Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service
wsj.com
wsj.com
http://www.wsj.com/articles/is-uber-a-friend-or-foe-of-carne...
And that reason became pretty obvious when they started testing self-driving cars recently in Pittsburgh:
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/ubers-driverless-rides-i...
I don't think Uber started out with this plan, but clearly at some point they realized that they had to be a two-stage company like Netflix. Google's doing the same thing, but with a different stage 1.
My bet, though, is that Uber wants to own the market, while Google is going to go after a platform play. I expect it to be sort of like Android. Google will make the software and own important parts of the consumer relationship. But most people who can manufacture cars or otherwise acquire large fleets at low costs will not want to do the software work, so they'll partner with Google.
So yes, in the same way that Android was about taking on Apple in a way that makes decent money and keep Google from getting cut out of an important piece of the tech/human intersection, this is ultimately about taking on Uber.
This is proper "sharing economy" where the other party isn't doing this to make a living out of it. I wonder who will Airbnb the Airbnb and is that at all possible.
The end will be the same anyways - both companies are competing for a spot on the customers mobile phone so that they could provide a service when autonomous cars are up and running.
I think it's called "couchsurfing".
most of the people i know who couchsurf do so very regularly and travel a lot whereas myself and my general perception of airbnb users is that it ranges from super casual and not frequent to very hardcore and frequent.
i'd figure the overlap would only be at the high end of frequency of travel.
Capitalism is about disruptive innovation...
Also, I do not think that there is any significant network or engineering value in the app itself. If Google or Tesla finally starts delivering self-driving car service for 10x less than Uber, users will flee in a jiffy.
Given cab drivers make a pittance after the cost of the LPG and insurance, little disruption in the industry other than to share a ride home with a stranger that possibly works in a similar industry and/or similar locations, and smalltalk happens.
Current China eliminating blue collar jobs after they've already been decimated by modernisation over the past 3 decades is pretty unlikely.
I wonder if this was a similar play as when they opened that 411 service back in the day. Turned out, they were using it as a way to amass a large collection of voice samples.
I kinda wonder how valuable ride sharing data would be. They might necessarily have to make a profit directly on that. It might have something to do with their self-driving cars. For example (just randomly spouting off), knowing where people want to ride towards the same direction might inform how to deploy a fleet of self-driving taxis.
[0] - https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/06/google-maps-on-mobile-gets...
Funny because that is Lyft's (né Zimride) original model. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Holy crow, I've always seen it spelled née, and sure enough, it's because it's almost always used when referring to a woman's name before marriage. Turns out né exists for men! Are companies masculine, then?
(Gendered languages belong in the dumpster of history.)
I can't help but to think of Ford Prefect's Electronic Thumb from H2G2.
In this particular case Google would have so spend a shit ton of money on advertising, and it's not guaranteed to work. They failed with Google+.
>Google would have so spend a shit ton of money on advertising
How so? if it's 20% cheaper I doubt it will need much advertising at all.
It's the usual marketplace model.
Well, I checked the terms of use of Uber API and competing with Uber is forbidden...
Other night a pizza server at a shop next door said she was very slow. It's summer and nobody buys pizza. She added it costs her $10 one way cab ride and makes nothing for the day.
This is the type of news I would post on employee board when it comes to my area.
For the driver that means defraying the cost of a commute in return for going a few minutes out of his way. True ride-sharing, not a gypsy-cabs-plus-reputation network. It's more akin to a transport-specific Splitwise than to Uber.
What Google gets out of this is a real-world model of on demand automated transport patterns, pricing, demand, etc.
I see this as something similar. But I was never able to find someone to car pool with.
e: Addressing common replies:
"This is for people commuting already" -- okay, point taken; my point about Uber/Lyft still stands.
"Tipping isn't obligatory" -- yes, it kind of is. Uber used to bar drivers form asking, but they recently lost a lawsuit over that rule and so now Uber drivers will occasionally ask for tips (which will cause it to slowly become the norm). When tipping becomes the norm, the low-base-wage of the driver becomes less of an 'issue', and then tipping becomes even more of a necessity as that is where the drivers will make their actual margins.
Waze Carpool is more targeted at actual ridesharing (and designed specifically to support to/from work carpooling), not a taxi service using "ridesharing" as a misleading name.
Its not really trying to compete with price as it is offering a slightly different service (its kind of like UberPOOL, except its really focusing on -- though not strictly limited to -- the case where the driver is also one of the passengers with a need to go to the destination, or from the source, or, ideally, approximately both.)
In Germany for example ride sharing under the legal definition requires that the driver doesn't make any profit and really just takes people along. If that's the case, you don't require additional/different insurance etc.
My mistake here was forgetting the echo chamber that is HN. There is a world outside SV, but it doesn't really matter.
either you create a cultural norm where tipping isn't allowed or expected, which Uber has effectively done, or you have a situation like restaurants, where the tip may as well be part of the price, unless you're cool being the asshole who doesn't tip, which most people aren't.
if tipping is an option, through a kind of cultural game-theoretic pressure, the situation will always devolve into the restaurant norm. at least that's how it is in the states, and short of massive cultural changes i don't see that changing.
In the UK tipping in restaurants is optional and, while it sounds really weird to say this, I don't think the waiters and waitresses seem to care either way. I don't get a different reaction from them if I tip or if I don't. They don't seem elated if I tip a lot or disappointed if I tip a little. Nobody seems to care and this situation seems stable as it's been this way as long as I've been an adult.
Also, when I go to the US with 5-10 year intervals the norms for tipping seem to have always crept upwards.
Then they raised the minimum wage. So restaurants added a 20% service fee on to cover it. Okay, fine. That's actually the outcome I wanted.
Except some places left the tip line. So now people still tip out of obligation.
Never ends.
Canada is the same way, do not tip 0% in Canada unless the waiter was abjectly rude or spilled something on you.
Tipping in restaurants and taxis is kind of expected in Romania, too (more exactly the capital, Bucharest). Granted, the taxi fares are ridiculously low, so even with a 15-20% tip the price only starts approaching a "normal" level. Restaurants' tips are more like 10%. I also tip my barber/hairdresser, but that's because he does a really good job.
all the (many) wait-people here in the states i've known really dislike it, and it's generally considered either clueless, rude, or stingy not to tip at least 15%.
i'm curious about things like:
1. if you go out with your friends to the pub, and don't tip on your bill, are you friends giving you shit about it or otherwise commenting or silently judging?
2. if you were on a date, would she notice and judge if you tipped poorly? (i know many women for whom it would be an instant deal-breaker here, essentially a social signal of many other undesirable traits)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12tipping-t.html?...
Also try getting Scottish people to tip with game theory and see how that turns out..
Instituting a living wage would in no way prevent you from working extra and being paid extra for that work. I'm inclined to believe you haven't actually researched what a living wage is or would entail to enact, because the inaccuracy of the claim you're making is egregious.
While I believe people should be paid fairly, it would be difficult to implement and carry out successfully as history has proven.
Everyone wants to change the world, but how many people will actually pick up a stray piece of trash and throw it in a bin?
In many/most states, the minimum wage for a variety of jobs is not in the range of "livable". For example, minimum wage for restaurant jobs in Georgia is $2.13/hour [1]. They actually don't "get paid enough for this shit," so their attitude actually matches reality. Tipping is a necessary component of the compensation if we want to continue our practice of letting certain employers have exemptions from labor laws.
EDIT: $2.13/hour is $340.80 per month, if you are given enough hours to make full-time. Taxes etc. come out of that (you will probably see some of that money again when you file your taxes, for all the good it will do then).
(Yes, I know the employer is supposed to top-up the staff to e.g. $7.25/hr. That does not always/usually/ever happen.)
You are correct that paying people more than a pittance changes how they view their jobs.
This might sound like the Union runs an extortion scheme, but interestingly the employers organizations are supportive as it means a lot less regulation and more flexibility. The result of this model is a pretty flat structure in comp: a nice university degree will likely not make you twice the hourly wage of the lowest diner job in the country.
I'm not saying that we should continue to screw over people who rely on tips as living wage. What I'm saying is that if one wants to have the overwhelmingly warm service Americans expect in restaurants, we need to keep tipping. After all, we've heard anecdotes about service in Europe being poor.
Yes yes, they don't tip in Asia, and service is excellent. Don't forget the social fabric is different there.
"Tipping isn't obligatory" -- yes, it kind of is. Uber used to bar drivers
form asking, but they recently lost a lawsuit over that rule and so now Uber
drivers will occasionally ask for tips (which will cause it to slowly become
the norm).
If this becomes the norm, tipping will become mandatory because all the drivers will know who tips and who doesn't and will adjust service (or lack of service) accordingly.
Disclaimer: I'm a Google employee but have never heard anything about this before.
No, it really isn't. I've never been asked by an Uber driver for a tip, nor would I give a tip if asked. In fact, I'd probably dock a point from their rating.
Put the onus back on the company to pay an honest wage, and let everybody pay the same price for a ride (rather than tippers subsidizing rides for non-tippers).
I don't feel good about it. How can someone provide good service if they're taking home so little? I fear that soon Uber will be overrun with poor service because all the quality drivers have been driven out by low costs.
[edit] NYC, and the drivers are pretty candid about still picking up rides from black car dispatchers and competitors. I have no reason to question their honesty.
Every time I get in some yellow cab that's a 5 year old Crown Vic with torn seats, rattles everywhere, and a driver that can't (or won't) tell me how much my ride is going to cost, I remember why I normally take Uber.
Safeway bucks that observation. Safeway managed to irritate every employee, including my deceased father. He hated that company with a passion. In his late twenties, he became an electrician, and loved the work, and union pay.
Many taxi services have been their own racket. But I don't view the above as moving to a better, sustainable model -- not at the current prices.
It seems this -- Uber drivers earning more than the profit/cost structure merits -- is a stopgap towards cornering the driverless car livery ("taxi", etc.) services, at which point labor expenses significantly decline and the old-school competition has been severely crippled if not eliminated.
P.S. I'm not a user of Uber -- or Lyft, etc. Suburban car owner. By I don't like market manipulation and monopolization -- good things don't tend to follow. Even as I watch one friend benefit quite significantly -- and essentially -- from the current Uber presence.
For their sake, as well as the larger picture, I wouldn't mind being proven wrong. But I've yet to reach any level of comfort with much of these "sharing" services/businesses.
.. not sure how this is sustainable but I'm enjoying it while it lasts.
http://uberestimate.com/prices/
But no, probably not sustainable (for Uber):
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-25/uber-loses...
There might be a case for that service but the drivers are so rare that it's hard to say.
Where it gets weird is when people take the taxi instead. This means the Uber driver loses $15, but you don't have to see him...
I'm pretty sure Uber drivers make more than minimum wage (barely) after expenses and it seems like much more comfortable and fun than flipping burgers or working at Walmart.
The driver can put up a sign asking for a tip, but I don't feel obliged to give one.
I don't tip the cook in a restaurant. I don't tip the receptionist at a hotel. I don't tip the farmhands who picked the vegetables I eat at the supermarket. I don't tip the truck driver who unloaded all the goods I buy. I wish all of these people earned a higher wage and I'd be happy to pay more at the point of sale, but I wish the practice of tipping disappeared.
I routinely take Uber and Lyft and have never been asked for a tip. I never plan to tip either because it's not part of the deal. It's the company's job to provide them a livable compensation, not mine. Not tipping is already culturally entrenched in these services, so them suddenly trying to make it a cultural norm isn't going to work because most of us are against tipping culture.
I'm not being sarcastic. I honestly don't know how I feel about it either.
EDIT: re: hotel tipping: I tend to stay at the same hotels when I travel. Still, tipping maids and other helpful people should be done regardless of expectations of good service during future stays.
I've never had anyone ask me for a tip. I think that ship has sailed as far as Uber goes. It's now the expectation that you don't tip uber drivers. Hard to see how that changes.
Uber and Lyft drivers earn decently ($20/hr+ in the bay area, $30/hr+ in NYC), and I wouldn't consider tipping them if I was earning similarly/less than they are. OTOH, if you're a high earner and paying a tip doesn't make a difference to you financially (but does to someone else), then you should do it!
$20/hr+ in the bay area, $30/hr+ in NYC
From the article:
"Heyride, a ride-sharing program, was forced to shut down operations in the city because drivers did not have permits, the Austin Transportation Department said. The city says when drivers can set their own rates and earn a profit, that’s when they’re treated like taxi cabs.
“It’s not friends taking friends, it’s the money being exchanged, the compensation,” said Steve Grassfield, with The Austin Transportation Department.
With Carma Carpool, riders pay 20 cents per mile and drivers earn 17 cents per mile to pay for gas and car maintenance. Federal regulations say drivers who earn anything less than 56 cents per mile are not considered vehicles-for-hire."
In what way is it obligatory? The vast majority of Uber riders don't tip, and have no intention of doing so.
In other countries, tipping isn't as common and can be even be seen as rude (in Japan, for example).
You don't tip Uber drivers. I'm sure some small percentage of people do, but it's definitely not the expectation.
(Taxi drivers, on the other hand, do expect tips.)
Do you think that if they received, let's say twice the salary Google intends to give them, they wouldn't "expect" a tip anymore?
It's up to you whether you want to tip or not. If he "expects" it and makes it known, give him a lower rating.
The market can sort this out for you.
No it's not, and you're ruining things by tipping.
I hate tipping.
\s
(I know "living wage" is the hip buzzword, but it is a poor phrase, is hyperbolic, and creates a false picture that when these workers finish their shift they are going to go find some secluded gutter to die in from malnutrition)
"No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country."
— President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933
I'm not in the habit of saying "living wage," but if I wanted to say, "a person can't live on 5 dollars an hour" in a pithy manner, that's what I'd say. A literal-minded person might get annoyed at that, but most people understand that it's an ethical statement, not a literal one.
> seems like Uber's leadership position is at risk
You could have said that about any of the ex-Googlers who went off to try to develop a 'better' Google. At this point, Uber have the mindshare, at least amongst everyone I know, so unless Google have a 10x improvement planned then they'll just compete in Uber's shadow like the rest.
[1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/alphabet-unveils-program-for-car...
I can't help but wonder if this ride sharing is a similar move. It sounds like a stepping stone for the kind of services that might be practical with self-driving cars. There might be some angle on collecting data that isn't obvious.
However, how can it be viable to the driver. I understand if someone is already going in that direction they can make a little money but if I want to live on it (like Uber is pitching) will the price be enough?
It sounds like Google might be tapping into the strong community that exists rather than starting something new.
It's extremely popular nonetheless.
They have the ability, but whether they actually violate everyone's privacy is hopefully a theoretical matter.
Most people are decent. If they are giving you a ride in their private car, then consider that they are taking a chance on you as well.
Uber is not part of the "sharing" economy. This is.
If Google starts charging a premium for consumers like Uber who use its services with a major commercial reason, Uber wouldn't be able to sustain.
From my office in the Watergate, it takes a good 5-7 minutes to call an Uber/Lyft (some GPS/app bug causes people to drive right by and end up on Rock Creek Parkway). If it wasn't $3 to my apartment in Gallery Place, I'd just grab a cab from the cab line.
Because the middle man is charging nothing, and its easier to use the middle man to find people that are good car pool partners by both desired arrival/departure time and where you are going to work from or going after work than trying to ask everyone around your work, and the tax consequences of accepting money to defray expenses don't change with or without the presence of the middle man.
If Waze becomes the "I need a ride " or "I'm coming to work, want me to pick you up?" handy-dandy awareness machine that is dynamic (key point) and universal (in everyone's pocket) then i think it becomes another management-benefit tool for the scores of workers that do not own cars in areas without transportation.
Before I go to my retailer I'll check waze to see if anyone I know needs a ride. Likewise when I drive home.
This is missing from our engagement with employees - a way to help with transportation.
I hope waze works the way I think it will.
I wonder if this will make it harder for GV to participate in any sort of funding rounds.
[1] "Google Ventures invested $258M at $3.7B post-money valuation in 2013" -- https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Uber-does-Google-ow...
[2] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-03/uber-raise...
Google and Uber started in different places, and therefore there didn't seem to be a conflict 5-10 years ago. i.e. Google = fully autonomous car research; Uber = practical service for transportation.
However, as they both iterate and approach their logical local-optimums they find more and more that there is actual competition. i.e. Uber and also Google = a service "driven by" a fully autonomous car fleet.
I think this has more to do with a self-driving car play than anything.
Can I tell uber I want to share a ride to the airport with any stranger? (my taxi co will do that)?
Yes, but this is a ridesharing service, not a taxi service.
> Can I tell uber I want to share a ride to the airport with any stranger? (my taxi co will do that)?
Isn't that exactly what UberPOOL is?
I agree that uberPool and this is much more ridesharing.
Yes you can, but the logistics is up to you.
WRT to Google's model, the commute is being shared.
Yes.
If what the article says is true about google vetting problem drivers with mere user reviews, they don't know what they are getting into.
I think the idea is great of course, and I imagine it would cut down on freeway traffic during commute hours. It just seems that the legal web of trust, insurance, safety, etc will be a lot to handle.
I've never used it, but as far as I've heard it works well. I don't think there's any compulsion to pay, but maybe it's generally polite to offer a few dollars for gas. This sounds like a more automated version of that.
>Auto insurance policies in many states including California typically allow not for profit, share-the-expense carpooling. Waze Carpool is designed to help riders and drivers share the cost of carpooling on a given ride. It is not designed to allow a driver to make a profit or to earn a salary. Payments to the driver, by the rider, will always be less or equal to the cost of the particular drive, taking account of such factors as gas and vehicle depreciation.
And I think you underestimate how much google knows about us. Do you think one can't tell a.... "problematic person" from the shit they're watching on youtube?
Umm, who reading this article doesn't know who Google is? That construction is almost always there to let you know who some no-name subsidiary or division of a much more well-known company is.
In this case it functions in the reverse if at all--reminding people that Alphabet is a thing, in case you didn't know.
Anyway, I just think that's funny.
So, basic question, What is the difference between Alphabet and Google again? It seems like everything is still being branded as Google. I know it's slightly off topic, but I am honestly confused as to when something is not Google.
"Our reported segments are described below:
• Google – Google includes our main internet products such as Search, Ads, Commerce, Maps, YouTube, Apps, Cloud, Android, Chrome, Google Play as well as hardware products we sell, such as Chromecast, Chromebooks and Nexus. Our technical infrastructure and newer efforts like Virtual Reality are also included in Google. Google generates revenues primarily from advertising, sales of digital content, apps and cloud offerings for enterprise, as well as sales of Google branded hardware.
• Other Bets – Other Bets is a combination of multiple operating segments that are not individually material. Other Bets includes businesses such as Access/Google Fiber, Calico, Nest, Verily, GV, Google Capital, X, and other initiatives. Revenues from the Other Bets are derived primarily through the sales of Nest hardware products, internet and TV services through Google Fiber and licensing and R&D services through Verily."
Stop this bullshit tipping. These people made a choice and then chose to complain about it.
Also, this only seems to occur with FOH employees in the restaurant industry. You don't really hear BOH employees (you know, the people who actually do the work of cooking your food) complain.
I assume it's because servers (and I was one!) feel generally more empowered when it comes to their pay; they think complaining will accomplish something (strengthen social norms to tip), while kitchen staff know that what they get is what they get.
No doubt server pay varies wildly, but I worked at a cheap buffet essentially just bussing tables and I never made less than kitchen staff and sometimes made up to 6x what they would make in a shift - usually about 3x, and management directed that we report the minimum amount possible, to get out of their payroll tax contribution, I assume.
On top of that, employers are in fact nominally required to pay the difference between their tipped wage and the "real" minimum wage if they don't get enough tips (for some reason this isn't commonly known) to make the difference, but that situation is probably rare enough that businesses skate by without fulfilling their legal duty. [1]
Frankly, I liked waiting tables and I'd do it again if it paid as much as programming. It's not all that crappy. :) And at the same time, I have a lot less sympathy for servers than I used to. Save your sympathy for the people who are paid minimum wage and don't get tips. Yes, that server is getting $2.15 instead of $7.25, but a) the business is required to make up the difference between $2.15 + tips and $7.25 and b) no server I have ever heard of, anywhere, is making less than $7.25/hour with tips.
All: we ban accounts that repeatedly post the ugly sort of comment seen below, so please don't post those.
Unfortunately the fine subthreads like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12393884 get punished with the rest. I feel like a teacher making everyone stay late after class.
Talk about panic catch-up with no intrinsic advantage, nor vision. "Mountain View, start your photo-copiers". We know where that ends...
Larry and Sergei have shown in the past 3 years that they have no staying power on anything that isn't an obvious profit lay-up in short order. This thing will burn through cash at a rate that will make any of their other ill-fated ventures look like a bargain. I mean, UBER has already coughed 1.2 yards this year!
Smells like Google+ all over again. Isn't this the sort of sham that the Alphabet carve-out was supposed to avoid?
First mover advantage is rarely an advantage at all. My guess is that google sees this as optionality and testing to get things right like insurance etc. in anticipation of self driving cars. At the very least it allows them to extract more value from Uber when Google finally have self driving cars ready to sell them.
I really don't see how Uber is worth more than a few billion in a few years. Google is playing the long game hard and I think they are going to win here.
After Glass, G+, Fiber and possibly Boston Dynamics, I'm failing to see any moonshots living up to the hype as well. At least up until now.
When I've used Waze in the past, I notice that the default UI features cartoon spermatozoa moving around a road system. Such an aesthetic is going to be off-putting to most serious adults, but it sounds from this article that Waze is playing an important role in some actively developed Google products. I'm curious whether anyone here can shed light on the marketing strategy.