Look how much money UBER and LYFT lose each year.
They used to lease and sell cars to drivers. They have a gas credit card when a driver completes 100 trips they charge interest on and the balance is paid every week. They do not pay for tires, oil, gas, or other incidentals. They do pay me 30 dollars to clean up the vomit in my car when a rider pukes. But they charge the rider 50. Uber will never cut out the driver and act like they will because then they will lose money because the cost for the rider will be too much.
No the ride share model doesn’t work for the driver but it does work for the company who only has to pony up for the insurance and the app. The app has long been paid off and the insurance and litigation is really the only money pits. They do have a no-service customer service. Good luck if it is 2AM on a Saturday and you need to get a hold of them (that includes the new telephone number you can now call and ask). I had 15 questions to ask one day. They wanted me to write 15 different emails. I said no thanks. Their local office, no one picks up the phone and when you go in they treat you like crap even though without the drivers they wouldn’t have a job. Yeah it sux if it is your only source of income however the people I meet and talk with are some of the most interesting people I have ever had the chance to meet. I wouldn’t trade that aspect of it for anything in the world.
One other thing, don’t confound the driver with Uber two different birds of a feather. There will always be plenty of drivers to give it a try. There will not be as many drivers who stick with it. I have had repeat customers. One thing Lyft has that Uber does not is the repeat ride. I don’t know what Lyft calls it but a rider can schedule a repeating or one time ride fr let’s say every Tuesday at 8AM. If a driver accepts, you will have a repeat driver every Tuesday at 8AM.
In the last twelve months I have gone through three tires not because I am driving a lot but because there are potholes galore. So many, that 1 and three people here know someone who knows someone who has lost a tire to the potholes. The amount of cars on the side of the road is ridiculous. Is this Uber’s fault? Nope this is the government’s fault for using their infrastructure money as a slush fund. The roads need so many repairs that the normal driver would be in road construction hell if they tried to fix it all at once. The roads are bad and they are getting worse. The 1 inch blacktop on it when they surface the roads doesn’t last long. Oh and the city only pays so many people for a replacement tire and when that money is gone, its gone for that year. So our dysfunctional government is just as bad when it comes to the roads. Don’t always blame the driver. And there are passengers I wish I would have never let into my car and in the four years I have ejected only one rider.So please the holier than thou crap is hypocritical.
I am not confusing the driver with the company... I know many people working for Uber... and not as drivers. The entire model DOES NOT WORK.
It’s a scam. Uber is burning through cash because it’s a model that DOES NOT WORK, period.
The only route remotely for corporate profitability is to remove the driver from the equation and keep their cut... and they are scamming folks with the plan autonomous driving will get them there... and it won’t. Because folks will stop giving the money long before autonomous driving actually works. Autonomous driving is DECADES away.. anyone telling you different is whole ignorant or selling snake oil.
There is no path to profitability for Uber or LYFT. They are simply using investors cash to subsidize low fairs in attempts to gain market share as a selling point for the Next round of foolish investors, who are being sold a false bill of goods.
It’s a bigger fool model and sooner or later folkswho are throwing cash at them will realize market share doesn’t make them $$. Uber has NO path to profitability without autonomous driving, which means they must burn cause for at least 20-30 years or more... you can only keep shaking the tree for fools for so long.
Uber will go the way of webvan and pets.com most likely. Odds they will keep getting capital to burn for that long of a period of time is doubtful.
Right now autonomous driving is being so oversold and overhyped that investors keep writing checks out of irrational exuberance, but eventually they will realize they have been sold a false bill of goods.