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Comment by simonblack | Hacker News Reader

They finally worked out that Uber is a scam??

Uber is a scam soaking both drivers and investors, with the corporation's management skimming off the cream of the cash.

If Uber had to make money the same way that real taxi-companies do, the prices would rise to realistic levels and drivers would be paid a proper wage. Unfortunately for Uber in that situation, they wouldn't be able to survive financially because their clients would disappear overnight.

The only people making any money in Uber are the company's management.

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>The only people making any money in Uber are the company's management.

And engineering

Presumably the subsidized rides are a boon to the hospitality industry as well.

Interesting thought, maybe government funded taxis might be good overall, it could run at a loss, funded by taxes, pay riders real wages like other transportation with overall economic gains.

and as an optimization they might make taxis bigger, able to take more passengers, maybe even set some regular permanent popular routes

At whose expense? Investors and drivers? Not a very good deal if you ask me. I am grateful to use Uber occasionally and the price is not too bad but I always tip the drivers because I know they're getting the short end of the stick. Occasionally for me is about twice a month which amounts to maybe 24-30 times a year.

I'm not defending uber at all - just saying that in my experience, people were more willing to go to bars/restaurants after cheap rides became available.

And customers. There's really no upside to Uber. The only reason anyone ever used it was because it was a cheap cab. Increasingly that's no longer true -- and you have to wait 15-20 minutes sometimes to get a driver. With that I might as well walk or take a cab.

This is not entirely true. In the early days of Lyft in the lgbt community it was seen as a much safer alternative to taxis. Anyone who was ok with wearing a giant punk mustache on their car was pretty likely to be okay with nontraditional lifestyles, plus the rating system weeded out a lot of bad apples, versus taxi drivers who were largely immigrants from more socially conservative places, likely to harass you or worse.

The reason I used it was because Uber and Lyft offered clean, modern cars that didn’t smell like smoke.

You can tell what ripoff margins Uber expects by looking at Uber Eats. What would be a $25 pizza plus $10 delivery charge/tip turns into a $50 affair. That's a 40% surcharge for... running a website? And that's assuming they're not stealing drivers' tips as was documented a while ago (forget if it was Uber or the other one).

I only experienced this due to being the recipient of a gift card. Seriously kids, find local restaurants that have their own websites or just learn to place an order by phone. Actually support local businesses, don't just simulate it.

https://www.courthousenews.com/uber-pays-customers-344000-fo...

Uber is trying to own the customer and control the demand. If the default for the customer is to start looking on Uber Eats (rather than the restaurant's own website, google, yelp., etc.) Uber can then treat the food as a commodity and capture the lion's share of the profits.

I understand Uber's goal, which is the same as every other media^h^h^h^h^htech company. I'm encouraging customers to not get pwnt.

>Uber is a scam soaking both drivers and investors, with the corporation's management skimming off the cream of the cash.

Any time there's a business transaction involving more than two entities, at least one of them is getting fucked.

Only true assuming 0 sum games

I would instead say that if that transaction involves three parties, that's true.

If the transaction is just me and somebody else, we come to an agreement about what we think is the proper value and deliver it or not.

It's when you add a third party that's trying to skim off profit that things go to shit.

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