"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 14:36:46 on Sat, 1 Apr 2017,
tim... remarked:
the one thing about the taxi trade is that they can't monopolies the
market through lower fares and then hike them when the competition pulls
out

the barriers to entry for a taxi company are so low that if you take your
fares back up to the regulated maximum the competition will soon pile back
in again.

to keep the competition out you have to keep your fares low forever

which is fine if your costs of operation really are low enough to support
that, but does mean that operating an unsustainably low fare to grab
market share doesn't work.

Except Uber is trying that.

I know

So your theory crashes in flames.

but as it hasn't got to the "lets put the fares up again" bit, how does,
where we are now prove that it will work?

There is a theory that its real MO is,

1) force out the competition

2) replace cars with self driving cars and put the fares up

But I don't believe that model will work either as:

a) I believe the date that driverless cars will be routinely available is 10
years beyond what the optimists think the date will be. (We have discussed
this before and you were in the same place as me), Uber can't survive that
long subsidising fares.

b) It will change the Uber business model from one of the owner-driver
financing the cars to Uber financing the cars, and I don't believe that the
financial markets will give Uber (FTAOD any one company, whoever they are)
the money to finance 100% of the world's taxi-cabs[1]. So there will still
be room for other companies to finance self-driving cabs and come into the
market and compete on a country by country basis. Uber does not own any of
the necessary IPR in self driving. There's nothing here that cannot be
replicated by someone else.

tim

[1] a finger in the air figure of about 250 trillion pounds, 400 times
Uber's current valuation

On 01/04/2017 15:50, tim... wrote:


"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 14:36:46 on Sat, 1 Apr
2017, tim... remarked:
the one thing about the taxi trade is that they can't monopolies the
market through lower fares and then hike them when the competition
pulls out

the barriers to entry for a taxi company are so low that if you take
your fares back up to the regulated maximum the competition will soon
pile back in again.

to keep the competition out you have to keep your fares low forever

which is fine if your costs of operation really are low enough to
support that, but does mean that operating an unsustainably low fare
to grab market share doesn't work.

Except Uber is trying that.

I know

So your theory crashes in flames.

but as it hasn't got to the "lets put the fares up again" bit, how does,
where we are now prove that it will work?

There is a theory that its real MO is,

1) force out the competition

2) replace cars with self driving cars and put the fares up

But I don't believe that model will work either as:

a) I believe the date that driverless cars will be routinely available
is 10 years beyond what the optimists think the date will be. (We have
discussed this before and you were in the same place as me), Uber can't
survive that long subsidising fares.

A recent New Scientist article was discussing how you programme ethical
considerations into self-driving cars!


--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

On 01/04/2017 17:38, Graeme Wall wrote:

A recent New Scientist article was discussing how you programme ethical
considerations into self-driving cars!

Have they managed to figure out how to do that for runaway railway
trolleys approaching points yet?


--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

On 01/04/2017 19:43, Arthur Figgis wrote:
On 01/04/2017 17:38, Graeme Wall wrote:

A recent New Scientist article was discussing how you programme ethical
considerations into self-driving cars!

Have they managed to figure out how to do that for runaway railway
trolleys approaching points yet?



That was quoted in the article.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

In message , at 15:50:48 on Sat, 1 Apr 2017,
tim... remarked:
the one thing about the taxi trade is that they can't monopolies the
market through lower fares and then hike them when the competition
pulls out

the barriers to entry for a taxi company are so low that if you take
your fares back up to the regulated maximum the competition will soon
pile back in again.

to keep the competition out you have to keep your fares low forever

which is fine if your costs of operation really are low enough to
support that, but does mean that operating an unsustainably low fare
to grab market share doesn't work.

Except Uber is trying that.

I know

So your theory crashes in flames.

but as it hasn't got to the "lets put the fares up again" bit, how
does, where we are now prove that it will work?

That's what the investors and the competition regulators do for a
living, predicting how it will all turn out.
--
Roland Perry

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 15:50:48 on Sat, 1 Apr 2017,
tim... remarked:
the one thing about the taxi trade is that they can't monopolies the
market through lower fares and then hike them when the competition pulls
out

the barriers to entry for a taxi company are so low that if you take
your fares back up to the regulated maximum the competition will soon
pile back in again.

to keep the competition out you have to keep your fares low forever

which is fine if your costs of operation really are low enough to
support that, but does mean that operating an unsustainably low fare to
grab market share doesn't work.

Except Uber is trying that.

I know

So your theory crashes in flames.

but as it hasn't got to the "lets put the fares up again" bit, how does,
where we are now prove that it will work?

That's what the investors

Yep, they are taking the risk along with Uber.

That doesn't mean that they are any more correct in a view that it will
succeed.

and the competition regulators do for a living, predicting how it will all
turn out.

They can only take pre-emptive action if considering a takeover in an
industry.

They can only act retrospectively if a monopolistic position obtained from a
commercial advantage has been abused.

They have no mechanism to say to a new entrant - sorry you can't price your
product under costs because it may force a competitor into bankruptcy

tim




--
Roland Perry