I live in Austin and have been seeing ads from new ride sharing companies. I'm starting to think that what Uber and Lyft do isn't all that special. Aside from having the most drivers today, is there anything else that makes Uber unique?
While I'm grateful for the new ride sharing companies, I wish Uber was back. There are a lot of tiny details that Uber nailed that without, my day-to-day life requires quite a bit more mental overhead.
For example, I cannot have multiple cards on file, so I often have to remember to swap out the card before I can call a ride based on whether it's a business meeting. Uber would almost always pick me up within 3 or 5 minutes; even when the new apps show drivers right around the corner, I usually get matched with someone 15 minutes away—and the ETA is always way off. This makes scheduling things more difficult. They're quite a bit more expensive.
None of those things are deal-breakers, of course. But it's kinda like having an iPhone and then going back to a flip-phone. It still works, you're glad you can still call people, but a lot of the magic is gone. And while I know all of the companies are working hard to catch up, the edge cases are numerous enough that I don't think it's realistic for them to deliver a magical experience anytime soon.
Yeah, I can see that. If it were as easy as I initially thought it would be, then the taxi companies would have apps as good as Uber's. It's hard for me to understand why the existing taxi companies are so slow to adopt the best parts of Uber's business.
I've used Uber quite a bit and even if it were the same price or slightly more expensive than a regular cab, I would still use it because (so far) my Uber experiences have been much better than any taxi experience. I just wish Uber would either pay the drivers more or let me tip through the app.
You can leave it at that. Tipping is an odious practice that needs to go away. Actually, I would like to extend that wish to all the employees of the service industry if it means getting rid of tipping and yes, I would gladly accept the resulting higher prices, we are all (inefficiently) paying the supposed difference anyways.
edit: I use the time to clear out email, so it has a not-insignificant time benefit as well, but it's still a win on the raw numbers.
It's hard to imagine that you never leave the house except for work.
When we go out in the evenings, I usually order a beer or a cocktail with dinner, so I'd rather not drive; and parking in Austin during the weekend hours can easily be more expensive than the Uber rides. We categorize that under our Entertainment budget because we'd still take Uber for nights out even if we owned a car, but even if I recategorized it as transportation it wouldn't affect the results of the equation.
A large part of my lifestyle is subsidized by investors trying to capture a global market (Uber, Instacart, to some extent Amazon), and I recognize that this may not last forever, but I'm happy to game the system while I can.
- Grocery (once a week, group buying). We initially walked the 20 minutes (exercise?) but was $5 lyft / uber away.
- Gym, Beach, Marina, often independent, used Uber Pools, occassionally ran the distance.
- Office, we'd carpool and was about $10/day in commuting cost.
- Getting to specific game day bars, beaches was probably the most expensive (and most traffic) that we encountered, typically $10-$30 each way.
- Getting downtown or to Sunset was $10/way one night thanks to Lyft. Pools / Lines were often cheap like this.
Lyft weekday promotions helped a bunch. I was very surprised at the end of the program when I realized that other than the commutes to work (otherwise expensed), my regular trips to the beach, downtown la, and Sunset, I spent < $200 on all trips.
* Used a Zipcar one day to go to Ronald Reagan Museum * Rented a car one weekend to go rock climbing.
Proof of negation of the TP using counterexample:
1. Monthly insurance cost for own vehicle = a few hundred dollars = $k. Monthly insurance cost for Uber = $0.
2. Assume an extreme case where you don't travel at all in the entire month. Total cost of transportation for owning a car = $k. Total cost of transportation for Uber-ing everywhere = $0.
3. Assuming that the costs are proportional to the kms you have traveled you get this: http://imgur.com/A61dXx9
The inflection point where Uber is no longer cheaper than driving is (k / (mu - mc)), where mu and mc are the slopes for the lines for Uber and own car, and "k" is the insurance intercept.
They're not more expensive than possessing a car and keeping it available for your use. That generally includes capital or leasing costs, maintenance, insurance, licensing/registration, storage/parking, etc.
Edit: Expanding on this from a real keyboard, costs include:
* Capital or leasing on the vehicle itself (generally at least $200/month for several years even for cheap new vehicles, possibly lower for used)
* Maintenance for the vehicle - low for new ones, higher for older/used ones
* Insurance - again higher for new ones and lower for older ones,
* Licensing/registration. A drivers license is a wash (you'd probably have a comparably-priced state ID) but at least in Illinois registration is > $100/year, varying some by vehicle.
* Storage & parking. This includes any use of paid parking lots (not uncommon in cities), but may also include the cost of your garage, or the time cost of finding and using street parking.
Uber and Lyft are dominant basically because they buy the market by offering drivers (and to a lesser extent passengers) financial incentives.
Source: worked at Flywheel for a couple of years, built said software as part of a small team.
It isn't the first 80%. It's the last 20%.