Hacker News Reader

Comment by no_future | Hacker News Reader

Idk, parking and traffic may suck but I couldn't justify shelling out out my hard earned cash any time I needed to get somewhere. Once in a while is fine, but only people with lots of disposable income who don't care about saving money I'd think would use them daily. In cities there are buses and subway systems, SF which seems to be where Uber gets the most usage has the BART which is great, and you can always walk.

Seems to be the same case with Airbnb, I don't see any normal people using it, it seems to be rich people who want to make some extra cash off their nice condo/vacation home.

I'm sure people ask this all the time, but why do these companies have such high valuations? ($17 billion for Uber - really now?). I mean they already generate revenue and are profitable, so shouldn't the value of them be proportional to their profit?

View on HN

I thought I just said this, but I will say it again in a slightly different way.

Lyft and Uber have taken a huge percentage of the _entire taxi cab and black car service industries_. To the point where they may very possibly entirely replace them.

That is why those companies have large valuations.

The reason people use Lyft and Uber is the same reason people use taxi cabs. They went out drinking and can't drive home, or never planned to drive home.

Its true that people with disposable income are also a large user base.

Also in my area of southern California and many other areas, the buses are horrible and only students, homeless or poor people use them. Almost literally. And their routes are limited. Everything is massively spread out around here.

Personally, I had to sell my car, and I have zero disposable income. I just use Lyft now because it is cheaper than a taxi and arrives much more quickly. I also very rarely go anywhere far. Last two times I went to the store I walked.

Public transit in places like SF is generally not fast or convenient, so many people choose taxis. Maybe it's just the rich that make that choice, but the median household income in San Francisco is $72,947 so there are a lot of rich people.

> SF which seems to be where Uber gets the most usage has the BART which is great, and you can always walk.

Uh, do you even live in the bay. I don't but I know that the BART is pricey, stops running late, and the bay is filled with places you'd never walk at night.

It's funny because I can't justify owning a car, and even if I did, in cities it can be expensive and inconvenient to find parking if you even had one. It's not like gasoline is free or anything.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com