of a helicopter is vertical take off and landing! (Duh)
You can't stick a pencil in a USB stick and twirl it around.
Well, not if you want to plug the USB stick back into anything ever again.
Had to read twice, as brain saw this going by:
"Fitbit Buys Vector, Romulan Starship's Existing Smartwatches Won't Receive Software Updates Anymore"
It was better when you could swap out the battery, but now you have to keep a charger handy.
Plus is spies on you all the time!
I haven't worn a timepiece since the 80s, so when I saw the headline, "What's The Best Nerd Watch", my reaction was: "Huh? It's not Slashdot? Dunno maybe ARS or stackexchange?"
What happens then?
The robotic arms, mutated from a century of radiation, break out of the tomb and begin their ravaging trek towards a major city.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Would mod Troll, but...
I assume something called a GigaFactory will be 3-D printed by drones and be a self-aware AI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I saw the original first run, and was disappointed with some of the later "improvements".
For example, when they changed the combination from 1-2-3-4.
That's kind of change only an idiot would make....
He has to keep fucking around with Star Wars, tweaking this, fixing that, until it is "perfect" in his mind's eye.
And that's going to be painful, with that Splinter stuck in it...
http://www.slate.com/content/d...
Says the AC.
Tell ya what. If they come interview me, I'll gladly give them the details.
In New Hampshire, no proof of residence or pre-registration is required. On voting day, anyone may show up, sign an affidavit that they live at any address in NH, and then vote. There is no ID or residency time requirement. Nothing is verified or validated.
I personally know people who live in RI who also vote in CT and MA where they had previous residences. (All Dems, btw.)
I personally know illegal aliens who vote in VA using false papers.
(They work for outsourced IT on federal govt contracts, btw.)
They voted for Hillary due to the "immigration" issue.
My personal experience leads me to believe that there is a fair amount of voter fraud, and that it could affect election results in key districts.
Ah, so they figured out what problem on the phone was causing the battery runaways!
No jack, no explosions.
Legal experts agree that the President can pardon someone even if there has been no charge; they need only specify in broad terms.
For example:
The reasons that Obama won't pardon Snowden are two: First, he doesn't want to. Second, it would beg the question of pardoning Hillary Clinton.
Actually the government can (and does) criminalize price gouging on certain items (like gas in case of an emergency or catastrophes.)
The result is simple: Without the extra incentive to get on the road and drive from Brooklyn or Long Island out to Manhattan and into a traffic nightmare with panicked people and possibly even bombs going off around you,...you won't get anyone coming to give you a ride. The Government cannot compel people to go to work. It can only arrange for you not to have any Ubers available, since the drivers are in their socks watching the Mets instead.
Except uber DOESN'T work with the free market. It ignores all of the laws and regulations for consumer protection and safety that other businesses have to follow, like adequate insurance.
Uber drivers do have insurance: they get it automatically from Uber.
(If the driver feels that Uber's insurance policy isn't adequate, because for example there is a high deductible for body damage, then the driver can purchase hybrid commercial-personal policies from the major insurance companies. Then that doesn't really have anything to do with public safety: the passengers were already fully covered by Uber.)
And of course the vehicles are subject to stringent safety inspections and standards (more than taxis are).
And Uber drivers are required to drive to any destination in the area (by law and by the company) do dont try to say that they are discriminating. Uber drivers don't even know what your destination will be, until you get all the way in the car.
And Uber drivers undergo a more stringent background check than taxi drivers in NYC.
I'm no fan of Uber, actually, but I don't see any "consumer protection and safety" issues. When you get into a cab, does the taxi company know exactly who you are, and where you are in real-time on the trip, and separately where the car is, and where you were dropped off? Uber is shitloads safer than a taxi.