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Comment by quickthrower2 | Hacker News Reader

Well they are not the mafia. If Uber has a monopoly, and wants to charge me $50 instead of $10 to get to the city centre, I won't go, or find another (non-ride-sharing) way to get there. I might go 1 in 100 times of course because of urgency. But then regular cabs are still a thing too.

This is the problem with being the middleman in a low margin world. I don't want to pay a fortune to get somewhere, and the driver has other jobs they can do if Uber effectively pays below minimum wage.

Uber just needs to survive until the self-driving car thing is fully online, which means they are the Stripe of self-driving car micro-rentals. Then they will do very well and be very profitable, IMO.

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Yeah, this was somewhat obscured in Uber's early days when the US unemployment rate was 7-9%, and it was easier to get drivers. But even then, it really only worked because drivers were paid more than passengers paid, with VCs picking up the difference.

In today's low-unemployment-rate world, there's pressure to pay drivers more and VCs aren't going to pick up the costs, so... it's expensive.

How does Uber come out top in that? Surely that self driving software/car makers take the rewards. Uber is just a booking platform on top. Why would Google (with Waymo) allow Uber to book their cars, or Tesla to book their cars? They'd surely set up their own competing service to Uber and force them out of the market within months (as the prices would be so much lower).

I'd imagine the software licensing of self driving cars would be so that when you bought a self driving GM/Ford/whatever that is only for personal use and using it for taxi rides would be against the ToS. Which they could quickly catch people out on, and maybe a "taxi" version of the car costs $xxx/month more.

Unless you are suggesting that Uber actually wins the race to self driving, which I really can't see happening. Do they even have a program anymore?

I guess it depends on who is 'they' in 'their cars'?

Maybe Tesla sell the cars to individuals / businesses, and now the individual wants to find a way to get some extra money from it so they rent it out via a platform.

Uber already has the mindshare and the tech.

Maybe Tesla just wants to sell / rent the cars and not get into the market place.

Tesla could try to compete on that, but they could try right now and compete with Uber, right? It is the same thing.

All that financial risk is now pushed down to individual 'franchisers'.

> How does Uber come out top in that? Surely that self driving software/car makers take the rewards.

There's a lot of variables but the car-makers are probably better positioned espcially when it comes to moving around fleets of self-driving cars and servicing them at a nationwide scale

I'm guessing they may be better at dealing with the legal and regulartory issues that could emerge

I think at this point it's pretty well-established that general availability of self-driving cars is not going to happen any time soon. Do you think Uber can hemorrhage money for another ~20 years? I think that's probably a reasonable guess at the relevant timeline.

I never understood hailing self-driving as some money printing greatness. Unless there is just single company selling them.

Otherwise it is race to bottom. Maybe if they are lucky generating 2-10% profit on the vehicle. With certain operators having massive fleets and very high capital investments.

> I won't go,

What if not going costs you more money than Uber? For example, it costs you your job, or visitation with your child? Then you will go.

> or find another (non-ride-sharing) way to get there.

Oh, you'd just do the other thing that is available to do. Why doesn't everyone think of that?

> But then regular cabs are still a thing too.

That would mean that Uber didn't have a monopoly. The goal was for Uber to dump deeply discounted service into the market until the cab companies died. They were pretty successful, because I can't hail a cab on the street anymore. They weren't as successful as they needed to be, because people who drive cabs can do Uber and Lyft at the same time.

> the driver has other jobs they can do if Uber effectively pays below minimum wage.

But if Uber has driven the industry wage down, the other job they do will not be driving you around. They will get a different job, and you will still be paying more.

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