Uber’s IPO means higher fares for rides

The last time I had this feeling was when shorting groupon. The emperor has no clothes, I can't see how UBER ends up being materially different from a donut.

&quot;Uber&#x27;s success has been based on two unsustainable tactics: subsidizing fares and exploiting drivers&quot;<p>Considering Uber loses a billion dollars a quarter, I think the only people that are being &#x27;exploited&#x27; are investors. Investor money is going straight to drivers and riders.

I forgot where I read the article, but someone mentioned that the Softbank strategy seems to be to geared towards having 2 major players in ridesharing&#x2F;delivery in each market. The idea was that when these companies go public, they will stop subsidizing rides as much in order to show profit, and will become viable businesses.<p>Because these companies have a new war chest of money, if any new upstarts come into the game, they can have a short-term price war to drive these players out. The US seems to be the first market where this strategy will play out.

I&#x27;ve always used Uber because I&#x27;ve assumed that it&#x27;s cheaper than Lyft and other rideshare services. I just realized I have no idea how much it is compared to others. Does anyone have a formal comparison up online?

I mean higher fares happened a long time ago on both Uber and Lyft. I used to take regular UberX all around SF for &lt;$10. Now I never see a regular Uber for less than $15 and regularly more than $20.

I won&#x27;t, since I can already use Bolt, Kapten or Cabify. The idea that Uber will somehow manage to keep people from building an app and competing is silly. There&#x27;s almost no barrier of entry.

Uber&#x27;s competition is quickly growing and people is realizing is just a matter of downloading an app and you get cheaper alternative, in Latin America a service called beat is giving cheaper car rides, a service called pickup is usin motorbikes instead of cars and is cheaper for both driver and users, all in all Uber doesn&#x27;t have a leg to stand on and is becoming clear all it is is piramid scheme in a gigantic scale.

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Mmmm... unlikely. Here is where the growth helps. More drivers =&gt; more passengers =&gt; more productive use of car miles. The more time where a passenger is in the car the better, and when you factor in shared rides it gets better. Even if you factor in competition by &quot;branding&quot; as they say, the increase in growth is a benefit even if promotions are scaled back. If there is any place you will see increases in prices, it will probably be medium sized cities where Uber&#x2F;Lyft have not achieved a great driver count and don&#x27;t care to invest as much anymore.<p>Otherwise I would be surprised to see any major metropolitan areas ever be more expensive in the future than they are now.

In the end you will have a service costing the same as a regular Taxi but without all the benefits of them being licensed. Taxi licensing may be screwed up and unfair in the US but in many parts of the world it works well.

Hopefully the increase goes to the drivers...

...which will then push Uber customers to Lyft&#x2F;Cabs. Uber doesn’t have monopoly leverage.