
Juno Takes on Uber - ehudla
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/juno-takes-on-uber
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spaceflunky
Some readers may remember previous comments I've made, which boil down to
this...

Uber, Airbnb, Lyft, and all other "sharing economy" apps are retailers and
they do no control the products they sell.

To put it more succinctly than this article, first-of-a-kind sharing economy
apps have overcome the psychological, legal, and technological hurdles,
effectively paving the way for their competition. Once the road has been
paved, expect bespoke copycats to come along (like Juno).

Retailers are historically a bad investment folks.

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dilemma
>The drivers learned that Juno’s commission was ten per cent, “guaranteed for
our first twenty-four months.” (Uber typically charges twenty-five per cent or
more.) >Juno was also offering twenty-four-hour support for its drivers, with
a promise that you could always reach a real person on the phone, “not a
robot.” Finally, Juno drivers could earn an ownership stake in the company, in
the form of restricted stock units. “I think this is a huge deal,” Smith said.
“And it’s totally unique.”

This is brilliant. It'd also be interesting to see someone come and swipe YC's
business now that it's going full-on corporate -- maybe Product Hunt could add
an investment arm, stay small in size (at least for the first few batches),
and become the next flavor of the month when YC has gone stale?

~~~
ralfd
> In the first six months of 2016, Uber sustained $1.2 billion in losses, a
> stunning amount.

How will Juno fare with less than half of Uber's commission?

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CodeWriter23
We all know the future of ride sharing is autonomous vehicles. If Juno's
owner/drivers end up being able to purchase their own autonomous vehicle
micro-fleets, it seems they could outpace a company that seeks to own its own
fleet, like Uber. It's the same model Amazon uses to increase available
inventory and externalize the risk of owning that inventory.

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snewk
this will be perfect for when uber starts rolling out their autonomous
vehicles in more cities

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ajamesm
Big pivot from free dialup.

