[ensmartha]

Not all gig companies are the same.

Uber is not a real business. Nothing about hiring a driver or maintaining or running a car is cheaper now than before Uber. Uber will never be profitable unless people are willing to pay the same amount as for regular taxis or for a private driver (i.e. expensive).

Airbnb on the other hand is a real and vastly profitable business. Yes there need to be tighter regulations because we don’t want Airbnb everywhere. That will have a non-trivial effect on its business. But even after regulation it remains a very profitable and highly appealing consumer and business product.

The other difference is that Uber just gets you from A to B. I will never remember the car nor the driver. Even if the driving experience is great, I won’t be telling my friends about it.

Airbnb on the other hand provides memorable lifetime experiences.

No comparison.

[numbsafari]

> I will never remember the car nor the driver.

I will never forget the truck, driven by a young man from Haiti whose temporary protective status was days from expiring, that had a hole rusted through the floor pan. It was a scary ass ride, but I genuinely felt he was getting as much as he could before having to go home.

I'll never forget the asshole from NJ who decided that, because we were both white, he cold go on a crazed anti-semitic rant about his home owner's association.

I'll never forget the driver who pulled his SUV over, went around the back, and took a leak--on a busy street in Philly--into a plastic bottle he had back there.

I'll never forget the young woman who couldn't hear me yelling at her to turn her music down, only to find out she was whacked out of her mind.

I'll never forget the interesting ride my wife and I had with a guy who paints commercial aircraft for a living. My wife works in aerospace, and previously in general aviation. Hearing about his contract work was pretty neat.

I'll never forget the older woman who only drives on Fridays to make enough money to go to the movies with her friends and buy popcorn. I was back-and-forth between home and away at the time, and she actually offered to let me join her and her friends at the movies that night because my wife was away and I had nothing better to do.

There are definitely forgettable rides. But I've had a good share of memorable ones myself.

It pays to be human.

[AcerbicZero]

Spot on. I've had some crazy rides, and some terrific rides, but I always treat the car and the people with respect, which hasn't lead me astray yet. If you treat your uber/lyft driver like they're glorified taxi drivers, don't be surprised when all you get out of it is a mediocre ride from point A to point B at best.

[Marsymars]

I mean, they are taxi drivers, I wouldn't even consider them glorified. I'd treat my taxi drivers with respect too. "Glorified automaton" might be a better description for how you shouldn't treat them if you want something other than a mediocre ride.

[darkwizard42]

Come on... that seems a bit dramatic. It just gets you from point A to B? It literally unlocks a ton of new point Bs that you could potentially never access or reasonable visit often.

Let's jump to Washington D.C. If you live in Northern Virginia or Maryland, you could take the Metro into town for a night out, but would almost certainly have a huge issue getting a cab driver to take you home.

Let's jump back to SF. North Beach to the Mission district. Separate sides of the town but without a cab, thats 2-3 bus transfers and forget even getting home late at night when it all stops running.

The accessibility aspect of Uber is massive. I don't think it's fair to discount that simply because the ride itself wasn't memorable...by that aspect, are airplane companies fake businesses? Does anyone really brag about the wonderful economy experience they have on Delta vs. United vs. American Airlines? Not really, but they certainly talk about the accessibility those services offer.

[xyzzyz]

> Nothing about hiring a driver or maintaining or running a car is cheaper now than before Uber.

Uber can use better scheduling algorithms to ensure higher utilization factor of their fleet. If a taxi driver is driving 50% of the time and waiting for a fare other 50%, while Uber driver is driving 90% of the time and waiting 10%, the price for Uber ride could be lower while ensuring the same income level for the driver.

[CydeWeys]

And yet, in practice, the idle and unpaid transit time for rideshare drivers is still quite high.

[chillacy]

And yet... higher than taxis?

[malandrew]

The only reason that taxis have been able to achieve any decent utilization at all is the medallion system which greatly restricts supply. Without artificially constraining supply at the expense of consumer demand, taxi utilization would be abysmal.

[Pyxl101]

It doesn't really make sense to assume that utilization would be abysmal without constraining supply. The people who operate taxis are rational actors. People who operate taxis will simply exit (or not enter) the business if they're sitting around idle and not making money.

[CydeWeys]

The problem is that vehicles in general cause negative externalities that the people driving them don't pay for, namely: Traffic congestion, localized pollution, and global pollution (CO2). FHVs are definitely susceptible to this phenomenon. Here in NYC we're having to implement a congestion tax in Manhattan to reduce the number of vehicles on the roads.

Admittedly, it is probably better to charge all vehicles for entering the most congested areas by their size (i.e. trucks pay more) than it is to pick and choose by artificially limiting just some types of vehicles while allowing unlimited numbers of others.

[Barrin92]

>Uber is not a real business. Nothing about hiring a driver or maintaining or running a car is cheaper now than before Uber.

It's even worse, outsourcing maintenance, insurance, upkeep and whatnot to individuals is on the aggregate more expensive and time consuming than having a division of labour and a company who can manage these costs in bulk.

[ensmartha]

Yup. Uber is essentially in the business of selling $10 bills for $5. Certainly there is growth, but...

[patcon]

Not defending uber here -- they're shitty, and need to be replaced by #platformcoop's imho -- but you're perhaps underselling as "just A to B" because uber isn't openning any new "B"s from your "A"s, compared to taxi's.

If you were disabled, or in an urban transit desert or underserved community, then ridesharing is the direct bringer of new B's. That's the reality for a ton of people. This is not fringe. Many people were underserved by taxi's before, and this is huge for them.

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/06/lyft-is-reach...

[lowdose]

Uber provides the network of drivers and customers. With less friction anybody can order a taxi for a fixed price that is known upfront in their app. In the old world the price of a ride was mostly determined at the end of the trip and you would be lucky if you paid a lower price than an uber.

Im not a fan of uber nor lyft, although I have to say I like the competition they offer. I hope Tesla delivers their Robotaxi and slashes the whole taxi pricing game.

[DantesKite]

Yes there need to be tighter regulations because we don’t want Airbnb everywhere.

How come? It seems like a great company to me.

[davrosthedalek]

It's not the company they don't like, it's having an AirBNB as your neighbor. Many people don't like to live next to hotel rooms.

[virtualwhys]

> How come?

Oh, I don't know, maybe because every host on the planet will "share" their room/apartment/house at exhoribtant nightly rates in lieu of renting by the month, which leads to housing shortages for people who need a place to live vs. those who are going to visit X part of the world for a few days.

The Airbnb-ification of the world is decidedly interesting for owners, while for everyone else an added hardship whether or not you use the service.