patrick.net

It's a wonder that this scramble has not yet occurred.

The price for any sort of bulk real-time mapping data from Google is shocking. This price probably makes sense for Uber, if you combine the money saved paying Google, and the money they could make selling such data to others.

anonymous says

$50 billion

Roughly the valuation of Nissan or Honda Motors.
Makes sense to me.

Used Lyft yesterday. It was good.

Uber and Lyft have serious potential. I was reading that investors at these valuations have been protecting themselves with anti dilution provisions. They better hope that Uber has enough cash to get them to profitability, because if new investors have to come in later they will get rid of anti dilution provisions.

thunderlips11 says

That's a great angle as well - their employment status.

The Uber driver fits the classic description of independent contractor: he brings his own tools (the car) and has the option of taking or rejecting any specific piece work.

thunderlips11 says

There's a reason hackney drivers are licensed and have been for centuries, and why localities don't let anybody start driving people around. There's this idea that one day, some bored bureaucrat or politicians said, "I'm bored. I need to regulate some activity for fun. How about Post and Chaise drivers? Yes, Willoughby, let us draft some regulations lest we succumb to ennui."

The scheme is actually more nefarious than that: the owners of the cab companies were the ones who lobbied for the setting up of such commissions, in order to create a monopoly. Their fees are what created and pays for the salaries of the bored bureaucrats to begin with. What's happening now is that the cab company owners are screaming bloody murder because they are not getting their money's worth: the bureaucrats are forgetting that they are supposed to be the leg-breakers for the mob!

thunderlips11 says

There's also mentality involved: A Licensed Operator knows he's "In the System 100%", and generally avoids fighting customers and put up with whiny or trifling bullshit from them. An Uber Driver more often thinks they are just picking up passengers as a Free Citizen and as such are more likely to start fights over money and passenger attitude problems.

LOL. You must not have taken taxis often in big cities like NYC. Your constant fear of Free Citizens should prompt you to seek voluntary slavery somewhere. Your use of John Brown as your avatar, and Zhukov before that, show that you are just a fan of wanton blood-thirst, instead of any sense of liberty or freedom for anyone.

When you have rude treatment or worse from a cab driver, you go right to the PD with their cab number, and regulatory - not just corporate - events go into motion. Taxi Drivers don't want a bad record and don't want to pay civil fines. How about Uber?

Uber drivers' cars too have license plates. A driver review on Uber probably has far more effect on the driver's likelihood to pick up future rides than any police would get involved in mere "rude treatment" by a cabby.

You don't post truth. You post sewage. You lie, you misrepresent, you troll, and you derail threads. You're a disgusting little shit and you should have been terminated from this board years ago.

----------------

Someone is reflecting again

And look at you! Just like a little lab rat getting your little pepper all worked up over the mere thought of shit. They're pushing your buttons again!!!!!

Call it Crazy says

You don't post truth. You post sewage. You lie, you misrepresent, you troll, and you derail threads. You're a disgusting little shit and you should have been terminated from this board years ago.

No, you post sewage! You lie, you misrepresent, you troll, and you derail threads. You're a disgusting little shit and you should have been terminated from this board years ago.

Ha Ha Ha... Ha Ha Ha... Same to you and more of it!!!!! Ha Ha Ha... neener neener neener... I know you are but what am I????? BINGO!!!

Hey asswipe... you gonna have a sad because your crap shacks aren't covering their mortgages?!?!?! Ha Ha Ha Einstein... Ha Ha Ha...

RECOVERY
FORWARD

Some posters here have severe mental illness!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-------------

"Some" posters, "here"?!!?

By some, you mean most, judging by all the diagnosis that you've dished out. And by here, you mean the internet discussion forum you live at all day, every day?

What does that say, about you!!!!?

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/uber-new-hq/

Images detailing the design of Ubers giant new San Francisco corporate headquarters have emerged, showing what the new, two-building corporate campus should look like when it opens up in a few years. Occupying San Franciscos Mission Bay neighborhood, the new buildings should offer up more than 420,000 square feet of new office and retail space to the company.

anonymous says

The legislation marked the second consecutive loss for Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian, who carried a similar bill last year. The Los Angeles Democrat has complained that contracted drivers get a pass when other kinds of paid drivers -- taxis, buses, truckers and commercial pilots -- all submit to random drug testing.

B-bb-but, it's sharing, it's not like it's a job that people do to make money. They only drive to share costs with Uber and Lyft.

Uber adds cars to our roads. It was estimated that Uber has added 15 THOUSAND cars to the steets of SF. A driver needs to drop someone off, wait around, drive around, and drive to the next customer, and so on. A normal driver drives from point A to point B and parks. Uber and their ilk are INCREASING the strain on road infrastructure and emitting more carbon into our atmosphere. For these reasons, they need to be taxed to cover the associated costs. Maintaining roads and the air isn't free. Why should they hoard billions in profit while the public pays for the infrastructure and quality of life they destroy?

anonymous says

Uber still has to contend with:

I would not bet against them, as technology always wins. The taxi companies in the past had a monopoly and were overpriced because of that. Uber has crushed the monopoly that only benefited a handful, not the drivers.

I say bring Uber on and they will prevail, why you ask? glad you asked not so much about technology but because they have competitive advantage that is going to blow regular taxi companies into history.

Uber and Lyft tanking NYC taxi medallion pricing:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/upshot/new-york-taxi-medallion-prices-fall-again.html
New York Taxi Medallion Prices Fall Again

The average price of an individual New York taxi medallion fell to $840,000 in November, down 20 percent from its peak of $1.05 million in June 2013.

Competition from car-service apps like Uber and Lyft has pushed down medallion prices nationally; Boston and Chicago medallions have also experienced price declines of around 20 percent in recent months, along with sharp declines in transaction volume.

zzyzzx says

The average price of an individual New York taxi medallion fell to $840,000 in November, down 20 percent from its peak of $1.05 million in June 2013.

This is a very good thing! No stupid license to operate a cab should ever cost a million dollars. Those medallions are purely about preventing free market competition at the expense of the public. Uber is the cure.

Yeah, it's too bad we can't short taxi medallions!

It seems uber REMOVES cars from the road, not adds them.
If one uber does 20 rides in one day - then its one car driving 'all day' on the road.
If 20 riders take own car and no uber is used - then more distance is travelled because the in scenario above the uber driver can drop off faire#1 and make a pickup of #2 VERY CLOSE like next door to where he dropped off #1. So the total miles traveled is way less with uber.

Plus the parking issues are non existent. How much 'driving around looking for parking' is eliminated with uber? 100% of it if you use them. thats a lot of traffic.

“It’s totally frozen,” Mohammad Kamran, a taxi medallion broker in Chicago, said of that city’s medallion market. “I have offers from people who want to sell their medallions for one-sixty, one-fifty, but there is no lending.”

Conditions are similar in Boston, which has had only a handful of medallion sales in recent months in the range of $500,000; prices there had peaked at $700,000.

“Nobody wants to buy now,” said Lew Snapper, a broker in New England who says he has not sold a medallion in over a year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/upshot/new-york-city-taxi-medallion-prices-keep-falling-now-down-about-25-percent.html?abt=0002&abg=0

Its really amazing how the smartphone is changing society.
uber,airbnb, tinder, grinder?ha, etc.
just for maps and finding directions alone that is huge. and the phones have only been around like since 07 right?
its really an outrage how the governments can charge 1m for a business license in NYC. That is really despicable of the democrats.
we should all be able to do whatever we want like open a tienda outside your front door and sell drugs, liqour, whores, whatever u wan i gots it man.
thats true capitalism (just like mexico has -they have real freedom down there)
go uber go!

PockyClipsNow says

Its really amazing how the smartphone is changing society.

uber,airbnb, tinder, grinder?ha, etc.

I wonder if it's worth getting a smartphone just for tinder?

PockyClipsNow says

“It’s totally frozen,” Mohammad Kamran, a taxi medallion broker in Chicago, said of that city’s medallion market. “I have offers from people who want to sell their medallions for one-sixty, one-fifty, but there is no lending.”

That means that the medallions are now worthless.

indigenous says

I would not bet against them, as technology always wins.

VHS beat Betamax.

MP3 is inferior to FLAC or CD, which is in turn inferior to DAT.

Plasma television is now extinct, with inferior LED and LCD products filling the market as we wait for OLED technology to become cost-effective, and it may not survive either.

HydroCabron says

VHS beat Betamax.

MP3 is inferior to FLAC or CD, which is in turn inferior to DAT.

Plasma television is now extinct, with inferior LED and LCD products filling the market as we wait for OLED technology to become cost-effective, and it may not survive either.

Yup and VHS beat the home film projector, and LED beat the Zenith, and MP3 beat 8 track. Technology always wins...

It seems that the ruling applies to just a single driver:

http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/17/so-about-that-uber-ruling/

I'll believe the US is committed to true property rights when it allows people to sell beverages, fruits, and snacks out of their garage and put a few tables and chairs out on the driveway. When it allows rural property owners to build reasonably sized packing and packaging plants freely. There's no reason why a 1000 acre farm can't have a 2000 sq ft cannery for niche products onsite that employs 2-10 people seasonally. Surprisingly, a lot of rural areas heavily restrict even the most basic of food prep outside narrow zones, which just so happen to be owned by one or two families.

thunderlips11 says

Surprisingly, a lot of rural areas heavily restrict even the most basic of food prep outside narrow zones, which just so happen to be owned by one or two families.

I think you found the problem right there. The law is used by some businesses to prevent competition by other businesses.

Congratulations to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition on a unanimous SFMTA vote after overcoming allegedly deceptive last-minute opposition from Uber.

I think you found the problem right there. The law is used by some businesses to prevent competition by other businesses.

Contrary to popular meme, monopoly by definition is created by government.

Well, that's one way to combat Uber -- transit mall! Whodathunkit? Thanks for the link curious2.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/29/uber-france-leaders-arrested-for-running-illegal-taxi-company/

Uber France CEO Thibaud Simphal and Uber Europe GM Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty were both taken into custody today in Paris. The AFP first broke the news. The police started investigating Uber in November 2014 and raided its office in Paris in March 2015.

The two executives were charged with two different allegations. First, according to them, Uber is running illegal taxi operations. Uber has been struggling with this charge in many countries, starting with the U.S. In 2010, the company had to change its original name from UberCab to Uber as taxi companies didn’t want to create any confusion.

Second, the police said that Uber France is concealing digital documents. It’s hard to tell what the police was looking for when they raided the French office in March. But apparently, some documents are missing and slowing down the investigation.

Their actual crime is providing a better, cheaper service at the expense of entrenched interests who have great lobbying power.

Call it Crazy says

“If a potential passenger opened up the app and saw no cars around, she might take another cab service. But if she saw a cluster of cars seemingly milling around on the same street, she’s more likely to request a ride,” wrote Mr Rosenblat, whose research – funded by Microsoft – is published on Vice magazine’s Motherboard blog.

“What the passenger app shows can be deceptive,” writes Mr Rosenblat, who found that Uber drivers “across multiple forums discuss the fake cars they see on their own residential streets”.

Tee hee!

Uber is just the 21st Century of 19th Century Companies. No factory costs, exploit the hell out of seamstresses, pay jack shit.

We tried "Giging" before, it was called "Piecework" and it blew chunks.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/taxi-owners-resisting-uber-risk-mimicking-the-decline-of-another-ny-club-023547392.html

The club has a strictly limited membership, granting to those admitted the right to handle lucrative traffic flow. Though members must adhere to certain explicit obligations, the arrangement nurtures a thriving, protected industry until new technology threatens the cozy collective and brings tough competition through greater customer choice.

anonymous says

Uber said on Wednesday that it had raised $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund

Hadn't really used lyft until now, but that might be the impetus I need to start using lyft more. Provided, that I can actually consistently get a ride

MMR says

Hadn't really used lyft until now, but that might be the impetus I need to start using lyft more

Lyft is fine. Eventually Uber, Lyft and whoever else will be like airlines with point systems. After my first Lyft ride I kept getting offers for 50% off rides.

Didi Chuxing, the dominant ride-hailing service in China, said it will acquire Uber Technologies Inc.’s operations in the country, ending a battle that cost the two companies billions as they competed for customers and drivers.

So capitalism only works when all competition is eliminated. Clearly competition is not promoted by capitalism and thus capitalism does not reap any benefits associated with competition. Capitalism is all about consolidating a market into one player, sometimes masquerading as competitors, but not really competing. Competition eliminates profits by driving down prices. Competition is clearly the enemy of capitalism, and capitalists will do anything including establishing territories to eliminate competition.

This sounds a lot like the cable companies, doesn't it? And yet, clearly government plays absolutely no part in establishing these territories for Uber and Didi. This is a clear and unequivocal example of pure capitalism, free from any government interference, establishing monopolies. OMFG, the blasphemy! How dare real world examples contradict the dogma of the religion of capitalism as if economic theory were subject to observational confirmation?

Science and religion are mutually exclusive. This is true everywhere including economics.

Dan8267 says

Competition eliminates profits by driving down prices. Competition is clearly the enemy of capitalism, and capitalists will do anything including establishing territories to eliminate competition.

If the goods/services are easy to manufacture/provide, competition will ensure that you stay on top with your goods/services and you cannot monopolize in that case. There are exceptions like the the cable companies you mentioned, that's why we have some anti-trust laws, but even cable companies don't have true monopolies anymore, at least not in cities where many buildings have their own dedicated Tx lines. Also, on a positive note, while the battle between those two left one as a loser to be acquired, they invested heavily to compete against each other, disregarding profits for now, which is good for the labor market and goes against the narrative that they always try to maximize their profits. Especially in the startu-p phase, but even later on, case in point AMZN. There is no reason another rideshare services could emerge in China at some point to provide competition to Didi, it's nothing like the medaillon system for cabs which is/was truly a government protected monopoly.
Btw. the problem you're talking about is that the rule of law does not apply to the large players, this interview partially also talks about the cable/dsl monopolies:
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231472

mell says

If the goods/services are easy to manufacture/provide, competition will ensure that you stay on top with your goods/services and you cannot monopolize in that case

And how has that theory worked in the case of Uber and Didi?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/uber-lyft-demolishing-york-city-200900395.html

Uber and Lyft are demolishing New York City taxi drivers

Early this month, a medallion — basically the right to operate a yellow cab in New York — was listed for $250,000 on nycitycab.com.

That's a stark contrast from 2014, when the value of a medallion was listed around $1.3 million.

Medallions are tightly regulated, and you cannot operate a taxi in New York without one. They're losing value with the cab business taking a hit amid the rise of rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft.

Notably, although taxis are still beating Uber and Lyft in New York City, the share of trips shrank to 65% in April 2016 from 84% in April 2015, according to charts shared by Morgan Stanley analysts in July.

Again, although the number of trips per day for NYC taxis is far greater than the number of trips per day by Uber and/or Lyft, the figure for cabs has dropped by about 9%, while the rate for Uber and Lyft has surged.

#uber #nyc

This is excellent! Uber has done NYC a great service by helping to dismantle the anti-competitive medallion system.

Tonight's Family Guy Peter becomes an Uber driver.

https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber

As most of you know, I left Uber in December and joined Stripe in January. I've gotten a lot of questions over the past couple of months about why I left and what my time at Uber was like. It's a strange, fascinating, and slightly horrifying story that deserves to be told while it is still fresh in my mind, so here we go.  I joined Uber as a site reliability engineer (SRE) back in November 2015, and it was a great time to join as an engineer. They were still wrangling microservices out of their monolithic API, and things...

http://www.fox5ny.com/news/240269677-story

But Uber hasn't become one of the most highly valued private businesses in the world without financial trouble. While the company doesn't share its earnings publicly, Daus says Uber lost $2 billion last year and is not making money. He believes all of their eggs are in the autonomous vehicle basket.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-tech-crime-exclusive-idUSKBN1802U1

The U.S. Department of Justice has begun a criminal investigation into Uber Technologies Inc's use of a software tool that helped its drivers evade local transportation regulators, two sources familiar with the situation said.

Uber has acknowledged the software, known as "Greyball," helped it identify and circumvent government officials who were trying to clamp down on Uber in areas where its service had not yet been approved, such as Portland, Oregon.

The company prohibited the use of Greyball for this purpose shortly after the New York Times revealed its existence in March, saying the program was created to check ride requests to prevent fraud and safeguard drivers. The Times report triggered a barrage of negative publicity for the company.

The criminal probe could become a significant problem facing the company that is already struggling with an array of recent business and legal issues.