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Comment by ahuja_s | Hacker News Reader

I live in Singapore and Uber is a little cheaper than the excellent cab services which operated here even before Uber. There is a big competitor to Uber here called Grab. I switched to Uber because their service is good, drivers are gracious and cars are nice and they give me good offers. Last year I took 300 Uber rides, never once taking the usual Comfort Delgro Cab because their drivers suck. If prices were the same, I would pick an Uber over the traditional cab over 90% of the time due to nicer drivers and service consistency across geographies. The rest of the 10% is when I urgently just need to hail a cab.

I don't think you meant to say that Uber won't be a success. You probably meant that you feel it's over valued. Uber is a success. People love it. They pay surge prices for it. I do it all the time. It MAY be over valued but it is already a success. wake up.

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It lost 2-3 billion dollars last year and shows no signs of improving its margins anytime soon. How is that a success?

They created a product that people love. I live in Mexico City and my experience is similar to the one described in Singapore plus the fact that, so far, nobody has ever been kidnapped while hailing an Uber.

Riding a cab has gone from slightly dangerous and more often than not displeasing experience, to having a private driver that knows exactly where I want to go and how to get there. Besides, not having to use cash is a great plus as well.

So there you go, maybe not in the US, but in many countries where the taxi industry totally sucked, Uber has already succeeded big time.

> I live in Mexico City and my experience is similar to the one described in Singapore

same in brazil. my parents never took cabs and now they are using uber for everything (since they are getting older and don't want to drive everywhere).

So there you go, maybe not in the US, but in many countries where the taxi industry totally sucked, Uber has already succeeded big time.

Succeeded at making money? Or, failing that, succeeded at building a business that someday may be able to make money?

They could double the price of a taxi ride and most people would still use Uber. So, I don't know if they are losing money in Mexico, but even if they are they could turn it around today.

So then Amazon is not a success either?

First off, Amazon never lost a billion dollars in a single year.

More importantly, Amazon could have been profitable for much of the time. Amazon was losing money because they were taking the profits from they successful ventures and pouring it into new ventures.

With Uber, what change do they make right now to switch to a very profitable company? Amazon had that option, Uber does not.

...Increase prices?

Amazon's position in the market is so weird that Matt Levine calls it a charity for the American consumer sponsored by the stock market. But it's at least clear how Amazon could generate money long-term; if it wasn't, nobody would invest in it.

I think you mean Yglesias?

Yes, Levine quoted Yglesias

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-02/quant-awa...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/04/12/amazon_as_cor...

Can you explain what Amazon's end game will be?

Amazon's endgame is to become the retailer, the only one.

It's customers are fucking g happy. What's the end game you're talking about? Have you invested into them? As a customer I LOVE them. As a student, I studied them in HBX.

In 2015, Amazon made $596,000,000 on revenues of $107,006,000,000, or a profit margin of 0.6%. In 2012 and 2014, it lost money. How long should investors wait to see a real profit? Should they expect revenue growth to continue indefinitely?

How much profit should they make?

If there was a machine where you could insert a 20 dollar bill and it spit out the 20 and an additional 12 cents, would you not use that machine?

How much would you pay to buy one?

Except that if you buy the Berkshire Hathaway machine you'll put in $20 and get back a dollar.

I dunno, how much money would you keep in a savings account that yields 0.5% APR?

I have lived in both the states and in Singapore (current). I've taken approximately the same amount of Ubers as you but it's also because its prohibitively expensive to own a car here. For the benefit of others: it can cost upwards of $100k to own a car, and that's for a cheap ass car and you've a maximum tenure of 10 years on that.

I've to agree with you on the other points however, traditional cab companies have shitty drivers who would mostly refuse to take you to your destination. Grab car drivers are usually rude (relatively) and unpleasant to deal with. I seriously wonder why this is so, in an island as small as ours and with both companies marketing to the same pool of potential drivers.

If my business is standing on the street corner handing people Saudi gold, people will love me. For a while. That doesn't make me a successful business.

I lived a short while in Chiang Mai Thailand. At the time Uber was just getting started and Grab was WAY better than Uber. I really wanted to like Uber there, but after about 5 times of the drivers 1. not finding me (yes, even with GPS), 2. not showing up at all after a long time waiting, or 3. not knowing where they were going.. I gave up. It seemed that they lacked training and that they were mostly trying to get the bonus that Uber was offering in the introductory period. Grab was much more established and worked really well.

That said, the past few times I've landed in an airport and need a ride to my hotel, I didn't bother with Uber or Grab (in Thailand and various US states), because it was just so much more convenient to walk to the curb where the taxi mafia was congregated, tell them my hotel, and be on the way.

I was in Chiang Mai for most of December and I wonder how Uber can be successful there. The songthaews and tuktuks are so cheap that I almost always took those. The only time I took Uber was to go to the airport, since I carefully planned my money so that I wouldn't have any cash left over and Uber would charge my credit card and all the other options would require a variable amount of cash.

That said, the Uber was reasonably cheap, quick and friendly, so their service seems to have improved there.

That's weird, I was there from October through just a few days ago. So we had a much different experience with Uber.

But yes, I loved the songthaews there.

> but it is already a success. wake up.

Your statement depends on what people define as 'success'. Is Uber a product people love? Yes. So, by a product measure it's a success. Is it currently or will it be in the future a profitable business (without VC money subsidies)? We don't know, so therefore people have differing opinions on whether it will be a successful business.

People also loved products like Napster and The Pirate Bay, but does it mean they were a success? I'd say that they're not successful businesses, but were successful products that many people used.

> excellent cab services

> their drivers suck

haha.

a lot of people use uber here. I think they've got a better hold on the market than grab.

if only the uber drivers will stop driving by gps because their mapping software is always wrong.

I live in India and Uber / Ola (Uber's domestic competitor) are a godsend! In India we have Autos(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_rickshaw) And the drivers were (are?) ill mannered, demand exorbitant fairs. But Uber changed that. Since the drivers know that the ratings matter, they are nicer. Yes, one in a while you still get a negative experience, but as a whole. it's whole lot better.

For most of the Indians, cars rides are expensive. But I wouldn't mind if the Autos operate the same way Uber for cars work. Ola is already offering Auto rides in the same manner.

Even though I own a car, I don't enjoy driving because of traffic conditions and use Uber and Ola just because I don't feel like driving on a particular day.

I desperately hope that the Uber model succeeds in India, going back to what it was before is too painful to think about.

I haven't taken that much taxi in SG but never had a bad driver. Always polite, speak excellent English and knows where to go. Unlike in MY. They are however often very hard to find. So many taxis but whenever I seem to want one they are all occupied.

But the OP is arguing that it is unsustainable because of subsidies. If I created a business where I give you $100 a day for being a nice person, you would think it's great. But that will not be a successful business most likely.

I know Singapore has very high car taxes, but is 300+ rides really less expensive than owning a vehicle yourself?

300 rides x average of approx. $15 per ride = $4500.

Cars here require a certificate of entitlement that cost around $100k and only last for 10 years if im not mistaken. So if he continued taking 300 rides every year for 10 years it would still be half as expensive.

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