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A comment on Confession: I Don’t Think Uber Is Actually a Great Business (Yet). Parent comment

Re:Confession: I Don’t Think Uber Is Actually a Great Busine... by HillRat on Saturday December 10, 2016 @09:01PM (#13149159)
Curbed is ... not the best experience I've had in ride-hailing. To be honest, it's easier and more convenient for me to have the office call a cab for those relatively few times when I'm in Austin. They may have ironed out some of the quirks of their platform since then (scheduled cabs being called out immediately, an attempt to get a ride to the airport being denied because the app decided I was trying to be dropped off on the tarmac itself), but there's no killer reason yet for me to try it out again.

Having said that, it's definitely true that there are basically no meaningful barriers to entry beyond mindshare (after all, every Uber driver is also running Lyft, and likewise for the drivers -- and Lyft's better driver rates are also why I have to use Lyft when I leave for the airport at 3 AM).

Things like UberEATS may provide some stickiness, but I'm far from sold that their basic economics are going to work in the long run, let alone keep them in the market pole position.

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Re:Confession: I Don’t Think Uber Is Actually a Great Busine... by sulam on Saturday December 10, 2016 @09:24PM (#13149242)
I'm pretty sure UberEATS must be a horrible customer experience based on the random shit I see happening at registers in places that I get food from. Stuff like the driver having no idea what the customer has ordered and just taking any old order the people behind the cash register are willing to give them. Since both ends of this transaction don't qualify as the sharpest tools in the shed, it's basically the blind leading the blind.

I get that it makes sense from Uber's point of view -- increasing driver utilization and smoothing out the supply side of the relationship is probably great for their unit economics. But they actually have to execute it well if they expect people like me to use it.

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Re:Confession: I Don’t Think Uber Is Actually a Great Busine... by smm2000 on Saturday December 10, 2016 @11:27PM (#13149597)
I use UberEATS multiple times a week and every time experience is very good. They deliver fast, no tipping and so far all orders were correct.
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