Hacker News Reader

Comment by handmodel | Hacker News Reader

Uber and Lyft are 100% a win though.

- It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before. It is safer, more predictable with timing, and more predictable with pricing.

- Uber drivers make more money today than taxi drivers used to/or do today. There are also way more job openings in this than there used to be, with less friction to get involved.

The world is not a zero sum game. Technology made this a win-win long-term although there were already some people caught in the middle with old business models. However, that really cant be a reason for us not to move on.

View on HN

> It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before.

On average, in certain locations. In others, not so much. And let's not forget surge pricing. Or people living, or wanting to get to a place, along low-profit routes. Or people with disabilities.

> more predictable with pricing

Depends. Regular taxis tended to cost a bit more, but had much lower variance.

> Uber drivers make more money today than taxi drivers used to/or do today.

That seems implausible at best.

> There are also way more job openings in this than there used to be

These aren't jobs, though. They're gigs. And highly unpredictable ones, wrt. your take-home pay.

> The world is not a zero sum game. Technology made this a win-win long-term

Absolutely true.

The problem isn't technology, it's businesses - particularly businesses that purposefully play a negative-sum game, where the losing side is society at large. Externalizing risk, costs, performing regulatory arbitrage. Making owners much better off, customers a bit better off, at the cost of making everyone else slightly worse off. And much like with greenhouse emissions - a bit here, a bit there, barely measurable puff, up until it adds up to a global crisis - these companies are killing civilized society, one VC-subsidized shiny app at a time.

I would love a carbon tax but if that existed I don't see how you can blame Uber for making society worse. In additions to all the economic gains you talk about it has saved thousands of lives a year due to less drunk driving. Additionally, it has enabled millions of people in cities to skip buying a new car/any car which saves tons of emissions.

More predictable as in you know the fair before you get in. I did have to take a taxi in Los Angeles from the airport earlier this year and the guy wouldn't tell me how much it would cost. Gave me a ballpark that was $22 less than what it ended up being.

> how you can blame Uber for making society worse

There's a long, long, long list of reasons Uber has screwed over great many people, and continues to. From regulatory arbitrage, duping drivers into unprofitable deals, lack of proper insurance, privacy violations, harassing journalists, harassing employees... This has been covered non-stop on HN for pretty much a decade now. I invite you to do some searching, and you'll quickly see how Uber is one of the most ethically challenged companies of the 21st century.

> More predictable as in you know the fair before you get in.

Yes. And by higher-variance I meant that you never know what fare you'll have to either accept, or abandon the trip. With traditional taxis, the prices are variable, but it's easier to ballpark them (at least traveling in the city you know), and they have much tighter range.

As crazy as early Uber was I still have trouble believing that taxi companies are more deserving or were better to their employees or less corrupt. There's no evidence.

I guess if you prefer being able to ballpark a taxi cost then that's cool! You can still use taxis. But most people prefer to see the price before they get in. Certainly the choice existing is better for the consumer and has helped keep taxi fares lower - even if you choose not to use an uber.

early Uber wasn’t crazy, it was a blatant and malign attempt to use cheap capital to monopolize an existing sector. Uber is and was always about as close to evil as a company can be without selling opioids or nicotine.

I know me and you are not going to see eye-to-eye but I have trouble seeing how Ubers are more monopolistic than taxi companies which wanted a cap on the number of permitted taxi's per city - when they already had all the permits/medallions owned themselves.

Taxi companies (note the plural) were obviously not monopolies and the medallion systems generally required diversity of holders. That is not at all what Uber was up to. Uber was doing what used to be called dumping to destroy the incumbents.

Stop defending Uber. Even if you work for them it is incumbent on you as a citizen to be honest about what they were doing.

> As crazy as early Uber was I still have trouble believing that taxi companies are more deserving or were better to their employees or less corrupt. There's no evidence.

Do you have any evidence, for any taxi network in any city on the planet, of that taxi network doing anything even remotely as illegal or antisocial as Uber has been (and still is) doing? Uber's transgressions are well documented, there is great many of them, and quite a few were done at scale.

For the "deserving" part - they were there. Good or bad, I don't think any business deserves being steamrolled by an aggressive foreign multinational corporation, with practically infinite budget to undercut competitors and keep law enforcement at bay. Local businesses don't get to break the law without impunity.

For being better to their employees, I honestly don't know. But in all the rides with traditional networks I took over two decades of my life, I don't remember any driver actually complaining about their job. Ironically, the drivers of Uber-like[0] services keep complaining all the time - mostly about constantly changing terms of contracts, and constantly testing new kinds of customer acquisition schemes, that tend to take away money from the drivers.

> But most people prefer to see the price before they get in.

I never said I didn't want it either. I like this feature - and guess what, I had that, way before Uber was a thing, thanks to a private company that fought for improvement in transport regulations. That's how I know sociopathy wasn't necessary to disrupting the taxi market.

[0] - I don't use Uber itself, it's a matter of principle.

> it has saved thousands of lives a year due to less drunk driving

According to Uber?

> Additionally, it has enabled millions of people in cities to skip buying a new car/any car which saves tons of emissions.

Citation needed. I believe the last analysis I read showed that most people used Uber etc to replace transit or walking, which means it adds to emissions.

I've used taxis in multiple cities that I booked through an app and got a fare ahead of time. At this point Uber is "a taxi, but with no guarantee of quality* and no cap on how many of them are creating traffic"

*GPS routing does no good when the driver clearly can't read a map and doesn't know where they are or how to follow directions.

Yeah I don’t understand the parent comment’s gushing take on Uber/Lyft. I consider them a net positive but they are hardly a 100% win. In my area prices shot up from what they were 1-2 years ago, and many drivers barely break even (if they do) once you take into account maintenance costs on the car they drive.

Do you think taxi drivers are making more money than uber drivers considering they:

- Taxi drivers (outside of NYC) in the US are going to get less rides per hour than uber drivers

- Taxi drivers traditionally have to give a larger share to the taxi company than uber drives give to Uber. If they are independent then they have identical car expenses as an uber driver.

I 100% believe that a lot of Uber drivers barely break even. I guess I'm fine with that - I bet if you try to do that 9-5 and can't do your own car maintenance you are going to be inefficient at it. I had a friend in Los Angeles who would only work nights, was fine working 2am, and could do basic tire/oil/car repair. He made 2x what he had been making as a busboy at a restaurant. I don't see why this is considered a bad option for people, especially since he enjoyed the flexibility.

He wore down his car and had to pay higher insurance. He ended up making slightly over 9 dollars an hour. Better than a busboy.. perhaps but at least after bus boying he will have a car that still works.

I can't claim to know all his finances - but his car was a 10 year old ford sedan that must have cost less than 9k when he started. Considering he did Uber for multiple years and the car is still his vehicle I'm pretty sure it is mathematically impossible that depreciation could make it a bad deal - or even close to a bad deal.

The alternative to surge pricing before rideshare was pretty much just not being able to find a taxi, unless you happened to get extremely lucky. Have you ever tried to hail a cab in Manhattan right after it starts to rain?

> On average, in certain locations. In others, not so much. And let's not forget surge pricing. Or people living, or wanting to get to a place, along low-profit routes. Or people with disabilities.

You can always take a regular cab. Low profit routes were pretty much impossible to get pre-Uber. I am almost certain that Uber is more likely to obey disability laws than "Joe's taxi" with a few cars.

> Depends. Regular taxis tended to cost a bit more, but had much lower variance.

My experience with cabs is calling a dispatcher while in route and getting a price. I was charged $30 for a two mile trip to the train station before. No reasoning. Also they were much less likely to pick up minority passengers, or people in poorer neighborhoods. Also "credit card machine was broken" very often. Also you don't know the route the driver will take. I guess my experience with cabs pre-Uber was different from yours, but it was incredibly high variance.

> That seems implausible at best.

Many places you had a gatekeeper. You can't just ride a taxi, and would have to purchase a medallion or sign on to an existing vendor where there's much less competition. They would also be much less flexible with hours

The purpose of the medallions, in theory, is to improve the chances that the average cab driver can make a living wage. Can the average Uber driver live a middle class income from this “gig”?

> When accounting for the ride-sharing company’s commissions and fees, vehicle expenses and a modest health insurance package, Uber drivers end up earning just $9.21 in hourly wages, according to a new study from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning nonprofit think tank based in Washington, D.C.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-how-much-uber-driv...

the average cabby can't buy a medalion, he therefore has to pay a fee to someone who owns a car with a medalion to rent the car for a period of time (+ probably paying the owner a percentage of his take). As opposed to using his own car and keeping everything that uber lets him to keep which might be less than what the medalion owner would have taken. hence, increase in money into pocket for the uber/lyft driver.

with that said, this is all supposition, i just find it a reasonable argument.

I believe they could - and they took out quite horrifically large loans to do so.

It maybe made sense though, as your payment was your license to work, and selling the medalion on was your retirement plan. Uber screwed this up - but my feelings are mixed.

The sharecropper / feudal lord model.

The American Dream Model.

> The purpose of the medallions, in theory, is to improve the chances that the average cab driver can make a living wage

The problem with that is that there is a supply of cab drivers and demand for cabs that drives the price. If you put in a medallion system, the price of the medallion will be bid up such that the cab driver's wage is in line with the market wage. You can't just wave a magic wand and set prices without unintended consequences. So what happened was cab drivers had to take out massive debt to finance these medallions or work for some middle man that is essentially a financing arm. And when the price collapsed, they were stuck with this debt and some even got bailed out by taxpayers.

I wish Uber was around when I was younger. I had a car and a lot of spare time. I would have gladly accepted a low wage if I had a few hours to kill. No other job affords that flexibility which is probably why its so popular.

You can't instantly prevent all unintended consequences, but making it so you can't resell a medallion and you can't subcontract it (or harsh limits on subcontracting) would fix a lot of those issues.

> I am almost certain that Uber is more likely to obey disability laws than "Joe's taxi" with a few cars.

Knowing the lawsuits from people who've been refused rides from a regular Uber because they have a service dog, or their wheelchair 'probably won't fit' (I think I can tell you whether the wheelchair I usually put in the trunk of a car is likely to fit in your trunk, thank you), I am not.

But there are also specific accessible taxis. How do I call an Uber that will take a powered wheelchair?

UberWAV (wheelchair accessible vehicle) is a thing in “select markets”: https://www.uber.com/us/en/ride/uberwav/

No idea how it works in practice but it’s a thing in Toronto.

Because people can actually sue Uber and they can get a lot of money and publicity. You can't sue Joe's taxi. I mean you could try, but I don't think people aren't suing because they are follow all applicable laws and regulations to a tee

You don’t have to sue Joe’s taxi, you complain to the regulators and they can lose their taxi license. Generally people aren’t suing because it’s expensive and a giant pain to do, which is why having a regulatory body that will handle this stuff is better for consumers than relying on court action.

> Low profit routes were pretty much impossible to get pre-Uber.

In cities, that's absurd - car services existed for decades serving just this part of the market, and they let you schedule in advance!

In the suburbs and exurbs, probably less so, but this is where everyone has a car as a prerequisite for living in a house with a multi-car garage.

Something something rose-tinted glasses.

You could schedule in advance. Now having them actually show up? That was debatable. lol

The first Uber I ever ordered was after I had scheduled a car with one of these services and it didn't show up.

Hand to heart I’ve had more Ubers not show up (more than 5) than I did car services over several decades of NYC living. Worse they claimed I didn’t show up.

I would posit that New York city is probably the best example you could come up with in the United States. Pretty much everywhere else Uber is supreme

I don't live in New York City, but when I was there Uber was the absolute best option for our use case, because they were the only option that allowed us to ask for a toddler carseat as an extra. It was a game changer and preferred that over taxis and other car services.

Since they aren't taxis, car services can charge enough there is no such thing as a low profit route for them.

In cities, there were were either no taxis around in certain neighborhoods, or they simply would not come at all even if you called and asked the taxi company and the dispatcher told you they had sent a driver. Both of these I experienced personally.

> In the suburbs and exurbs, probably less so, but this is where everyone has a car as a prerequisite for living [...]

Sure but that doesn't work very well for when you want to spend the weekends drinking. The cities in the US that have grown the most over the last 10 or 20 years are still very much suburban and lack good public transportation. The lack of low cost and convenient transportation services quite literally resulted in fatal accidents.

Taxis, lower variance? Where? Ever had a smelly driver, or one that smokes in the car? Drives like shit? Dirty seats? With the micro entrepreneur taxi apps, it basically never happens.

It is NOT cheaper in SF. 2 miles costs at least $20 and can be as high as $40. I don't think I've been anywhere in the world where prices are that high for taxis and there are plenty of places in the world where taxis are plentiful.

I'm happy the services exist but they are not cheap, at least not here.

I’ve never had a non-surge Uber/Lyft exceed the equivalent Flywheel/street-hail in SF.

I occasionally used to try these services (I have thousands of rides so this used to be relevant). Lyft/Uber are way better.

It isn't the case they are more expensive than taxi's where I am. I take it now that isn't the case everywhere. And even in in the SF area I don't believe that taxi's would be cheaper if you lived slightly out of the core areas and had to call one to drive out to you.

I am also still extremely skeptical they contribute to higher prices though. If Uber and Lyft did not exist I believe (just a theory) that taxi prices would be much higher.

Perhaps someone who lives in a city where ubers are banned could state if taxi prices have grown over the years.

> It is NOT cheaper in SF. 2 miles costs at least $20 and can be as high as $40

Can confirm. Arrived at SFO late the other night (1130pm-ish) and Uber wanted $80 to take me from Passenger pickup, to my longterm parking lot which was probably 3 miles away.

I ended up taking a Taxi for $12 + tip.

Cab drivers had goals to own a medallion. That medallion value rose allowing someone to retire.

What we have is slightly higher pay until your car breaks. No retirement plan.

The drivers lose out.

The customer rides in someone's personal car pays a little less sometimes but a lot more (demand pricing) when they really need it.

Uber/Lift lose money on each ride but will rise prices as soon as they can once you have fewer choices.

Zero sum indeed..

Basing your retirement plan around the continuing artificial scarcity of taxi medallions is not smart. The city has no obligation to keep the medallions scarce; their value can drop to zero overnight due to changing regulations (or a drop in demand for taxi services, e.g. because a better public transportation system was implemented) and they won't owe you a dime. You'd be far better off working with Uber instead and putting the money you saved by not needing to buy a medallion into a diversified retirement portfolio.

Medallions don't come out of thin air. It's the cities that provide them. The cities want this, because taxis are meant to be a component of the city transportation system. They're not there to compete with public transit, they're there to augment it - to service the needs that a bus or a train can't. A medallion comes with a requirement to fulfill those needs, as the city sees fit.

The relationship between public mass transit, and private taxis (and private mass transit) was cooperative. The relationship between city transportation systems and Uber is hostile.

The cities don't provide medallions, they mandate them and limit the supply. The default state without the city's intervention (i.e. no medallions needed to operate a taxi) is equivalent to having a superabundance of medallions. As you say, they do this in order to bring taxis in line with their plans for city-wide public transportation. Which is not to say that they wouldn't discard the medallion system the moment something better came along to fulfill a similar role. The city has no particular interest in maintaining the market value of the medallions; they remain scarce only because the city prefers to limit the number of taxis on the roads, and as a concession to the taxi industry so that they will acquiesce to the city's rules with less of a fight. If demand for taxis drops below the number the city is willing to tolerate, for whatever reason, you shouldn't expect the city to prop up the value of the medallions just because you're counting on it as your retirement plan.

Few drivers owned a medallion. Mostly owned by large cops.

>>> Uber drivers make more money today than taxi drivers used to/or do today.

Hmmm, That must depend on the market as it's not necessarily the case based on discussions I had with both in Ottawa.

(note, when Uber first started, that was the perceived story - almost "free money!" for bored white collar workers with a car and few hours to spare here and there. I've had people in $50k, $60k cars drive me around, to "meet new people and have fun". However, once full-time professionals joined the ranks, and did math on maintenance and insurance and fuel etc, the story RAPIDLY changed).

I guess I'm skeptical that taxi driver who takes on less rides is making more money after the cut they give to their company. Or, if you were starting an independent taxi service that you'd make more money taking your own calls and doing your own maintenance anyway.

I'm not surprised its gone down - probably a sign that it used to be very profitable even if not as much so now. I do know plenty of people that can repair cars themselves (one of whom has been uber driving foe years) so perhaps it will only work out for those people. Which seems like a 100% decent outcome.

>>I guess I'm skeptical that taxi driver who takes on less rides is making more money after the cut they give to their company.

There's an implicit assumption there that taxi driver gets less rides and I don't see why that is necessarily true.

More broadly, I think both Uber and Taxi drivers have significant distribution, and it appears there are both Uber & Taxi drivers who are better or worse at maximizing their rides and income. I've seen both drivers who just "do what app/dispatch tells them" (and are constantly complaining about their income level or nature of rides), and drivers who actively seek out timing, areas and locations that give good rides. This is not the same as parking in front of hotel and hoping for a long drive - it's a fairly active dynamic work.

Overall though, active engaged Taxi drivers seemed to find it a more predictable, profitable engagement that sufficed as main income for their family; whereas I have not gotten that sense from Uber drivers in the 12-18 months prior to Covid.

Of course, while I took taxi or uber twice a day for several years in Ottawa, this is still anecdata and limited sample - absolutely! But that's largely my point - we discuss Uber and Taxi as if the situation in London and San Francisco and New York and Ottawa and so on is the same - and it absolutely is not.

One thing that seems to often be missed in these discussions as well is edge cases; even if in a place Uber is a great alternative for 80-90% of folks, I find it is far less dependable if you're in a less active area, during less active time, and/or need Uber planned for a specific time.

Your first point was true, pre-pandemic. But is no longer true, at least not universally true. In some areas Uber and Lyft are now prohibitively expensive. What was once a $15 trip is now $40-50. You are better off going back to traditional taxi companies.

They have also become very unreliable, with no available drivers in some areas or 40+ minute wait times, and then the driver cancels. The majority of drivers switched to food delivery it seems. Pre-pandemic you could get a driver within 5 minutes no problem in some areas, and now may be waiting 30+ minutes.

I took a trip to Asheville and Uber/Lyft service was virtually non-existent, you had to rely on local cab companies to get around.

That’ll all fix itself pretty quickly once the federal unemployment benefits stop, other than prices being somewhat higher due to fuel costs.

Will Uber and Lift continue to be a win when the VCs start wanting to see some of their money back? Or will the prices start rising back to the old taxi rates, then past?

I'm confused by this comment. They both went public two years ago so VCs have all cashed out.

People don't understand the difference between VC backed startups and public companies backed by institutional and retail investors

We're talking about public companies. You can safely use the term investors, the term "VC" is irrelevant, except for drama.

Now that we're talking about public companies, there are a lot of them. Any concern about price gouging you might have should extend to all these companies.

If not, why not?

Not sure if it's accurate, but the feeling is that recently, tech companies went public before being profitable or while barely being so. On top of that, their valuation is higher on a PE ratio basis than classical ones.

So it feels that they'll have to change something big to meet expected returns.

And the fear is that, as they succesfully managed to kill the incumbent, they are free to change the most obvious parameter, the pricing.

I've heard these arguments for years, depending on the company. How long do things have to go on, for people to stop believe that prices are going to massively rise?

I heard the same thing about amazon. That the inevitable huge price increases are coming. Hasn't happened yet.

> It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride

Due to a decade of massive losses. This isn’t their real long term cost. It is a scam to make people think it’s cheaper and run normal taxis out of business

Uber and Lyft haven't yet reached profitability. They either have to raise prices, lower costs or expand cost effectively.

Their full impact is not yet decided

An exercise in offloading car depreciation and maintenance onto unsuspecting low-paid workers.

Getting a ride _from_ the airport is 100% easier and more predictable by just hitting the taxi line. Ordering an Uber in a crowded place is so much less efficent.

Neither of these things is true in NYC: cabs charge a fixed rate to the area airports (Uber is at least twice that rate), and hack drivers have historically made reasonable money. Most of them have lost that stability, as well as (in some instances) their life savings due to the medallion crash.

Investing in medallions (as investing in anything) is a risk.

Cab drivers have lost job stability, but others have benefitted.

Sure. But this is a different claim from the OP’s. Nobody is entitled to returns on investments, but the claim that ridershare apps are either affordable or good for cabbies is farcical in NYC, at the minimum.

Yes, the medallion crash.... because medallions were a political "tool" which controlled supply, making them artificially way more valuable than they otherwise should have been.

The medallions were an economic tool, instituted during the Great Depression, to regulate a spiraling industry. Whether or not they “should” be valuable is a nonsense framing: they were introduced to enforce scarcity, which makes them valuable. Neither of us has to like them to recognize their outsized value and function in the welfare of a large number of peoples’ lives.

But to the larger point: medallions made NYC yellowcabs more expensive than the market demands, and they’re still cheaper than ridesharing.

Drivers are often not medallion owner.

Have you noticed a trend in this thread where everything is way more expensive in cities like NYC and SF. I wonder why that could be? I just used Uber for a 35 minute trip to the Airport in San Diego and it was $30. Pretty damn cheap and the driver was amazing.

In most countries Uber has been a disaster for drivers, to the point of outllawing it.

I travel to India frequently. Before Uber (or their local variant, Ola) came along, getting a taxi was nearly impossible in middle-tier cities. The only option was an auto-rickshaw, whose drivers were notorious for gouging. And they formed a cartel: if you turned down one driver, the others would see that and refuse to give you a ride.

Uber was a god-send. You call up the driver, watch him approach on your phone, step out when he's there. Regardless of where you were, you could get a ride from there to wherever you were going. Rides for which auto-rickshaws used to charge upwards of Rs. 300 (~$4), can now be had for Rs 150 or less ( < $2 ).

I agree it has probably been a disaster for existing taxi companies in every city. But only in the same way the internet has been a disaster for the phone book companies. Or that Netflix was bad for Blockbuster.

Just because some countries don't value competition - and prefer to cater to existing entrenched lobbying groups - is not compelling evidence to the average American that Uber is bad.

Regulations, guns, or both, define markets.

Technological progress disrupts markets.

The only thing that changes are the cast of winners and losers.

Society sometimes prefers the greater good (fairness) by reigning in the powerful.

Maybe ask female employees of Uber if they agree with that

>"It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before. It is safer, more predictable with timing, and more predictable with pricing."

No it's no longer cheaper "to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before." Especially if one considers "before" being before the pandemic. This increased price of Uber/Lyft has actually been quite a common news story of late[1][2][3]. Incidentally "why is uber so expensive right now 2021" on Google search has over 15 million results.

What evidence is there that an Uber is safer than a taxi? Also how can a model with surge pricing be more predictable than a taxi which has regulated rates per mile and per minute?

>"Uber drivers make more money today than taxi drivers used to/or do today. There are also way more job openings in this than there used to be, with less friction to get involved."

Do you have a citation for Uber drivers making more money than taxis drivers? What is the true earning per mile for an Uber/Lyft driver when you factor in auto insurance, maintenance, repairs and vehicle depreciation?

The "friction" to becoming a taxi driver is pretty minimal. One just needs obtain a hack license the requirements of which are pretty nominal.[4] Especially so if you don't already own a car. Uber/Lyft seem to be having great difficulty staffing up right now[5]. I'm not sure that would be the case if it really was such the great(100% win) opportunity you make it out to be.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/article/uber-lyft-surge.html

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/09/uber-ly...

[3] https://www.curbed.com/2021/06/uber-lyft-expensive-new-york-...

[4] https://nycitycab.com/HackLicense.aspx

[5] https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/7/22371850/uber-lyft-driver-...

> - It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before. It is safer, more predictable with timing, and more predictable with pricing.

This is no longer true. In my town, now that the firehose of VC subsidies has dried up, Uber costs more than taking a cab, even without surge pricing.

>- It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before.

Is it? Or are venture capitalists just footing the bill?

Whatever model of "price" you use needs to take into account the fact that not only are Uber and Lyft lighting enormous piles of Saudi money on fire to "gain marketshare" but that the actual drivers are being paid peanuts. This isn't pure win, it's more like Nestle handing out free baby formula in Africa to destroy the "domestic market" so to speak.

I never understood why uber needs 2000+ engineers on staff.

Their client seems to work on almost any Android and iphone, including a web client, has possibly hundreds of screens, supports multiple languages, regions, currencies…

In order to pretend to be a tech company.

Same reason they pretended to work on flying taxis and self-driving cars. The multiple for high tech companies is greater than the multiple for taxi companies or even basic Web2.0-style one-trick app companies.

What market did they destroy? The money went directly to US engineers and US drivers.

The US should be blessed that Saudi is so bad with its money and so willing to subsidize Americans.

It destroyed the money of people who had bought up medallions. That's it. Having medallions was not a long term solution when the city can now charge rideshare services for miles/minutes/rides on the road without any hard cap for politically connected incumbent players.

The US may not feel so blessed when the Saudis decide they want some of that money back.

Huh? Uber is a publicly traded company now. If Saudi sells its shares of Uber the company valuation will dip some but otherwise go unchanged.

It’s not a loan.

> What market did they destroy? The money went directly to US engineers and US drivers.

The financially-sustainable transportation market. Companies without endless amounts of capital that actually have to break even or make a profit to keep the lights on.

It's not just the medallions, they're literally selling the service itself at below-cost in many places and have been for years.

> are venture capitalists just footing the bill?

Since they're public, its any shareholder and the public market. But that also means they're probably not still raising rounds like they were.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com