Given Uber is one of the few companies who are lucky enough to have a separate page for all the controversies on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Uber), they also have their own fair of experience with police raids on their offices. They've also used "‘kill switch’ during raids to stop police seeing data" (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/10/uber-files-leak...) before, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was some sort of legal "kill switch" or whatever that got triggered, so they can get rid of everything faster.
Shops and factories can be temporarily shut down if they don't comply with regulations. Businesses that require licenses like law practices may similarly have to stop operations. That is half of going to jail.
Unfortunately, the growth potential that software industry generally provides has generally prevented governments for creating and enforcing similar laws for software products and such.
In the current system, political parties who do things that stop the economy growing are usually voted out, more than political parties that refuse to take action against nebulous criminal activity. That's why, for example, my city refuses to do anything to stop the factories in the city from dumping waste into the river.
Unless you throw the investors and senior executives in jail how do you intend to do anything more than performative dance with these measures.
I personally think countries should start sanctioning and international warrants for all large investors and senior executives in a company if something like this happens.
But it won't happen unless US changes their stance on companies being liability shiled.
Sure it should require very exceptional cases but I know companies whose negligence has cost lives of hundreds of people, the reason they and all their investors weren't jailed is the real scam of the democraciez we have gifted ourselves.
I would pay extra because I don't want the cognitive load of haggling on the cost. When I want/need A ride, it's because I'm either overloaded, away from home, or drunk. These are three times that I didn't want to bother with any more nonsense.
Having used it in Mexico, they usually have a suggested price that you can just pitch with, and usually people would accept that or add a tiny amount on it.
In a system where you are expected to haggle taking the opening price puts a pretty heavy tax on everything. It's more work to get to a vaguely similar equilibrium distributed slightly less evenly when you look at big markets for similar things.
One anecdote for a datapoint: Not sure if it's better now but I've lost a phone in an InDrive and I've lost an expensive bag in an Uber and it was significantly easier and less sketchy to get the bag back. I'm not a price sensitive rider so the insurance of a reputable 'comfort' tier Uber driver paid off. The InDrive driver made me get another ride to him then demanded $1000mxn (~$55usd) to return my phone. The Uber app had me pay ~$250mxn if I remember correctly and the driver promptly returned the bag.
I have a controversial take: outside the US/Europe, Uber is mostly a tourist app.
If you actually live in developing regions:
1) your income is much lower, and you are quite price sensitive. The Uber price premium (20-40%) hits much harder.
2) the Uber alternatives are noticeably cheaper for the exact same trip.
Regarding your experience, if you were local, that inDrive driver likely would not have tried to extort $1000 MXN out of you. They saw you were a visitor and took advantage of you.
In Nigeria or Uganda there are few tourists, so Uber cannot rely on a stream of price-insensitive travelers to fill their cars. It makes total sense why they struggled in (and gave up on) the local market there.
My experience in Brazil: Uber is way cheaper here. Compared to what I paid in San Francisco, I'd estimate a ~10x difference.
And things here are rarely 10x cheaper. The difference in restaurants is probably less than ~2x.
My point being it probably feels like less of a luxury for us than for people in the US.
I'd say it's probably the most popular app too. I've never met people who used others.
Uber isn't cheaper in India, but most people in urban areas prefer taking it over local alternatives or taxis. The cars are actually regular taxis, but the Uber tax is worth it over taxis for the convenience and potential safety/driver verification.
Uber in Ghana has fares that are not much higher than the others. In fact, many times Uber is cheaper. Not sure about Nigeria or Uganda though.
And they even have a motorcycle ride option that is even cheaper.
And, although Uber Ghana was noticeably more professional when they started, they have relaxed their standards so much in recent years. They are still a tad better than the others, but many drives flit between them and other ride-share companies. A driver does not suddenly become better because they happen to be driving for Uber, although I concede they might u their game based on what is expected of them.
You claim it's wrong, yet don't bother to justify your position at all.
I've ridden on Uber, Lyft, Bolt, Grab, inDrive, Careem, Yandex Go, Gojek, DiDi, Kakao T; and in my experience, outside the US/Europe (plus a few others), Uber is mostly for tourists. The alternatives are cheaper.
> implying everywhere outside of USA and Europe is a developing region
I'm not doing so at all. Those are separate sentences.
I'm fully aware that Lyft, Careem, and Kakao T are on my list. But that doesn't change the fact that in every region I've been to, Uber is always the most expensive option. Or it's tied for the highest price, in duopoly markets like the US/Canada.
The competitors inDrive, Bolt, or Yango almost always beat Uber on price.
This too isn't true. Most of the services you listed only operate in one (or at most a small few) countries. I know for a fact that in some of them, Uber is not the highest price. Instead, in some of them, Uber and the ones you listed are tied for the lowest price, with other local apps being more expensive.
You're misinforming here, giving bold statements based on not spending enough time in some of these countries, not knowing the local market well enough.
People like the knowledge that they are not being ripped off by the person they are interacting with. On Uber you are essentially guaranteed that you are paying the absolute max that you would accept algorithmically, and the driver is getting the absolute least they would accept to drive for. If the balance shifts in any way, someone is ripping off the person they will interact with.
Since the customer knows less about how much things should cost, they are more likely to be ripped off. People pay a 30% premium to ensure that they dont feel ripped off alone.
That means Uber is screwing the driver and customer the algorithmically maximum amount. It should be less, and it should be in the driver's favor. They should be able to afford a decent living.
Insurance goes up. Who knows how much liability they need to cover transportation. They likely deal with claims of being kidnapped or held hostage by driver on a regular basis.
Man in some of the shitty countries I've had the misfortune of living in, taxi drivers were outright predatory and sometimes downright hostile. Uber was a godsend in such environments.
Uber was never really in Nigeria much, despite apparently being here a long time. I use ride-hailing a lot, and I've never used it because it is not available in my state, or in most states, for that matter.
I read that in Nigeria (may misremember), the fares set by uber were too low (possibly it was a long-tail country with some incorrect exchange rates), so the drivers and riders had a custom of agreeing to different fees, I believe it came to the point where drivers would share an image or a copypasta with the actual rates and would ask the passenger to accept before picking them up.
Bolt lost their license in Thailand due to poor safety tech after a Bolt driver (that borrowed another account, didn't have a license) attempted to kidnap a school girl [0].
Bolt creates 'good' jobs for criminals, but I don't think that is what we want.
Is Bolt a "new player" in Thailand? I know that in Indonesia both Maxim and inDrive is not that well-regarded because usually drivers that ride for both are drivers that are banned from Gojek and Grab for various reasons.
What a nightmare, the kind of thing most founders fear, that their tech be used for evil and that they are responsible for aiding in that crime. (a nightmare for the actual victim too, no doubt)
has Uber had a positive ROI on the billions invested in it? I am pretty sure the return on the preferred price from the late rounds 10 years ago is basically zero. Net income has always been negative or close to zero. From a consumer perspective, in late stage cities, uber rides are the same or more expensive than old taxis, and the quality of vehicles is lower. what was it all worth?
> at $156B market cap someone sure is making money.
So 50x Pets.com or 2x Enron.
> judging a mega-corporation on lemonade-stand level accounting is a fool's errand.
Disagree. Unit economics matter and can help you cut through a lot of hype and nonsense. "Where's the money coming from?" is always a good question to ask. Sure, sometimes a megacorp loses money on each transaction and makes it up on float or whatever, but that's at least worth knowing if that's what's going on.
Agree due diligence is required. FTX, Theranos, Enron are a reality. But it’s also tempting to color the assessment with virtue.
Im morally against Meta but it’s the world’s greatest money printing machine ever conceived. To say they or Uber don’t make money would be too virtue-tainted.
downvote isn’t personal. it takes more than one to become gray.
Im trying to say it doesn’t matter what we plebs think about these massive entities. Maybe it should but if we’re talking creating (economic) value, they clearly are.
This reminds me of this bit on a podcast where a tidbit of learned information so blatantly contradicts basic logic.
There's always an explanation, in this case, the tidbit was that "dull knives are more dangerous", because you apply more force when cutting vegetables and can end up hurting yourself, but it's laughably wrong when applied to weapons.
In the case of the tidbit of "uber actually loses money" that might have been relevant in the first years, there's this phenomenon where companies operate at a loss for some time (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_dumping) in order to accumulate market share (i.e a monopoly) and then they increase prices in order to recoup their investment and make profits.
So you read somewhere that "uber actually loses money" and this was from presumably a trusted source, but you failed to account the date of the knowledge, when Uber was somewhat smaller and their margins were smaller, and you read it assuming it applies to the present, so you somehow thought that one of the biggest tech companies in the world, that charges around 30% per trip, and has almost no marginal costs, would operate at a loss.
So I don't want to be offensive, but it's so wrong that it has a comedic quality.
Even in countries where taxis are regulated, sometimes Uber is more expensive but safer. Like in Romania. When I used to go there a lot the official taxis were mandated to offer such low standardized rates that there was a lot of scamming going on. One of my colleagues was basically abducted by a taxi driver (taken to a dangerous gypsy area and told they would kick him out of the car unless he paid them hundreds of euro). Uber was a lot safer because you have tracability on the driver, but more expensive too. And there weren't a lot of them.
There were ways to get safe drivers in some cases by booking them through the yellow machines. But in the end the company hired private drivers for us. Though personally I would just use the metro and tram a lot too :P If you know where you're going it's not a dangerous place.
Not sure if the taxi situation is still as bad there by the way. I would hope not.
In Brazil, it wasn't a matter of regulation, but honest because multiple taxi drivers normally drive to where you want really slow to increase the cost of your travel. Although, when they don't have any passengers they drive like crazy and really unsafe!
> Does no one have any memory of what taxis were like and how much they cost? The taxis are gone because they weren't competitive.
And now in places like Seattle, Uber and Lyft are far more expensive than traditional taxis. Taking uber or lyft from the seatac airport to anywhere within a 30 minute driving distance is ridiculously costly now.
taxis “weren’t competitive” when Uber rides were heavily subsidized and Uber was burning billions. I ride taxi now exclusively because it is almost always cheaper than Uber
We have an issue where Uber Drivers dont know the local laws about child restraints. They dont need them. Taxis, Busses, Trains and Ride Shares are given explicit exemption from the laws about child restraints. My wife, taking my kiddo around, has had to stop using Uber because they turn up, see the kid, and drive off cancelling the fare. However, Taxis do know the law, and are centrally enforced into permitting children. So she often makes some trips with uber, and some with taxis depending on when my kids along.
Roughly speaking, same time of day, same route, same tolls. 25 - 30 dollar Uber, 40 - 60 dollar Taxi.
Its a pretty steep charge for "Understands the laws regarding child restraints"
Also worth noting, age is a protected characteristic in Australia, Uber refuses to do anything about their drivers, but when I have enough evidence of rejected fares I am considering throwing it to some hungry lawyers.
"Child restraints are not required on buses, trains or personalised transport services such as taxi, limousine and ride-booking services. A bus is a motor vehicle that can carry 13 or more people (including the driver)."
Have not spotted a booster seat, or been offered one in an uber in like 3 years with the kiddo.
"Cannot Safely Carry" be hard to justify when the legal definition permits them to just sit in a normal seat with a normal belt.
It is precisely in unregulated markets I would want to use a ride shape app else they'd try to scam you on the price. Multiple times I've had drivers attempt to triple the agreed to price, or I'd have to haggle them down before the ride etc. This was over 20 years ago and Uber and the like did away with all that.
Also, these are generally cash economies. Drivers use Uber to get leads but will then negotiate the actual ride off-platform stripping Uber of their cut.
I disagree, that was only true 15 years ago. In developed countries, ride hailing is highly regulated. Uber is one of the few companies willing to implement all the required rules and procedures.
In Nigeria: Lithium totally irrelevant compared to oil. I think people have this really weird idea that lithium is to electric cars as oil is to regular cars, but it’s literally like a factor of 50 less.
Datacenters need batteries too, and they're drawing a BUNCH of power these days. 1 rack can now easily use as much power as 100 US homes (120kw), with some rack designs pushing to 200 and 300kw.
I get what you are saying, and you're not exactly wrong, but...
If I called it DoW, people get mad and point it out. If I call it DoD, people get mad and point it out. And if I put both? Fuck all of you, I'm not mentioning both over and over like DoW/DoD is GNU/Linux :)
The PMCs that Erik Prince has are primarily doing oilfield and oil worker protection in places like Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Same for mining facilities.
Seems more likely to be due to Uber failing to really penetrate the market. There are a number of markets where they’re really a distant second to Bolt or a local thing or both, and at some point they presumably have to start rationalising.
https://x.com/gergelyorosz/status/2095256757178188113
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