Uber couldn’t be king forever!

Todays blog is a potpourri of stories well written about UBER that we wanted to share with you.  You can see these complete stories by visiting forbes.com

Forbes has reported the UBER issues with facts and fairness the rest is up to you to decipher the reality of what's going on in the world of ridesharing.  We encourage you to continue reading our blog for up dates and to share this information with your friends.

When UBER wins we all lose! More to come on this statement in the days ahead.  

Depicted as large-greedy UBER for what it really is... A sham!  Don't get us wrong the need for the current transportation systems to adopt all of the modern technologies available today is long past due.  The current rideshare environment exist only because the established transportation systems where complacent with the status quo. OK, time to quit the crying and pick yourself up by the boot straps.  "Old" established transportation systems go out there and make the technology work better for all of us.  Be more efficient!  Be more reliable! Be more professional! Use your trade organizations and Unions to lead the way.  There are plenty of application specialist and companies out there eager to start a new application that is better than what UBER has today.  We know what they have; so go out and ask the public to create a wish list, fill their needs and adopt to the new way of doing business or die!

Story By: forbes.com

Jeff Bercovici Forbes Staff

Tech 8/26/2014 @ 10:15PM

There’s never any shortage of reasons to hate Uber, for those feeling so inclined. If you’re a driver, you may fear and distrust the company because of its needlessly punitive ratings system or its misleading claims about earnings. If you’re a customer, perhaps you were put off by a $400 fare or the seemingly endless reports of rapes and other crimes committed by drivers.

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Story By: forbes.com

Tech 5/30/2014 @ 8:30AM

Ellen Huet Forbes Staff

Lyft and Uber’s megafunding — $330 million and likely $800 million, respectively — allows them to blow money on brash attempts to win over as many drivers and passengers as possible.

The driver promotions are eye-popping and clearly unsustainable: Do you drive for Uber? Here, Lyft will give you $500 to give 10 Lyft rides. Drive for Lyft? Uber’s got $500 for you — plus a guarantee that you’ll net $45 an hour until the end of June. Refer a driver to Uber? Here’s $500 for you and $500 for your friend, too.

To reel in users, companies make rides cheaper and cheaper, which angers drivers. In January, Uber dropped its low-cost UberX fares 20% and cut commission from 20% to 5%. But at that rate, Uber lost money on every ride. In April, it began taking a 20% cut again — but didn’t raise prices back up, meaning drivers now make less for the same work.

Lyft took its cue from Uber and dropped prices 20% in early April — then dropped them 10% more two weeks later, much to drivers’ chagrin. It also stopped taking any of its usual 20% commission.

That’s right: In an economy full of profitless startups, even apps with paying users are forgoing revenue for growth. Lyft has been doing so for a month and a half — and won’t say when it’ll stop.

Lyft started fighting back this week with driver promotions and two billboard trucks. (Courtesy Lyft)

In the meantime, drivers who use both apps are forced to do complicated calculations of various bonuses, surge pricing, price cuts, “safe ride fees,” and other gimmicks to determine the best way to scrape a living. Uber said that UberX drivers working 40-hour weeks can make $90,000 a year in New York City and $74,000 a year in San Francisco. But drivers say that’s difficult, if not impossible. And if companies keep cutting fares and raising commissions, it’ll only get worse.

“This is too much. It’s just a race to the bottom,” said Jeffrey, 50, who drives on both platforms and declined to give his full name. “Nobody’s ever going to bring the fare price back up.” (Uber added a $1 safety fee to each ride in April, but the dollar goes to Uber, not the driver.)

The perks and bonuses sound great, but they’re just “math tricks” and “temporary moves to placate drivers,” Jeffrey said. The work is hard and unstable, and drivers are always at risk of sudden financial burdens from an accident. And 20% to 30% of a driver’s income goes to taxes, gas and car maintenance, he estimated.

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Story By: forbes.com

Ellen Huet Forbes Staff

Tech 6/23/2014 @ 8:30AM

Uber couldn’t be king forever.

“The ‘moat’ around Uber’s services is incredibly shallow,” wrote Wall Street Journal tech columnist Christopher Mims. “This means competitors — and there will be legion — might have little  trouble taking business away from the company and limiting its ultimate size.”

is the “moat” really so shallow? What does it take to get another Uber up and running, and can it succeed?

Those are questions that Snir Kodesh and Noam Szpiro, founders of Hitch, ask themselves all the time, though they’re optimistic about the answers. Hitch, the latest transportation app to launch in San Francisco, is similar to Uber and Lyft except for one essential detail: it allows users to share a ride with others traveling a similar route. That change means that passengers can pay less for a ride than on other apps, and drivers will still pull several fares on one ride. Everyone goes home happier, richer and more efficient, and over time, fewer cars clog the road.

That’s the goal, anyway. The real experience of getting there is a lot more complicated. Hitch launched four weeks ago, and while it has promising numbers so far — 70 percent of riders use the app again, Szpiro said — it’s a great case study on why it’s so much harder to launch a new, game-changing app that matches passengers to drivers than it is to make one that says “Yo.”
Hitch — and any other growing transportation startup — faces a rough road ahead. On-demand marketplaces are notoriously delicate balancing acts. The network effects that favor large, existing companies like Uber make it even harder for new entrants to stake a claim. And transportation startups have to bow to complex regulation and expensive insurance that many other entrepreneurs avoid.