Discussion
What a massively sleazy company Uber is -- see this breakdown of how it profits by systematically screwing drivers and riders.
https://len-sherman.medium.com/how-uber-became-a-cash-generating-machine-ef78e7a97230
Take a taxi, if you can still find one.
@dangillmor I have the impression that #Uber works out quite well for customers as well as drivers in #Brazil. The drivers appear pretty happy with their work.
Uber y Rappi (una APP de entregas) dejan de ser la "solución" para el desempleo en la Argentina!
They undercut their prices to bancrupt competition for more than a decade.
This is not the free market, this is cartels.
If society leaves it to “the market,” these people will keep doing it, because the system rewards them. If society changes the rules of the game - through law, governance, and culture - then the people pushing these models either adapt or lose their licence to operate.
Or there is always guillotines.
Over here you call (just be happy they don't require sending a fax) to order one friday evening, and if you're lucky it shows up around noon sunday.
Pricing seems to be intentionally set to keep DUI competitive, though to be fair it's probably because they are only interested in customers who are too rich or too drunk to care.
But Uber anything else that smells like competition for the taxi monopolies is illegal, presumably because without income from DUI fines, the government would have to raise taxes (ok, maybe that's not the official reason, but it's what it feels like*).
*) especially when you hear again and again that the government has a goal of reducing CO2 by significantly increasing the number of people who travel by train, but every time someone suggests something that would do that, it gets shot down immediately because that would require investing in more rail cars. But no worries, we are on track to hitting the goal sometime after the year 8000. Yes, that's eight.
Great article, fascinating research.
In the “path to profitability” section it mentions:
> Divested money-losing non-core operations (e.g., autonomous vehicle R&D, air taxi services)
the latter is one of my favorite bits of Uber nonsense.
**music swells as the rider in the air taxi gazes down on the poor proles stuck in traffic down below**
So now that they have market dominance, they raise prices and reduce payouts to drivers. It's no surprise, that was the playbook all along.
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