[Karl Marx]

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017...-series-defending-uber-requires-ignoring.html

Warning! This is a lengthy academic article that was just posted tonight. I'm printing this off and making myself an Ovaltine. I look forward to your constructive thoughts and opinions as we deconstruct the Uber BS narrative.

 

[Deoxlar]

Best thing to do is for Karl Marx to read and summarize the whole thing for us

 

[Karl Marx]

Best thing to do is for Karl Marx to read and summarize the whole thing for us

That was some of the best accounting I've read about Uber despite its' lack of transparency. The study by micro economist Prof. Stephen Levitt is not just suspect but worse,

"By paying Levitt to put his name on the study (and publicize it through his blogs and radio programs) Uber could create the appearance that the $6.8 billion benefit claim resulted from independent analysis that met academic standards, and knew that no one in the media would scrutinize (much less challenge) work endorsed by a famous U of Chicago professor."

Anyone who has read his "Freakonomics" book can now truly be forgiven if they found his book boring, success of the book is best a testament of the book publishers marketing department than the book itself. Yes everyone knows a Real Estate agents always hold out for more for their own house than if that agent is selling your house. To be honest only got half way through his book and the hooker story was bloody boring. I don't believe his Intermediate Microeconomics book has been all that successful, many academics consider him more hype than hope.

Most long time Uber drivers can tell you better hooker narratives. If you have a chance to buy tickets to any of his lectures I would definitely recommend taking a pass and spend your time much more enjoyably reading my Das Kapital.

"Uber has already imposed major unilateral cuts in the driver compensation levels it used to attract the drivers it needed to support its rapid growth; no one can explain why Uber wouldn't similarly reduce passenger benefits as it approaches industry dominance. There is absolutely no evidence showing how a profitable Uber could sustainably provide cities with higher quality and lower cost transport service."

This last paragraph I think sums up the entire collapse of the Uber model, if drivers aren't making even marginal living how can Uber be profitable?

We are about to witness the collapse of the biggest taxi company in modern history.

 

[Deoxlar]

Actionjax is still driving. It looks like he's tired of all the trolling on here lol

 

[Karl Marx]

One regular Uber pax told me that I was the only driver she had that has being doing Uber for more than 6 months. (2 years). I also read somewhere, I think it was the Toronto Star, that the average Uber driver lasts only 6 months. I have taken Uber as a pax only once and the driver was a part timer with only a month under his belt. Needless to say, Uber is tight-lipped about its driver retention figures.

When people start a job, they don't just up and quit if they think the money is decent and the working conditions are fair and the boss shows them respect. But if those things are missing, not only will they up and quit, they will also bad-mouth the company to their friends and relatives, thus discouraging them from seeking employment there. Apart from the drivers who get deactivated because they're simply not cut out for this type of work, this is what's been happening to Uber. Clearly, this is not sustainable.

This is why Travis is ticked-off with Trumps immigration order because he needs all the canon-fodder.....ahmmm, I mean, all the desperate immigrants he can get his hands on to replace the discouraged drivers that flipped him the bird and left to find something else that pays better. I have been on this forum for 2 years as well and pretty much all the posters that where here at the beginning of 2015 are gone. The only original posters left for the Toronto section is myself and Actionjax. And I'm wondering if ActionJax is even still driving.

Eventually, unless Uber raises the rates, they're going to run out of drivers.

I think that Travis abandoned Trump after the Kennedy Port demos and quickly felt the backlash of the Trump Muslim ban. Travis had to move fast, he hired a company in Ireland to write him a executable programme to speed up the Uber automate delete function. Riders were deleting the Uber app so quickly that the entire system was collapsing. Obviously Uber had to move fast and decisively to save its' brand from any more harmful repercussions, both at home and around the world.

As the saying goes, "All politics is local" has changed with the blatant insensitivity Travis displayed to its' drivers' and rider base. That this man is held up as a visionary business leader is a disgrace and embarrassment. This man needs to spend some serious time behind the wheel, not 2 or 3 hours but more like 40 hours and more a week for several months.

Hear this Travis, you piece of dirt, " All politics are global."

 

[Karl Marx]

One regular Uber pax told me that I was the only driver she had that has being doing Uber for more than 6 months. (2 years). I also read somewhere, I think it was the Toronto Star, that the average Uber driver lasts only 6 months. I have taken Uber as a pax only once and the driver was a part timer with only a month under his belt. Needless to say, Uber is tight-lipped about its driver retention figures.

When people start a job, they don't just up and quit if they think the money is decent and the working conditions are fair and the boss shows them respect. But if those things are missing, not only will they up and quit, they will also bad-mouth the company to their friends and relatives, thus discouraging them from seeking employment there. Apart from the drivers who get deactivated because they're simply not cut out for this type of work, this is what's been happening to Uber. Clearly, this is not sustainable.

This is why Travis is ticked-off with Trumps immigration order because he needs all the canon-fodder.....ahmmm, I mean, all the desperate immigrants he can get his hands on to replace the discouraged drivers that flipped him the bird and left to find something else that pays better. I have been on this forum for 2 years as well and pretty much all the posters that where here at the beginning of 2015 are gone. The only original posters left for the Toronto section is myself and Actionjax. And I'm wondering if ActionJax is even still driving.

Eventually, unless Uber raises the rates, they're going to run out of drivers.

The Uber narrative is constantly changing. Hedge and pension funds are all looking for triple digit returns. The fed rate will still be an anemic 1 to 3% for the foreseeable future and Travis knows investors need to invest.

Continuous year over year loses don't matter, very 'soon' we'll be into self driving cars. Most observers think that full autonomous vehicles are at least 10 years away. Travis has been tainted and blind sided by Trump religious ban and it has exposed the ugly underbelly of the gig economy. With 40 % of all jobs today forecast to disappear in the next decade it is evident that capitalism's bet on Uber is turning into a Big Gig Bust.

 

[Karl Marx]

Off topic, much?

I lodged a report. Would you please do so as well.

 

[Karl Marx]

One regular Uber pax told me that I was the only driver she had that has being doing Uber for more than 6 months. (2 years). I also read somewhere, I think it was the Toronto Star, that the average Uber driver lasts only 6 months. I have taken Uber as a pax only once and the driver was a part timer with only a month under his belt. Needless to say, Uber is tight-lipped about its driver retention figures.

When people start a job, they don't just up and quit if they think the money is decent and the working conditions are fair and the boss shows them respect. But if those things are missing, not only will they up and quit, they will also bad-mouth the company to their friends and relatives, thus discouraging them from seeking employment there. Apart from the drivers who get deactivated because they're simply not cut out for this type of work, this is what's been happening to Uber. Clearly, this is not sustainable.

This is why Travis is ticked-off with Trumps immigration order because he needs all the canon-fodder.....ahmmm, I mean, all the desperate immigrants he can get his hands on to replace the discouraged drivers that flipped him the bird and left to find something else that pays better. I have been on this forum for 2 years as well and pretty much all the posters that where here at the beginning of 2015 are gone. The only original posters left for the Toronto section is myself and Actionjax. And I'm wondering if ActionJax is even still driving.

Eventually, unless Uber raises the rates, they're going to run out of drivers.

After reading the report last night and Smith's insights into the Uber China bust, it made me recall several riders I picked up around U of Toronto a few years back. They were engineering and math grads that had been on interviews with Uber Toronto, for jobs in China, they were Chinese students, they were surprised that when they got to the office that all they were asked were math and stats questions.

Uber was probably scaling up in China too fast and didn't have the HR or human capital in place. The big competitor there is DiDi with over
300 million users across over 400 cities in China. I think that Uber's late entry meant that DiDI snapped up all the best talent first and probably paid them what they were worth.

Just the logistics alone were simply too daunting for Uber, their technology achilles heel was the sheer size of the market. The fact that disgruntled Uber riders in North America were deleting the app so quickly meant Uber had to rewrite its systems code. Uber needed an urgent patch but it had to hire a third party company to program the fix. What is obvious, even to the most casual observer is that Uber's platform is neither elegant nor robust.

Not only are the drivers underpaid but it looks like so are the system designers and programmers. Wouldn't it be sweet if some of them looked at this board and gave us some extra insights?

"The most important thing we do as human beings is ask questions." MM