Uber is just a mini-cab firm. This is rejecting a license for a mini-cab firm that doesn't meet the licensing conditions.
You've clearly never taken a minicab and/or an Uber in London. There is no comparison.
I can open my Uber app, decide where to go, press a button - and a car is usually outside my door within 1-2 minutes, ready to take me.
And because you rate drivers, and because drivers with poor ratings are kicked from Uber, you get clean cars, with polite drivers.
For London minicabs, the big change came under Ken Livingstone when he tightened up the rules on age of cars and got the rustbuckets and deathtraps off the road.
With Uber the reason it is cheaper than black cabs and minicabs is because they massively subsidize the price of a ride. They are 15 billion in the hole because they run a minicab firm where they don't charge enough to make a profit. there is no magic technology secret sauce that is making Uber's cheaper than regular cabs, just a nver ending stream of investor cash.
If they raised their prices to probability they would be more expensive than a regular min-cab firm due to their massive overheads.
No.
Uber is loss making because it spends many billions of dollars a year on marketing. It spends Billions on marketing to grow its user numbers.
Its core business has almost no costs, which is why they pay drivers 85% of gross rather than the sub 50% that Addison Lee pays.
So if they become ubiquitous they can just cut marketing?
Doesn't sound like the disaster that Alistair is claiming.
If Uber is spending all their money on marketing, then they really need to look at spending their money more wisely, as their PR is atrocious. Or perhaps you can't polish a corporate turd.
Marketing can describe anything that grows the business. While they are building up both customers and drivers they need to keep prices low and commissions reasonable. Once they get to critical mass, they dispense with all that. It's the business model of all such broker companies - Just Eat, Deliveroo etc. And Amazon, somewhat. The aim for the first years is to dominate the market. That costs serious money.
They have a useful booking app, but are otherwise a minicab firm.
I particularly like the fact I can use the same app in multiple locations and countries as it means I don't have to faff around
Lots of companies have the booking and routing capability, and some apps integrate multiple services. I simply don't see anything Uber is doing that is really unique, what they have on their side is scale and investor capital, but a viable business surely needs more than that in the long term.
As I said up thread I really looks like Uber's goal is to be the biggest taxi app come the self-driving revolution (and there's a fair chance they will be locked out of that).
With Uber the reason it is cheaper than black cabs and minicabs is because they massively subsidize the price of a ride. They are 15 billion in the hole because they run a minicab firm where they don't charge enough to make a profit. there is no magic technology secret sauce that is making Uber's cheaper than regular cabs, just a nver ending stream of investor cash.
If they raised their prices to probability they would be more expensive than a regular min-cab firm due to their massive overheads.
Once they get a critical mass of drivers and customers in a location, Uber will drastically hike driver commissions if they haven't done so already. Drivers are a commodity. As long as they get rides quickly and reliably customers don't care. They will go for the most ubiquitous system. It's not even very price sensitive.
Drivers will HATE Uber. I don't mean that as a figure of speech. Unless drivers loathe Uber with every fibre of their being the Uber business model is not performing at peak.
Is that true?
Given low barriers to entry, and the fact that drivers can be on two services simultaneously, why would they want to do that.
Much better to take a 15% commission from every taxi journey in the world. For providing an app and a few servers.
I am not an expert in taxis but I was involved with a company with a similar business model, what matters to most customers is availability, not price. The company with most drivers on its books can offer the best availability so that's where the business is. Drivers won't have any choice but to sign up with Uber to get the fares. Uber will also ensure the app favours drivers that use their company the way they want. So the two service drivers might find they get bumped down the queue. Equally drivers will, I assume, be able to pay to get better fares or more of them.
And the people who will be most annoyed will be women, especially young women. They LOVE Uber. It's cheap and makes them feel safe - much safer than normal cabs.
Sadiq Khan could lose squillions of voters here. Good.
I'm sure Ozzy has been well briefed, so we can probably now accept that Theresa's speech will be a complete rejection of Borisism and will embrace EEA lite plus plus. The question is now: who's going to resign/defect to UKIP first?
And the people who will be most annoyed will be women, especially young women. They LOVE Uber. It's cheap and makes them feel safe - much safer than normal cabs.
Sadiq Khan could lose squillions of voters here. Good.
And how many of those ladies realise that Uber have been failing to adequately carry out CRB checks and vetting & barring regulations? Regulations that exist to stop young ladies having a very bad end to their night out.
Anyway, I'm sure all our Labour and LibDem supporters are really hoping that Theresa May's speech will go down very well and move the negotiations forward.
Anyway, I'm sure all our Labour and LibDem supporters are really hoping that Theresa May's speech will go down very well and move the negotiations forward.
I certainly am. Get a move on, then we can move forwards or back.
And the people who will be most annoyed will be women, especially young women. They LOVE Uber. It's cheap and makes them feel safe - much safer than normal cabs.
Sadiq Khan could lose squillions of voters here. Good.
I'm sure its great until you end up in the wrong cab and get assaulted - then suddenly uber won't seem so wonderful...
And of course no woman has ever been assaulted by a minicab driver, or a black cab driver. FFS.
Uber is SAFER because all the drivers are rated, you see their faces beforehand, they can be easily traced, the cars are followed on the app, any deviation from the route is mapped, on and on and on.
Most of the commenters on here who approve of this decision have clearly never used Uber, and don't live in London. So shut up.
I don't see why it's so wrong to want a service that offers what Uber does and complies with the law though.
And the people who will be most annoyed will be women, especially young women. They LOVE Uber. It's cheap and makes them feel safe - much safer than normal cabs.
Sadiq Khan could lose squillions of voters here. Good.
I'm sure its great until you end up in the wrong cab and get assaulted - then suddenly uber won't seem so wonderful...
And of course no woman has ever been assaulted by a minicab driver, or a black cab driver. FFS.
Uber is SAFER because all the drivers are rated, you see their faces beforehand, they can be easily traced, the cars are followed on the app, any deviation from the route is mapped, on and on and on.
Most of the commenters on here who approve of this decision have clearly never used Uber, and don't live in London. So shut up.
Who cares what stupid Londoners have for transport, they are forever whinging despite the largesse flung at them on all transport and infrastructure by the rest of the UK. Bunch of cheapskate losers, always looking for subsidy.
Anyway, I'm sure all our Labour and LibDem supporters are really hoping that Theresa May's speech will go down very well and move the negotiations forward.
I certainly am. Get a move on, then we can move forwards or back.
Yes agreed - we are leaving, let's make it as painless as possible. If Brexit turns into a great success, I'll be very happy to admit I was wrong.
(PS Even Brexit success won't be enough to save the Tories at the next GE )
Sky saying May May say that we will leave before 2019
If no deal is going to be reached then it might be best to get it all over with now. What's the point of another 18 months of uncertainty (and endless remainer whinging) with the same result at the end?
If the Labour Party isn't sexist then 50% of the open contests would be won by women
But that means that 75% of Labour candidates in target seats are women... which would be sexist
Er, not really. Labour are aware that there are many unconscious and structural barriers to women becoming candidates and MPs and have decided to do something explicit to redress the balance.
Perhaps, but it does result in male candidates being discriminated against.
I think there are 119 female Labour MPs, so 143 male Labour MPs, so there must be a great deal of implicit or explicit sexism that reduces the number of female Labour MPs below the half you would expect by chance.
In my view this justifies some explicit discrimination to correct the imbalance, although I can think of some better ways to do it (that wouldn't have been subject to the suspicion of manipulation as occurred during the Blair years, when it was often alleged that AWS were used to block popular local male candidates who were not loyal Blairites).
Nah - 45% is within the range of random chance, voters having a view, etc.
But the 45% has only been achieved with a great number of AWS. My assumption is that it would be very much lower without them.
They have a useful booking app, but are otherwise a minicab firm.
I particularly like the fact I can use the same app in multiple locations and countries as it means I don't have to faff around
Lots of companies have the booking and routing capability, and some apps integrate multiple services. I simply don't see anything Uber is doing that is really unique, what they have on their side is scale and investor capital, but a viable business surely needs more than that in the long term.
As I said up thread I really looks like Uber's goal is to be the biggest taxi app come the self-driving revolution (and there's a fair chance they will be locked out of that).
Anyway, I'm sure all our Labour and LibDem supporters are really hoping that Theresa May's speech will go down very well and move the negotiations forward.
I certainly am. Get a move on, then we can move forwards or back.
That applies to this speech to. Was hoping to listen before the kids get home. What a sad life.
Things I learnt today: TSE is not a classic sci fi buff. The correct title for the last thread is The Forever War.
He can redeem himself with the thread describing May's speech fuck up. "The EU is a Harsh Mistress"
Love it.
And all the more appropriate given what Heinlein would likely think of the EU. (Although he would have approved of financial passporting and the free movement of labour.)
He was at the peak of his powers when he wrote that book (he went off the rails later, with his advocacy for incest).
Heinlein always seemed a bit obsessive about sex,
Wasn't he part of a swinger quasi-cult in his early days?
With Uber the reason it is cheaper than black cabs and minicabs is because they massively subsidize the price of a ride. They are 15 billion in the hole because they run a minicab firm where they don't charge enough to make a profit. there is no magic technology secret sauce that is making Uber's cheaper than regular cabs, just a nver ending stream of investor cash.
If they raised their prices to probability they would be more expensive than a regular min-cab firm due to their massive overheads.
Once they get a critical mass of drivers and customers in a location, Uber will drastically hike driver commissions if they haven't done so already. Drivers are a commodity. As long as they get rides quickly and reliably customers don't care. They will go for the most ubiquitous system. It's not even very price sensitive.
Drivers will HATE Uber. I don't mean that as a figure of speech. Unless drivers loathe Uber with every fibre of their being the Uber business model is not performing at peak.
Is that true?
Given low barriers to entry, and the fact that drivers can be on two services simultaneously, why would they want to do that.
Much better to take a 15% commission from every taxi journey in the world. For providing an app and a few servers.
I am not an expert in taxis but I was involved with a company with a similar business model, what matters to most customers is availability, not price. The company with most drivers on its books can offer the best availability so that's where the business is. Drivers won't have any choice but to sign up with Uber to get the fares. Uber will also ensure the app favours drivers that use their company the way they want. So the two service drivers might find they get bumped down the queue. Equally drivers will, I assume, be able to pay to get better fares or more of them.
But that's not what's happened in the US. In LA, pretty much every driver is on both Uber and Lyft.
What differentiates Uber is UberPool, which - frankly - kicks public transport's ass.
Sky saying May May say that we will leave before 2019
If no deal is going to be reached then it might be best to get it all over with now. What's the point of another 18 months of uncertainty (and endless remainer whinging) with the same result at the end?
As it stands, the government has eighteen months to recruit 3,000 customs officers and repaint the the M20 into a lorry park. If we just crash out it won't have had any time to do that.
Sky saying May May say that we will leave before 2019
If no deal is going to be reached then it might be best to get it all over with now. What's the point of another 18 months of uncertainty (and endless remainer whinging) with the same result at the end?
As it stands, the government has eighteen months to recruit 3,000 customs officers and repaint the the M20 into a lorry park. If we just crash out it won't have had any time to do that.
Things I learnt today: TSE is not a classic sci fi buff. The correct title for the last thread is The Forever War.
He can redeem himself with the thread describing May's speech fuck up. "The EU is a Harsh Mistress"
Love it.
And all the more appropriate given what Heinlein would likely think of the EU. (Although he would have approved of financial passporting and the free movement of labour.)
He was at the peak of his powers when he wrote that book (he went off the rails later, with his advocacy for incest).
Heinlein always seemed a bit obsessive about sex,
Wasn't he part of a swinger quasi-cult in his early days?
I have no idea if he was but it would not surprise me if it was the case.
He wrote well in many ways but I never liked the sex oriented side of his work.
With Uber the reason it is cheaper than black cabs and minicabs is because they massively subsidize the price of a ride. They are 15 billion in the hole because they run a minicab firm where they don't charge enough to make a profit. there is no magic technology secret sauce that is making Uber's cheaper than regular cabs, just a nver ending stream of investor cash.
If they raised their prices to probability they would be more expensive than a regular min-cab firm due to their massive overheads.
Even if Uber was the same price as a black cab (which I very much doubt) I would STILL prefer Uber. Because Ubers are infinitely easier to use, more plentiful, less hassle, the app is superb, no cash changes hands, the drivers are polite - they load your luggage, they play the music you want - they just beat black cabs hands down - and that's APART from price.
I predict that this will be a massively unpopular decision. And, as I say below, even if Uber lose their appeal, someone else will just copy the model and replace them.
5 years after Facebook as founded it had 25% profit margin. 5 years after Uber was founded it had -149% Profit margin, for every pound of revenue it takes it loses £1.49.
It has to more than double it's take from Taxi fares to become profitable.
And the people who will be most annoyed will be women, especially young women. They LOVE Uber. It's cheap and makes them feel safe - much safer than normal cabs.
Sadiq Khan could lose squillions of voters here. Good.
And how many of those ladies realise that Uber have been failing to adequately carry out CRB checks and vetting & barring regulations? Regulations that exist to stop young ladies having a very bad end to their night out.
Does Uber have any worse record than, say, Swiss Cottage Cars? I suspect not. But Swiss Cottage Cars probably has 100 drivers on its radio circuit, and Uber has 30,000. In any selection of 30,000 men aged 18 to 50, you will have bad apples. Small sample sizes mean you'd perhaps hear of one story in five years about something bad happening at Swiss Cottage Cars, against 100 a year at Uber.
It doesn't mean Uber does a worse job vetting its drivers, or that it's more dangerous to ride in an Uber. It means that is simply a larger number of cars and drivers.
I'm persuaded by PB. Sadiq Khan should abuse his quasi-judicial licensing role and commit corporate manslaughter by ignoring evidence of malpractice. When a Brown, Muslim driver with previous convictions and no ECRB check rapes and murders a young WWC passenger I'm sure the dual suspects on here will still be going on about how cheap it is.
Gone is the claim still made by ministers that in 2019 we are leaving the single market and customs union. Whatever the semantics, we now seek a transition for at least two years where we in effect remain inside that single market and the customs union.
Gone is the claim that we can tell the EU to “go whistle” when they ask us to pay up. The cabinet has made it known that it will cough up at least £20 billion for the privilege of leaving.
Gone is the assertion that freedom of movement will end when we leave. When this paper pointed out earlier this week that we would have to accept free movement as the condition of a transition, this was described as “completely delusional” by a Downing Street source. Today it is the official position of Downing Street’s occupants.
And the people who will be most annoyed will be women, especially young women. They LOVE Uber. It's cheap and makes them feel safe - much safer than normal cabs.
Sadiq Khan could lose squillions of voters here. Good.
And how many of those ladies realise that Uber have been failing to adequately carry out CRB checks and vetting & barring regulations? Regulations that exist to stop young ladies having a very bad end to their night out.
Does Uber have any worse record than, say, Swiss Cottage Cars? I suspect not. But Swiss Cottage Cars probably has 100 drivers on its radio circuit, and Uber has 30,000. In any selection of 30,000 men aged 18 to 50, you will have bad apples. Small sample sizes mean you'd perhaps hear of one story in five years about something bad happening at Swiss Cottage Cars, against 100 a year at Uber.
It doesn't mean Uber does a worse job vetting its drivers, or that it's more dangerous to ride in an Uber. It means that is simply a larger number of cars and drivers.
Surely it is reasonable for Swiss Cottage Cars to expect all its competitors, including Uber, to be held to comply with local regulations to the same extent it is?
Sky saying May May say that we will leave before 2019
If no deal is going to be reached then it might be best to get it all over with now. What's the point of another 18 months of uncertainty (and endless remainer whinging) with the same result at the end?
We could leave the EU now by repealing the European Communities Act and related legislation.
But the act of doing that would cause some severe problems with regard to double taxation, unless other legislation was drafted first. The problem is that this stuff is complicated.
It doesn't mean Uber does a worse job vetting its drivers, or that it's more dangerous to ride in an Uber. It means that is simply a larger number of cars and drivers.
I agree that Uber gets a lot of scrutiny, but TfL clearly thinks that the company is bending or breaking the rules. Shouldn't Uber comply with them?
"You'll be making a grave error if you kill us. There are a quarter of a million Italians in Britain. And they'll be made to suffer. Every restaurant, café, ice-cream parlour, gambling den and nightclub in London, Liverpool and Glasgow, will be smashed. Mr Davis will drive them into the sea."
"You'll be making a grave error if you kill us. There are a quarter of a million Italians in Britain. And they'll be made to suffer. Every restaurant, café, ice-cream parlour, gambling den and nightclub in London, Liverpool and Glasgow, will be smashed. Mr Davis will drive them into the sea."
And the people who will be most annoyed will be women, especially young women. They LOVE Uber. It's cheap and makes them feel safe - much safer than normal cabs.
Sadiq Khan could lose squillions of voters here. Good.
And how many of those ladies realise that Uber have been failing to adequately carry out CRB checks and vetting & barring regulations? Regulations that exist to stop young ladies having a very bad end to their night out.
Does Uber have any worse record than, say, Swiss Cottage Cars? I suspect not. But Swiss Cottage Cars probably has 100 drivers on its radio circuit, and Uber has 30,000. In any selection of 30,000 men aged 18 to 50, you will have bad apples. Small sample sizes mean you'd perhaps hear of one story in five years about something bad happening at Swiss Cottage Cars, against 100 a year at Uber.
It doesn't mean Uber does a worse job vetting its drivers, or that it's more dangerous to ride in an Uber. It means that is simply a larger number of cars and drivers.
The relevant allegations appear to be that Uber are not vetting its drivers well enough, or reacting well enough to reported incidents. If Swiss Cottage Cars has 100 drivers, it is easy for management to get to know them and hopefully weed out bad apples. It is probably impossible for Uber to get to know the 30,000 drivers.
It is very difficult to predict that someone with a clean record will commit a crime. It is somewhat easier to predict that someone with a long criminal record may commit future crimes. So the key things are to vet new drivers, and then, when someone with a clean record is accused of something, to react in a way that is fair to both accused and accuser.
It seems Uber are not doing this.
Having said that, I do wonder if Swiss Cottage Cabs or the black cabs are being treated to a different standard over this.
Comments
You can't win with these morons.
As I said up thread I really looks like Uber's goal is to be the biggest taxi app come the self-driving revolution (and there's a fair chance they will be locked out of that).
Welcome to the club, BTW.
Just looking at the BBC picture of the hall, it looks like it's set up for a village hall AGM or WI meet!
https://twitter.com/steven_swinford/status/911216210875961344
Come to think of it all that film, and esp. Noel Coward, and the ending, is a pretty good metaphor for where we are now.
(PS Even Brexit success won't be enough to save the Tories at the next GE
(edit: I didn't tip it)
What differentiates Uber is UberPool, which - frankly - kicks public transport's ass.
Huzzah for Renaissance! Shame I actually had a stake limit for it (hasn't happened to me often).
Sounds like the swinger sex cult.
It will demonstrate pretty neatly how replaceable Uber really is.
Isn't speaking on behalf of those. Quite irritating to be told what I have or haven't felt.
Get on with it.
He wrote well in many ways but I never liked the sex oriented side of his work.
Amazon's net profit margin for first 5 years were
-59%
-39%
-21%
-20%
-51%
So even at their worst 80% points better than Uber.
Exciting future it isn't.
It doesn't mean Uber does a worse job vetting its drivers, or that it's more dangerous to ride in an Uber. It means that is simply a larger number of cars and drivers.
Hailo then...
Who wouldn't be a judge?
Bit dull so far this speech, hope it warms up.
Gone is the claim that we can tell the EU to “go whistle” when they ask us to pay up. The cabinet has made it known that it will cough up at least £20 billion for the privilege of leaving.
Gone is the assertion that freedom of movement will end when we leave. When this paper pointed out earlier this week that we would have to accept free movement as the condition of a transition, this was described as “completely delusional” by a Downing Street source. Today it is the official position of Downing Street’s occupants.
- Evening Standard
But the act of doing that would cause some severe problems with regard to double taxation, unless other legislation was drafted first. The problem is that this stuff is complicated.
into the sea."
From an earlier draft of the speech.
It is very difficult to predict that someone with a clean record will commit a crime. It is somewhat easier to predict that someone with a long criminal record may commit future crimes. So the key things are to vet new drivers, and then, when someone with a clean record is accused of something, to react in a way that is fair to both accused and accuser.
It seems Uber are not doing this.
Having said that, I do wonder if Swiss Cottage Cabs or the black cabs are being treated to a different standard over this.