patrick.net

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.

rando says

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

Company is toast with this kind of organization.

The Greyball thing is just another part of the puzzle. Please oh please have the IPO so I can buy puts.

Lashkar_i_Trumpi says

rando says

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

Company is toast with this kind of organization.

The Greyball thing is just another part of the puzzle. Please oh please have the IPO so I can buy puts.

Yeah too much competition.

Also, their biggest competitive advantage is (or was rather) their database of millions of users' credit card info. Therefore, until a year ago they could spin off new business plans much more quickly than a startup that needs to convince users to trust them w their wallet. HOWEVER, FB's new messenger chatbot push will destroy UBER. FB users can link paypal or their bank account to FB. A startup business plan may now piggy-back and create a FB messenger app which automatically connects to a user's payment, geolocation, as well as personal information. Uber's largest competitive advantage is gone.

CBOEtrader says

FB users can link paypal or their bank account to FB. A startup business plan may now piggy-back and create a FB messenger app which automatically connects to a user's payment, geolocation, as well as personal information.

FB having my financial info and location is a horrifying idea. Much worse than Uber somehow.

I had a female Goober driver on Late Saturday night ~5am. She was nuts. Blew through a red light going 45 in a 25

Hurry up self driving cars

Somebody posing as Uber tried to charge my CC for hundreds of dollars for several bogus "rides". What's interesting is that there was two legitimate short rides in Uber and the card is the one I paid with.

anonymous says

fundamental problems with its male-dominated culture

What fat ugly blue-haired feminist crap is this?

Of course it's male-dominated. Men create almost everything useful in the world, all the time.

Companies that are not male-dominated fail to accomplish anything.

rando says

Companies that are not male-dominated fail to accomplish anything.

That's not true.

https://nypost.com/2018/03/21/cabbie-blamed-uber-lyft-for-financial-woes-before-hanging-himself/
Cabbie blamed Uber, Lyft for financial woes before hanging himself

A yellow-cab driver hanged himself because of financial ruin that he blamed on ride-hail apps such as Uber and Lyft — the fourth such suicide in the last four months, authorities said Wednesday.

Nicanor Ochisor, 65, was found in the garage of his Maspeth, Queens, home by his adult son on Friday, according to Richard Lipsky of the Taxi Medallion Owners and Drivers Association.

Ochisor is the first medallion owner to end his life over the flagging industry, he said.

Ochisor backed his home mortgage on his medallion, and planned to use the license to finance his retirement — but his dreams faded as the value of medallions plummeted from $1 million to around $180,000 over the last five years.

Ochisor made no secret he planned to end his life, according to friends.

“He said, ‘I’m old, I’m tired, and I’m not going to make it,’ ” fellow driver Nino Hervias, 59, recalled from a conversation with Ochisor last week.

“He talked to me about it [suicide] and said that’s the way he’s going to end,” friend and fellow medallion owner Dan Nitescu, 65, told The Post. “I told him to wait and it will get better.”

Ochisor got his medallion in 1989, according to the Taxi and Limousine Commission.

He drove nightly, and his wife took fares during the day, Nitescu said.

“They were working like that for about 25 years to raise family and save for college,” the grieving friend said.

But Ochisor had struggled for fares lately, Hervias said.

“He was only making $200 a day working 10 to 12 hours,” he said, adding that’s barely enough to cover overhead. “He was devastated.”

Ochisor planned to finance his retirement by leasing the medallion out for $3,000 a month — a reasonable rate five years ago, but now he’d be lucky to get $1,400 a month, Nitescu said.

To make matters worse, the couple’s home was about to go into foreclosure and they would have been on the hook if Ochisor’s devalued medallion didn’t cover the debt, according to Lipsky.

“It used to be that you knew that even if you weren’t making it on a day-to-day basis, the equity in your medallion was going up,” Hervias said. “Now we have no backup. The psychological effect is terrible.”

Ochisor is the fourth TLC driver to commit suicide in as many months.

Broke livery driver Douglas Schifter killed himself with a shotgun outside the gates of City Hall on Feb. 5.

“I don’t know how else to try to make a difference other than a public display of a most private affair,” the driver wrote in a suicide note posted to Facebook.

Livery driver Danilo Castillo penned a lengthy suicide note lamenting the “disastrous” state of the industry on the back of a TLC summons before leaping to his death out of his Manhattan apartment window on Dec. 20.

A fourth TLC driver killed himself in February, according to the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. His name was not released.

Bronx Councilman Reuben Diaz Sr. has proposed a bill aimed at leveling the playing field in the taxi industry by charging app-based companies the same fees livery firms and drivers pay and limiting the number of vehicles that can operate.