[spooningtamarin]

What this means is that Uber doesn't have an efficient enough algorithm for ride sharing and they currently are giving us a solution that will optimize the routes upfront.

This will give them enough competitive data to figure out the live on-line algorithm. And of course, lowering the prices still, but it won't work for those of us who want the routes now, not planned upfront.

Way to go free datasets.

Although it's nice to know that researchers at Uber still haven't figured it out, makes the competition a bit happier.

It's quite funny how a company raises so much money, and then, after you have it you go solve the hard problems, or at least that's how Uber works.

[badusername]

What you said doesn't make much sense. Much more important than the algorithm is the market that the algorithm operates in. Uber couldn't unleash a magical algorithm and solve commuting inefficiencies for every user if there isn't a sufficient density of both riders and drivers (i.e. the main inputs to the algorithm in this case).

[spooningtamarin]

That doesn't seem to be a problem for the competition. Prices are the problem, and Uber is trying really hard to lower the prices and profit, that's why the algorithm IS most important.

I really do not understand why almost everyone thinks that "network effect" is the best thing Uber has, when it obviously isn't.

[badusername]

It is. I get an uber where I live within 2-3 minutes. And sometimes I've gotten uberPool matches essentially going to the same destination picked up within a block. These are only achievable with considerable penetration into a local market.

[spooningtamarin]

For smaller towns this effect is negligible, and there are more smaller towns than big ones.