Hacker News Reader

Comment by sakopov | Hacker News Reader

Correct me if i'm wrong, but Uber started out as a service that connected people without a ride to those who happened to be on the road within a few miles away and willing to give a lift for a few bucks. So what happened? Did Uber pivot or did people start building their lives around Uber and became dissatisfied with the their business model? I don't quite understand this mainly because I don't live in a city where Uber is very popular.

View on HN

> "Correct me if i'm wrong, but Uber started out as a service that connected people without a ride to those who happened to be on the road within a few miles away and willing to give a lift for a few bucks"

This never happened, as much as Uber would like to imagine themselves a grassroots, populist movement.

Uber started out a service that connected black cars/limos to riders. The idea was to provide competition to taxis, and the easiest existing source of professional drivers was limo drivers, who had a great deal of down time between bookings - and Uber helped fill in the gaps and provide extra income.

Uber was never a "connect riders to random people willing to give a lift" - other companies tried this model, most notably Sidecar, though even then I think most of its driver-base were at least semi-profesisonal.

You'd need to look at Uber's current marketing materials. Most current drivers are probably fairly newly recruited.

Within the last three months, I've seen short text ads where driving for Uber is marketed as a job that pays $21+/hr.

You're thinking of Lyft. Uber has always been a professional cab or limo service.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com