
Uber launches flat fares in San Francisco through subscription - nikunjk
https://www.uber.com/info/plus/sanfrancisco/
======
nicwolff
Uber has taken $12B of capital, broken the regulatory regimes and opened the
drive-for-hire markets, marketed the benefits of drive-for-hire and ride-
sharing to drivers and consumers, and helped drivers finance vehicles – but
now there seems to be no barrier to entry for any competing service except
writing an app. I'm happy to let VCs pay for my comfortable daily ride to work
but I don't see how this is sustainable...

~~~
the_watcher
> but now there seems to be no barrier to entry for any competing service
> except writing an app.

Except network of drivers, network of riders with the app installed, name
recognition, capital to run the backend systems and delve into mapping
algorithms, etc.

~~~
capkutay
Yeah I think barrier to entry is misunderstood as a technical attribute of a
company.

Of course it's possible to build some app that tells people nearby to pick
them up with metering/billing services built in.

From a business standpoint, it would almost be impossible to duplicate what
they have today.

~~~
methehack
I entirely disagree. I don't see proprietary technology that can't be
duplicated or bought. I see _some_ network effects but ultimately the drivers
will go to the highest bidder and the riders will go to the lowest price. I
see _some_ brand equity, but not much. Maybe a little economy of scale, but
not much. Yes, they have a head start, but they are far from enthroned.

Ultimately, this space will operationalize out to the company that can
manufacture safe and reliable self-driving cars most efficiently. That's kind
of how you can tell uber hasn't won yet: if a company came along that was
doing that, it would eat their lunch.

Further, faced with the awesome self-driving car company, uber's hungry huge
capital needs thus far will be nothing but a burden.

I believe they timed this all wrong -- they are myspace and in the wrong
business.

~~~
nicwolff
My points exactly – but I don't see how self-driving cars can ever work in
midtown NYC without dedicated lanes. If you can't credibly pretend that you
are willing to hit another vehicle, you'll just get cut off continuously; if
you can't credibly pretend that you are willing to get hit, you can't change
lanes. Self-driving cars can't do either – and will be the nemesis of hire
drivers who will cut them off just to slow them down.

------
mmanfrin
I used Pool last night in the city. Took me from the Fidi to Inner Richmond.
$2.37. It was almost cheaper than Muni. I can't imagine the drivers are making
much _at all_.

~~~
tachyonbeam
I had the same reaction when I rode UberPool from the south bay into SF (a 45
minute ride) for just under $18, and nobody else pooled with me. How could
this be fair to the drivers? So I asked the driver how much he was getting for
the trip. I believe he said something like $50. Fortunately, he wasn't getting
shortchanged.

Later, someone pointed out to me that Lyft and Uber are aggressively competing
right now. It seems that Uber might be artificially deflating its prices to
try and kill the competition, or discourage new companies from even entering
the market. If they do manage to kill Lyft, you can be sure they will raise
their prices again.

~~~
Analemma_
Margaret Thatcher once said "The problem with socialism is, you eventually run
out of other people's money", which makes it ironic and humorous that Uber,
the poster child of Valley Objectivism, has basically the same problem with
their "price dumping funded by VCs" model.

~~~
Nashhhh
The key difference being that in the case of Uber, those VCs and investors
gave their money voluntarily.

~~~
hkmurakami
Presumably (hopefully) the socialist government for this hypothetical nation
would have been voluntarily put in place by the voting public.

~~~
throwaway991199
LOL. Go look at Europe. The answer to that is a definite hell-no.

~~~
huac
Socialists have historically been some of the biggest proponents of democracy.
You're probably trolling, but it'd be amusing to know which countries you
think have socialist governments in place by force.

~~~
pjlegato
Perhaps you have heard of the People's Democratic Republics of East Germany,
Poland, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia,
Czechoslovakia, and Albania? Socialism was imposed by a foreign occupying
army.

Or take the Soviet Union itself. The democratically elected Provisional
Government was overthrown by force. Even the socialists-only Constituent
Assembly election was simply voided and ignored by the Bolsheviks when they
overwhelmingly lost.

Your claim is empirically false. Socialism has historically been imposed
involuntarily at gunpoint in almost all cases where it has achieved any
measure of real power. Moreover, once established, its show elections are a
farce, with only pre-selected Party approved candidates allowed to win.

You will no doubt reply that none of this was done by "real" socialists, and
that <insert your favorite sub-sub-branch of socialism here> are the only
"real" socialists. This is the "No True Scotsman fallacy".

~~~
John23832
Ideally, political change can happen without violence or bloodshed. But we
don' live in an ideal world. We never have, and we never will.

Pretty much ANY political system gains power through bloodshed. The United
States, Canada, England, France, Germany, pretty much the entirety of South
America, Africa and Asia... With the wide ranges of political systems that
span all these places, each and every one of them was put in place by
violence.

You point out the horrible regimes that adopted the word "Socialist" or
"People's" in their name and point out all the atrocities that they have
committed. While adopting those monickers != actual socialism, you've headed
off that argument, so I'll give you that. However, don't lay violence as a
means of gripping power at the feet of Socialism... That's a human trait.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Disengenuous to ignore the appallingly violent way Socialism has historically
grabbed power and suppressed their populations. Very different from rebellions
for independence for instance.

~~~
John23832
Sure. The Stalinist were a horribly violent.

So were the US backed gorrillas in every violent uprising in South America in
the 1980's.

So were Belgian trading companies in the Congo.

So were the French people during the Reign of Terror.

So were the Catholics during the all of the Inquisitions.

So were the Spanish during the expulsion of the Moors.

I could go on. The point being that this is not a Socialist trait. The first
two were done with Capitalist intent. The last two were carried out with both
political and religous power in mind. It's clear that you don't like
Socialism, and that's fine... to each his own. But it's "disingenuous" to
ignore history for the sake of proving your point.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Ok lets make a list of Socialist societies that formed through rebellion and
the formation of popular governments? Its seems to be a Socialist trait that
it cant happen without being forced on a population by intelligentsia. Is that
fair?

~~~
John23832
> Its seems to be a Socialist trait that it cant happen without being forced
> on a population by intelligentsia. Is that fair?

No, given the evidence, it's not fair. You could say the exact same thing for
Capitalism.

Please. Now you're just being purposefully insulting.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I'm not confusing Colonialism with capitalism.

~~~
John23832
What do you think the purpose of Colonialism was?

~~~
pjlegato
"Colonialism" does not exist as such. It's merely a sometimes useful
intellectual abstraction, not a real thing. It has no objectives or purpose,
because it does not and never actually existed as a real thing. It's merely a
summary shorthand for a certain set of ideas.

Trying to impute motives to an unreal analytic abstraction is the reification
fallacy.[1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_\(fallacy\))

~~~
John23832
> "Colonialism" does not exist as such.

That is an empty refutation...

Colonialism was(is?) as very real practice. I really don't understand how you
can claim that it is an "intellectual abstraction"

You went to Wikipeda for the definition of reification, but not for the
definition of Colonialism[1]?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism)

------
zaidf
The copy on this page is super unclear. I just realized(after signing up) that
the subscription is to get the special $2/ride pricing, not the _actual_ ride.
Put another way: after you have the $30/month subscription, you can get
UberPools for $2/ride.

~~~
jeffjose
I thought that was clear. What were you confusing that with? I'm trying to
understand what you initially thought it was.

~~~
sickrumbear
not op, but i assumed the 'upfront' would fund the rides as well, vs. just
'unlocking' them. i read it as more of an initial prepayment.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
Same; this is how it read to me. I was confused seeing this in the comments.

------
bpodgursky
> Flat fares are designed to cover full fares for almost every trip, with a
> $20 limit for uberPOOL and $25 limit for uberX. You’ll be responsible for
> paying portions of the fare that exceed those maximums on each trip.

The pricing felt convoluted even before I saw this part. I can't see this
being worth the effort, if you can't even guarantee the $7 prices.

~~~
SilasX
Yeah, this seems like a step backwards from their promise of transparent
prices ("what we do on UberPool, but for everything"). What the heck is the
point of flat pricing if you have to pay for overages anyway?

~~~
calvinbhai
Next step for Uber would be to create Zones like Caltrain, and charge
subscription based on travel between zones. Then no need of coverage.

But going by Uber's history, this would be too transparent and wont workout
for them.

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alaskamiller
Back in September of 2009 JetBlue offered an all you can jet pass because
September is traditionally the worst slump of the year. Summer's over, people
start schools and jobs, travel drops overall.

This is the same trick to get you out there more. It's also inevitably the end
game for Uber. Deliver value for less than your monthly car payment.

Someone is crunching the numbers right now figuring out exactly how much LTV
they can extract from you in exchange for paying $500 a month every month to
Uber.

Then when Uber wins that game by the end of next year many other CPG and big
box retailers will follow suit, riding along the subscription box model.

By 2020 it will be normal for you to receive income from the government just
so you can hand it over to lifestyle providers of all stripes every month to
live how you personalized it to be.

Latest fashion every month from WalMart! Semi-prepped meals every day from
Safeway! 30 day supply of customized toothpaste from Target! Just insert
token.

~~~
lalos
Sounds like a communist utopia, just replace the big corps like Walmart and
Safeway with GovMart and GovWay. Maybe Marx was unto something on how
capitalism would evolve, just got some parts wrongs.

------
huac
Makes sense as a way to lock riders into Uber rather than Lyft. Wonder how
drivers will react.

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manojlds
Interestingly, Ola in India had already done something like this very
recently.

[https://www.olacabs.com/olaSelect](https://www.olacabs.com/olaSelect)

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Jake232
They launched this yesterday in San Diego also. I signed up.

[https://www.uber.com/info/plus/sandiego/](https://www.uber.com/info/plus/sandiego/)

~~~
citruspi
Boston too -
[https://www.uber.com/info/plus/boston/](https://www.uber.com/info/plus/boston/)

Edit: Looks like it's only available for uberPOOL.

------
rayiner
I pay $3 to commute to my office in Uber Pool or Lyft--cheaper than Metro.
Usually no other rider. I don't know how this is sustainable.

~~~
gogopuppygogo
All electric vehicles that drive themselves will make it sustainable. They can
afford to burn cash while they get the fleet going and then they replace all
their expensive and error prone human labor with cars that drive themselves
and don't need to sleep.

~~~
vwcx
The word "sustainable" in your reply is a joke when you consider the
unsustainability of the automobile for single rider transit. Electric or not,
it's a tough sell compared to mass transit.

~~~
ricardobeat
Not if one car serves, let's say, 200 people a day instead of a single owner.

~~~
abduhl
One car serving 200 passengers a day is one passenger every 7.2 minutes. This
equates to roughly 4 miles at 35 miles an hour. This assumes perfect routing
and perfect loading/unloading (i.e. - the passenger magically appears and
disappears in the car and that a new passenger is always ready to magically
appear when the last one disappears). This seems rather short, and is a
conservative estimate.

These 800 miles would be reimbursed at $460 using the IRS mileage rate which
is for gasoline vehicles, but assume that only 1/3 of that is gas and the
other 2/3 is depreciation, wear/tear, licensing, etc. then we see that Uber
would need to have each rider pay $1.53 just to break even on the cost of
owning the vehicle. This ignores the fact that self-driving cars are likely to
be much more expensive when it comes to non-gasoline costs. I believe I read
somewhere today that the Teslas takes ~3mile/kWh so this cost would need to be
added in, this is ~$0.07/mile at 20 cents per kWh. Total cost to break even is
then roughly $1.80 per passenger, plus whatever additional costs a new and
experimental all electric fleet with undefined insurance statistics costs
above a regular vehicle.

Assuming their current model of $8 per uberX ride is an example of what they
expect to hit, then Uber is taking in $6.20 per passenger or $1240 per car per
day or $452,600 per car per year assuming perfect efficiency.

The question that really matters though is how will Uber's fleet deal with
peak passenger demand? These 200 riders are not spaced out evenly at 7 minute
intervals - most of them all will want to ride at the same time. People will
stop using Uber if the waits become too long and Uber will lose its
competitive advantage.

------
fludlight
How does this affect driver compensation?

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CodeSheikh
Seeing from the point of view of an investment banker, the money that Uber was
going to get at the end of the month ($20-$30) will receive it now a month
advance and Uber investors can put it towards whatever investments they want
and in this way make extra $$$ and have another revenue stream going.

Or Uber can pay off its drivers more earlier and in this way win more of their
loyalty for Uber. Brilliant.

------
adamseabrook
They also have flat fares in Chicago for $3.12 with uberPool, Monday to Friday
6am to 10pm. All trips must begin and end south of Irving Park, north of 71st
Street, and east of Western Avenue. [https://www.uber.com/info/chi-
uberpool-312/](https://www.uber.com/info/chi-uberpool-312/)

------
foota
This is being offered in Seattle as well.

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davidf18
Hey Uber, it is very nice to offer this in SF, SD, Boston, but what about NYC?
:-(

~~~
effinggames
Seems like they offered something similar last month:
[https://www.giltcity.com/newyork/ubernycjuly16](https://www.giltcity.com/newyork/ubernycjuly16)

~~~
davidf18
Unfortunately, there was a limited number of offers and I was unable to get
one. The SF, SD, Boston offers don't have that limit.

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cwilkes
Clicking on the link launched the Uber app for me. I then rage quitted it
before reading anything more.

Also happens in "no so" private mode on the iPhone. Apple should really fix
that as it leaks information.

------
chrisper
I do not really like Uber. The company does shady stuff quite often but also
their drivers seem to be bad. They do not care at all about traffic laws.
Illegal u-turns, stop wherever they want, etc.

I can't surely be the only one who experienced this?

~~~
aroch
Because taxis don't do this??

~~~
nix0n
As a cyclist (in Boston), it's somewhat easier to predict that a taxi might
(suddenly) decide to park in the bike lane, and it's more surprising
(therefore slightly more dangerous) when another car does it.

~~~
NegativeLatency
I wish that it wasn't the exception to be ticketed for that. I see it all the
time, as long as drivers get off with a warning (and not a fine) it will keep
happening.

~~~
superuser2
Have you ever ordered a package from Amazon, had a pizza delivered, or taken a
taxi? Been picked up by a friend or parent somewhere that didn't have its own
parking spaces?

If so, I'm guessing you've benefitted from a driver stopping or parking in a
place they weren't legally allowed to stop.

Do you think these services should go away, or what?

~~~
chrisper
There is a difference in stopping somewhere illegally (e.g. in front of a fire
lane for 5 minutes) or stopping anywhere and impeding traffic.

Just this morning I saw an uber driver stopping at the sidewalk but having the
back of his car hanging in the lane making people having to drive around him.
That is, in my opinion, just egoistic and annoying. On the other hand if you
stop in front of the fire lane without impeding traffic, no one will care.

