Everybody able to do the math sees if a business is a Ponzi scheme or a fraud. But most times it isn’t that, it is money laundering.
Just imagine investing legally into fossil fuels, car production and sales, but putting your dark money into a business related to buying more cars, delivering gasoline and maintaining the whole scam.
I think Uber mainly blows that money on expansion, but I’m not sure. So it might be that places where they are entrenched are already profitable, but the business as a whole is loss making.
Emlyn O’Regan several people have done some econ analysis of Uber. Whether they are profitable in any given place should be known. Search for nakedcapitalism uber
How does a company which offers nothing to anyone and operates by forcing it’s un-unionised drivers to take out reverse mortgages on their own cars actually lose money?
John Hardy Turnbull delenda est , to call it embezzlement might result in legal action, therefore I don’t call it that and think it is just magical unicorns fed with green bucks.
mathew This is precisely why I have deleted the Uber app from my phone and have stopped using Uber. I rather get a traditional taxi and pay a couple of dollars extra. The extra money makes no difference – unless you ride taxis on a daily basis. Boycott Uber.
While Uber is an exploitative business, don’t minimize what they did with their app. Taxi companies are not angels either. The app is reproducible, not rocket science at all. Similar apps could and will and I think are starting to be used by better organizations,
Uber is not a taxi company. It’s a slow motion car destruction company in which it partially finances itself by extracting capital from minimum wage workers through the only asset they may own. The end result is that most drivers are moving backwards financially. It might be good for many consumers but it’s parasitic on drivers.
The old corrupt taxi badge system needed to go. In Victoria at least it has gone so there’s even less reason to use this evil company.
Is there any rundowns on driver revenue for taxi vs uber? most of it seems to be coming from uber, but not much independent verification.
Certainly up here in Brisbane, most ex taxi drivers running Uber say they are earning more, but not sure if they are taking their car costs fully into account…
They are, indeed, terrible. I have been told stories by black co-workers of mine that make one’s blood boil. Uber is, for sure, highly problematic, but they are less locked-in than the taxi companies were.
Never Stop Posting 
If only those Uber investors stopped throwing their money at Uber and invested in Bitcoin instead……
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Everybody able to do the math sees if a business is a Ponzi scheme or a fraud. But most times it isn’t that, it is money laundering.
Just imagine investing legally into fossil fuels, car production and sales, but putting your dark money into a business related to buying more cars, delivering gasoline and maintaining the whole scam.
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I think Uber mainly blows that money on expansion, but I’m not sure. So it might be that places where they are entrenched are already profitable, but the business as a whole is loss making.
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https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/uber-is-losing-an-insane-amount-of-money
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Emlyn O’Regan several people have done some econ analysis of Uber. Whether they are profitable in any given place should be known. Search for nakedcapitalism uber
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Emlyn O’Regan expansion in the sense of burning through investor money in a bid to destroy existing markets in order to establish a future monopoly.
Sounds to me like a great business model to regulate out of existence.
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Pretty tough to do. Regulators are local, but Uber is global. Citizens complain, why doesn’t Uber work here when it works everywhere else?
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How does a company which offers nothing to anyone and operates by forcing it’s un-unionised drivers to take out reverse mortgages on their own cars actually lose money?
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John Hardy Turnbull delenda est , to call it embezzlement might result in legal action, therefore I don’t call it that and think it is just magical unicorns fed with green bucks.
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OK, so Uber offers an app and a bunch of people who use that app. BFW. There are a bunch of taxi apps.
The Naked Capitalism Uber articles are indeed excellent.
nakedcapitalism.com – Can Uber Ever Deliver? Part One – Understanding Uber’s Bleak Operating Economics | naked capitalism
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It’s worth remembering that Uber is also a shitty company for reasons not relating to economics or the destruction of unions.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/06/uber-fires-20-employees-harassment-investigation
https://nypost.com/2017/01/20/uber-to-pay-20m-for-exaggerating-how-much-it-pays-drivers/
https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/14/16778064/uber-criminal-investigation-confirm-doj-waymo
I refuse to use them.
bloomberg.com – Uber’s Big Problem Is a Culture of Dishonesty
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mathew This is precisely why I have deleted the Uber app from my phone and have stopped using Uber. I rather get a traditional taxi and pay a couple of dollars extra. The extra money makes no difference – unless you ride taxis on a daily basis. Boycott Uber.
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Yes I would say that on balance they offer nothing. That is their net value cancels itself out. I always use taxis.
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I tend to get the bus in preference to taxis because I hate the tipping system.
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Ok the US screwed that up as well. I don’t need to tip taxis. Tipping sucks.
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While Uber is an exploitative business, don’t minimize what they did with their app. Taxi companies are not angels either. The app is reproducible, not rocket science at all. Similar apps could and will and I think are starting to be used by better organizations,
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Taxis suck. Here’s an article about how shit Australian taxis are, from 2013 (before Uber was a thing here I’m pretty sure).
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2013-06-23/4765892
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Taxis are fine. Uber sucks.
Also that article is out of date at least in the Victorian context. How does Uber improve this situation exactly?
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Here is another explanation of how uber works (7 months ago) explained by Dave Anthony in his biweekly podcast The Dollop. hwcdn.libsyn.com – traffic.libsyn.com/thedollop/Uber.mp3?dest-id=139738
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From what I know of taxis, we have just gone from a heap of shady rent seeking companies to one very visible company with shitty habits.
In my opinion, that is somewhat better, especially as there is no regulation locking them in place like there was with the taxi disc system.
Now people are talking about an industry that has corrupt and broken for decades.
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Uber is not a taxi company. It’s a slow motion car destruction company in which it partially finances itself by extracting capital from minimum wage workers through the only asset they may own. The end result is that most drivers are moving backwards financially. It might be good for many consumers but it’s parasitic on drivers.
The old corrupt taxi badge system needed to go. In Victoria at least it has gone so there’s even less reason to use this evil company.
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How are the taxi co-ops with their own apps doing? Anybody got any experience?
Search for cooperative uber – lots of hits.
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Is there any rundowns on driver revenue for taxi vs uber? most of it seems to be coming from uber, but not much independent verification.
Certainly up here in Brisbane, most ex taxi drivers running Uber say they are earning more, but not sure if they are taking their car costs fully into account…
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While I have a lot of issues with Uber, the closer I look at conventional taxi companies (in the U.S. anyway), the better Uber looks.
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Things must be terrible if you think a criminal syndicate like Uber looks better.
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They are, indeed, terrible. I have been told stories by black co-workers of mine that make one’s blood boil. Uber is, for sure, highly problematic, but they are less locked-in than the taxi companies were.
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