Is Uber Bleeding to Death?
 

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Robin9" wrote in message
...



Another point you seem to be overlooking is that Uber
now find it necessary to advertise regularly for drivers on
LBC and on the Internet. Why do they? Almost certainly
because they are losing drivers. If drivers are being
subsidised and/or paid 80% of the fare paid, why are they
leaving Uber? Why do so many phone-in programs on the
radio have drivers complain that they can't make a living
working with Uber?

Because they aren't subsidising London anymore.

It is now a mature market (FSVO).

It is (subset of) RoW that gets the subsidies.

Here's another part of the Uber business model: leasing cars to drivers.
It's not quite a subsidy, but it looks like Uber just about breaks even
on
it. It's another way of maximising the supply of drivers, many of whom
are
immigrants without enough credit history to buy new enough cars
themselves:


http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/07/uber-...-industry.html


The simple solution to that is not to insist on such a ridiculously high
spec car (as I have read that they do)

it is cheap and cheerful taxi service FFS, not a limousine service

What's wrong with a 5 year old Mondeo?

Uber started up as a limo service. The later UberX introduced cheaper
cars,
but the idea is still that they're clean and new.

and of a minimum size (4 , not 3 passengers) and an up market brand,

tim

Is Uber Bleeding to Death?
 

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 21 Sep 2016 15:03:48 +0100, David Cantrell
wrote:

On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 03:10:42PM +0100, tim... wrote:

spending billions on trying to win a market of millions is just silly

Becoming the default choice for taxi services throughout the developed
world (which is what they seem to be going for) is not worth mere
millions.

What they're doing is very similar to what Amazon did early on. They
consistently lost money for the first few years, and only occasionally
made a profit since. It's only very recently that they started to make
vaguely reliable looking profits. Amazon spent those profitless years
buying the market.

Exactly. People who only look at the deliberate short-term losses are
ignoring the bigger picture.

It's possible for Amazon to kill the competition and for it not to come
back
again, leaving you in an unassailable position to reap the rewards of
previous work

Once Uber has established in a city, competition can continually spring
up
again meaning that you are continually fighting it. There is no path to
killing it off completely (other than making your price so low you don't
make a profit). There are always new drivers prepared to compete with
you.

It's an international business, which benefits from network effects.

It's that network focus that makes it vulnerable in each of its local
markets.

only a percentage of your customers in Delhi are going to be
Europeans/Americans taking advantage of already having Uber on their phone
when they get off the plane. Many of the potential customers are going to
be locals who can switch to local competition if the incentives are there.

Also,
the long-term game plan is to have self-driving cars,

which I don't believe they will be able to achieve. To do this they have to
hoover up all of the finance available for "buying" rental cars and taxis.
This is an order of magnitude more funding that they currently need.

Are the backers really going to put all their eggs in one basket for this
operation, I think not.

There will be plenty of micro operations of autonomous car pooling that
people will want to invest into spread their risk.

which need things
like highly detailed maps that new competitors won't have:

of course they will

All of the parties interest in producing autonomous cars are working on (or
have a partner who is) such maps, it isn't just self driving taxis who have
to find their own way from Waterloo to Kings Cross. All domestically owned
cars will have to be able to do it as well.

It's a nonsense to suggest that this will be unique to Uber's cars

https://newsroom.uber.com/uk/mapping-ubers-future/

Is Uber Bleeding to Death?
 

tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 21 Sep 2016 15:03:48 +0100, David Cantrell
wrote:

On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 03:10:42PM +0100, tim... wrote:

spending billions on trying to win a market of millions is just silly

Becoming the default choice for taxi services throughout the developed
world (which is what they seem to be going for) is not worth mere
millions.

What they're doing is very similar to what Amazon did early on. They
consistently lost money for the first few years, and only occasionally
made a profit since. It's only very recently that they started to make
vaguely reliable looking profits. Amazon spent those profitless years
buying the market.

Exactly. People who only look at the deliberate short-term losses are
ignoring the bigger picture.

It's possible for Amazon to kill the competition and for it not to come
back
again, leaving you in an unassailable position to reap the rewards of
previous work

Once Uber has established in a city, competition can continually spring
up
again meaning that you are continually fighting it. There is no path to
killing it off completely (other than making your price so low you don't
make a profit). There are always new drivers prepared to compete with
you.

It's an international business, which benefits from network effects.

It's that network focus that makes it vulnerable in each of its local
markets.

only a percentage of your customers in Delhi are going to be
Europeans/Americans taking advantage of already having Uber on their phone
when they get off the plane. Many of the potential customers are going to
be locals who can switch to local competition if the incentives are there.

Also,
the long-term game plan is to have self-driving cars,

which I don't believe they will be able to achieve. To do this they have to
hoover up all of the finance available for "buying" rental cars and taxis.
This is an order of magnitude more funding that they currently need.

Are the backers really going to put all their eggs in one basket for this
operation, I think not.

There will be plenty of micro operations of autonomous car pooling that
people will want to invest into spread their risk.

which need things
like highly detailed maps that new competitors won't have:

of course they will

All of the parties interest in producing autonomous cars are working on (or
have a partner who is) such maps, it isn't just self driving taxis who have
to find their own way from Waterloo to Kings Cross. All domestically owned
cars will have to be able to do it as well.

It's a nonsense to suggest that this will be unique to Uber's cars

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/featur...month-is06r7on

Is Uber Bleeding to Death?
 

On 2016-09-22 15:16:38 +0000, tim... said:

it is cheap and cheerful taxi service FFS, not a limousine service

It actually started out as a high-spec limousine type service - UberX,
the "cheap and cheerful" version, came later but is winning the battle.

What's wrong with a 5 year old Mondeo?

Not an awful lot - I do think they are too tight on the spec for UberX.

That said, if I get a minicab from my local companies these days it's
odds on a Prius or similar. Old, knackered Japanese saloons (which
previously seemed the default) seem to be on the out.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

Is Uber Bleeding to Death?
 

On 2016-09-22 15:21:44 +0000, tim... said:

It's possible for Amazon to kill the competition and for it not to come
back again, leaving you in an unassailable position to reap the rewards
of previous work

But unlike Uber there is a bit of a paradox of Amazon, which is that
the competition can actually sell through it (albeit at the expense of
a hefty cut). The likes of Amazon and eBay are enabling global reach
for small companies that was much harder to achieve before - provided
you are competing on price and not a lot else (which, let's face it, if
you are supplying goods rather than services you near enough always
are).

For Uber to be the equivalent they'd have to be offering local minicabs
and black cabs in addition to their own vehicles.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

Is Uber Bleeding to Death?
 

Neil Williams wrote:
On 2016-09-22 15:21:44 +0000, tim... said:

It's possible for Amazon to kill the competition and for it not to come
back again, leaving you in an unassailable position to reap the rewards
of previous work

But unlike Uber there is a bit of a paradox of Amazon, which is that
the competition can actually sell through it (albeit at the expense of
a hefty cut). The likes of Amazon and eBay are enabling global reach
for small companies that was much harder to achieve before - provided
you are competing on price and not a lot else (which, let's face it, if
you are supplying goods rather than services you near enough always
are).

For Uber to be the equivalent they'd have to be offering local minicabs
and black cabs in addition to their own vehicles.

Well, they do, don't they?

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/trans...s-a3176266.htm

https://www.uber.com/ride/ubertaxi/

Local minicab drivers (assuming they're driving their own cars) can also
sign up to Uber anyway.

Is Uber Bleeding to Death?
 

On Thu, 22 Sep 2016 19:20:52 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
tim... wrote:
It's a nonsense to suggest that this will be unique to Uber's cars

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/featur...lf-driving-fle
t-arrives-in-pittsburgh-this-month-is06r7on

Of course those cars still have someone sitting behind the wheel so the
whole thing is nothing more than a marketing gimmick. I'll give it a couple
of years before they quietly revert back to human drivers until the technology
is properly ready.

--
Spud

Is Uber Bleeding to Death?
 

On Thu, 22 Sep 2016 21:14:52 +0100
Neil Williams wrote:
On 2016-09-22 15:16:38 +0000, tim... said:

it is cheap and cheerful taxi service FFS, not a limousine service

It actually started out as a high-spec limousine type service - UberX,
the "cheap and cheerful" version, came later but is winning the battle.

What's wrong with a 5 year old Mondeo?

Not an awful lot - I do think they are too tight on the spec for UberX.

You could buy the previous gen of Mondeo with a nice 3.0 V6. But its all
droning thrashy 4 cylinders in the current lot presumably for emissions
reasons. Not quite what you want in a limo.

--
Spud

Is Uber Bleeding to Death?
 

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 21 Sep 2016 15:03:48 +0100, David Cantrell
wrote:

On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 03:10:42PM +0100, tim... wrote:

spending billions on trying to win a market of millions is just
silly

Becoming the default choice for taxi services throughout the
developed
world (which is what they seem to be going for) is not worth mere
millions.

What they're doing is very similar to what Amazon did early on. They
consistently lost money for the first few years, and only
occasionally
made a profit since. It's only very recently that they started to
make
vaguely reliable looking profits. Amazon spent those profitless years
buying the market.

Exactly. People who only look at the deliberate short-term losses are
ignoring the bigger picture.

It's possible for Amazon to kill the competition and for it not to come
back
again, leaving you in an unassailable position to reap the rewards of
previous work

Once Uber has established in a city, competition can continually spring
up
again meaning that you are continually fighting it. There is no path
to
killing it off completely (other than making your price so low you
don't
make a profit). There are always new drivers prepared to compete with
you.

It's an international business, which benefits from network effects.

It's that network focus that makes it vulnerable in each of its local
markets.

only a percentage of your customers in Delhi are going to be
Europeans/Americans taking advantage of already having Uber on their
phone
when they get off the plane. Many of the potential customers are going
to
be locals who can switch to local competition if the incentives are
there.

Also,
the long-term game plan is to have self-driving cars,

which I don't believe they will be able to achieve. To do this they have
to
hoover up all of the finance available for "buying" rental cars and
taxis.
This is an order of magnitude more funding that they currently need.

Are the backers really going to put all their eggs in one basket for this
operation, I think not.

There will be plenty of micro operations of autonomous car pooling that
people will want to invest into spread their risk.

which need things
like highly detailed maps that new competitors won't have:

of course they will

All of the parties interest in producing autonomous cars are working on
(or
have a partner who is) such maps, it isn't just self driving taxis who
have
to find their own way from Waterloo to Kings Cross. All domestically
owned
cars will have to be able to do it as well.

It's a nonsense to suggest that this will be unique to Uber's cars

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/featur...month-is06r7on


I know

but they can afford one city as a trial on the basis of their current
funding

but scaling it up to 10,000 cities just isn't going to be cheap, and I defy
them to find the funding for such.

tim

Is Uber Bleeding to Death?
 

On 2016-09-23 08:46:26 +0000, d said:

You could buy the previous gen of Mondeo with a nice 3.0 V6. But its all
droning thrashy 4 cylinders in the current lot presumably for emissions
reasons. Not quite what you want in a limo.

UberX is not a limo service. That's now called UberBlack.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.