Uber?

Quote: Fleastiff

The comparison of Full Time Uber Driver versus Part Time Hustler Uber Driver may be apt, but the result is the same. If the algorithms slice the pennies too thin, neither a full time driver nor a part time hustler can survive.

And it's all about survival. The biggest problem
is, it's not like a fast food chain that can grow
it's customer base. The number of people that
need a ride is almost set in stone, it doesn't
change. You don't get up and decide to leave
your car at home and pay thru the nose for an
Uber ride. Either you need them or you don't.
So like Amway, all you can do is grow the seller
base. Which is great for Amway or Uber, but sucks
for their contractors.

Quote: Evenbob

What will eventually happen is supply will
meet demand. It always does. There will
be just as many Uber drivers as are needed
for the fares provided. Remember when
there was literally a gas station on every
corner of every major intersection? People
drove huge gas guzzling cars. Uber will just
be the new cab co, it will be just the same
as the old cab co. Uber drivers sitting around
for hours breathlessly waiting for a fair won't
last, it can't last. Supply and demand, the idle
drivers will look elsewhere for a job.

The gas station market changed, though. While there used to be way more stations, most had 2-3 pumps each. Now most stations have 10-20 and those 10-20 fill faster than way back. Near my mother's house there is about a 1.5 mile stretch where pre-1975 there were maybe 7 more stations than there are now. But within a mile of that is a huge C-store with probably 15 pumps. The gallons move, but gasoline at retail is low margin, sometimes no margin.

But you are in the end just agreeing with my statement, it will even out.

Quote:

The cab business is set in stone because you
can only make money if there are X amount
of cabs for X amount of fares.

I don't buy that at all. In this city cabs never cruised for fares. They want long-haul or at best you have to find the 1-2 places they queue up. Cabs in the suburbs? Fugheddabaddit! But at the card parties I have met people taking an Uber as cheaper than a DUI. I took one to the suburbs when a regular cab I would never consider. Uber has expanded the market. Cabs could have done it. But they wanted their little controlled market and steady income.

Quote: Face

I always saw it as a thing someone like AZD or I might do. It's not "our job", it's just another of a half dozen hustles strung together. I wouldn't sit around all day waiting for a ding, but like right now. I'm just sitting here rappin' with y'all. No reason not to put my flag up and have it there waiting. Someone dings, I go run em, there's $10 (or whatever) I didn't have a moment ago.

Right! We both seem to have a hustle mindset. More and more people do all the time. My hustles and penny-pinches will add almost 15 weeks of income this year for me if things hold. My car is too old for Uber, but if I needed it to keep food in the fridge, I'd work it. Find something going on in town and wait. Jazz festival setting up near my office as I left today. Think a few drunks will want to ride to the suburbs? But another hustle another time. Trying to sell tomato plants next spring, with other legal plants. If I make a few hundred to a grand I will be happy.

Hustling I am convinced is here to stay and will get bigger and bigger.

Quote: Evenbob

The biggest problem
is, it's not like a fast food chain that can grow
it's customer base. The number of people that
need a ride is almost set in stone, it doesn't
change. You don't get up and decide to leave
your car at home and pay thru the nose for an
Uber ride. Either you need them or you don't.

I don't think that is true. It seems to me that it may reduce a lot of car rentals and increase Uber rides. I know in my case when travelling I am now using a lot of Uber when I would have rented a car in the past.

Quote: AZDuffman

Uber has expanded the market. .

But not by a large amount and certainly
not by the amount needed to make money
for all the drivers. This is such an odd argument.
You could perfectly understand why don't have
a liquor store on every corner. There is a certain
number of people who buy liquor, putting up
more stores would only mean less money for
everybody in the business. No new customers
will be created by building more stores.

But apply that to the cab business and people
think, just add hundreds of new drivers and cars
and it will magically create the new business it
needs. It won't, it can't. Some guy deciding to
take an Uber home twice a month is not making
an impact. People leaving their cars at home and
taking Uber to and from work every day would.
But that will never happen.

Unless you've done it, you have no idea how hard
it is to make more than minimum wage driving a
cab or working for Uber. You have to be moving
all the time. If you're like Face and picking up a fare
and getting 10 bucks makes you deliriously happy
and you go home satisfied, you obviously won't last
long. The thrill will be short lived.

Quote: Evenbob

But not by a large amount and certainly
not by the amount needed to make money
for all the drivers. This is such an odd argument.
You could perfectly understand why don't have
a liquor store on every corner. There is a certain
number of people who buy liquor, putting up
more stores would only mean less money for
everybody in the business. No new customers
will be created by building more stores.

Nobody is saying they will ALL last and make money. There were what, over 100 car makers in the USA pre-1920s? How many PC makers pre-1990s? Fast-food had more variety pre-1980, then went to just a few, now coming back with variety. It happens in most industries. Calm-disruption-chaos-shakeout-calm. Then it starts all over again.

Many drivers will fail. Meh. If not for Uber they might fail at something else. Or succeed. But a big hurdle that made you have to keep a cab moving all the time was the medallion. That was a six-figure nut in many cases. A mafia-type street tax. In fact, the mafia helped invent the medallion concept!

Life moves on.

Yes, the market expanded due to DUIs.... hotels sell DUI rooms, casinos sell DUI rooms, Uber sells DUI cab rides, Sure. Don't change the economics enough though.
Alcohol intake, auto breakdowns, poverty, anything can cause a sudden need and once a computer knows about the need it can algorithm it to death and provide a solution. The trouble is that the algorithms seem to think that a desperately poor drunken driver newly released from an asylum driving a piece of uninsured junk is an adequate solution and that shooting the customer is also an adequate solution. Algorithms just don't understand their constraints so they endlessly erode safety, courtesy and common sense.

Somebody here has a sig line about throwing all the passengers out of the plane.... we think it is humorous, algorithms don't seem to grasp the humor.

If you had some items to sell, you could have them in the car as well as driving around.

Light items, but stuff people might need. 7-11 on wheels (with limited items)

Quote: rxwine

If you had some items to sell, you could have them in the car as well as driving around.
Light items, but stuff people might need. 7-11 on wheels (with limited items)

heck, one NYCity cab driver sold HIMSELF in his cab: he posted multiple copies of his resume and several rich taxi-taking people saw it and one of them eventually hired him. I think it was a Wall Street job but don't recall it clearly.

Passengers in Uber might need aspirin, stain removers, needle and thread, breath mints, sobriety stimulants, vitamins, energy drinks, maps, guidebooks, or where to find Skinny Dugan (the code word for a floating craps game long ago).

I grabbed an Uber this morning to work. It turns out with favorable traffic conditions, or in this case not-too-unfavorable conditions, the fare with surge pricing can be quite acceptable compared to a cab.

Anyway, I expect I'll take one in the evening to go back home. And since the silly, idiotic, useless, showy vehicular restrictions will be lifted tomorrow, likely I will not take one again for some months.