[x_throwaway80bf]

> It's illegal in NYC for a yellow cab to refuse a ride request to any of the five boroughs...

Yes, of course. But the reason you don't see Uber drivers doing the same thing (or outright avoiding these unprofitable trips) is that they are subsidized to provide that unprofitable ride stock in areas where it's intrinsically not economical to provide ride stock. When you compel a yellow cab to do it, it means the prices have to be higher. This is why it makes less sense to compare the Uber experience to the yellow cab experience. It's like saying, "Would you prefer if a celebrity donated their first class Emirates seat to you, or a coach seat with United?" It ignores the mechanism by which the experience can be afforded to the end user (in Uber's case, huge subsidy, with no sign that the prices could be sustained absent the subsidy).

Overall I understand your comment and I realize you are aware of the counterpoints I'm making. The thing for me is that highlighting the good experience actually _is not a useful point of comparison_ with older, crappier cab experiences, specifically because everything we experience with Uber right now is inherently part of this huge ambient subsidy-based perception distortion field.

[throwaway_80bf3]

Ultimately no one did anything about the experience I brought up in the OP until Uber. This isn't an endorsement of Uber, more of a statement of fact. That anyone can now avoid all the old PITA of moving around NYC is good.

I generally don't consider the long term sustainability of the companies I purchase goods from. I do try to apply a vague and probably non-uniform ethical filter to them.

That said, I'm a software developer and my very generous salary is the indirect (via the demand curve) result of the destruction of manifold entrenched business models at the hands of VC subsidies. If I spent all day hailing yellow cabs it wouldn't make a difference.

[x_throwaway80bf]

> I generally don't consider the long term sustainability of the companies I purchase goods from.

We could probably go on at length about the moral problems here, but likely not productive in a comment thread.

> That said, I'm a software developer and my very generous salary

I'm not sure how to read that. I am also a software engineer, and even very high salaries in wealthy urban zones are typically not 'generous' in the sense that good software labor creates a vast wealth surplus for the shareholders and ownership, to such a degree that the high salaries are still not very fair.

> the indirect (via the demand curve) result of the destruction of manifold entrenched business models at the hands of VC subsidies.

Sure, but usually companies are expected to demonstrate evidence that the subsidy wouldn't be _permanent_ .. that there is evidence of a path to profitability.

The reason it's worthwhile to draw much more attention to the VC subsidy situation with Uber is that they have not been able to do that, and have instead generated unprecedented losses without making any progress towards profitability. It makes it incredibly different than typical cases when VC subsidy creates a short term runway to profitability. That is not what's going on.

[ghaff]

Perhaps I shouldn't have been, but when Dara Khosrowshahi got put in as CEO, I was a bit surprised that part of his mandate wasn't to adjust fares to the point where is was a sustainable business and, if that turned out to be impossible, turn off the lights. I know things like self-driving get held up as some sort of magical pixie dust coming RSN, but close your eyes and hope a miracle happens doesn't seem the best approach to business strategy.

[x_throwaway80bf]

Rather than 'turning off the lights' Uber is surely planning to find some means by which they can use hype to drive their valuation higher in preparation for an IPO.

When a company in this situation goes to IPO, it is generally a tool for the existing investors (who know that their investment is not worth the perceived, hype-driven valuation) to externalize the losses out onto unwitting regular folks who passively come to own Uber stock through some random 401(k) manager or speculative day traders.

Uber's IPO will inevitably be a massive wealth transfer from regular folks to Uber investors, who will get good returns on the original investment (because they will be able to sell their stock at the hype-inflated prices), followed by a massive stock correction lowering the price to the true valuation that correctly prices in this subsidy effect and the strength or weakness of the business model.

After that correction, the price movement will reflect aggregated beliefs about whether Uber can innovate and find solutions for these problems. But the problem is with that initial externalization of losses from the IPO. Once original investors and early employees are paid out of the proceeds of that, they are free to leave and don't need to care about the long-term profitability of Uber, which in turn means that as long as they can keep levering up the valuation through hype now, they don't need to fix any of the fundamental problems (and, sadly, they are acting rationally, unless people find ways to ensure their portfolios do not come to include Uber after the IPO, and refuse to buy until they wait out the correction).

[ghaff]

Your doubtless correct. To the degree there’s a trade off between management and investors getting the max cash-out and Uber operating as a profitable business we all know which will take priority.