Silicon Valley’s business model is a scam

Re:Silicon Valley’s business model is a scam by ghaff on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @11:11AM (#36773740)

>Clearly both companies lost the bet (that self-driving cars would work in time for their price model to work).

Of course, the companies may have known it was a rash bet in the vein of this fable about teaching a horse to talk:

https://naomistanford.com/2009/02/09/teaching-the-horse-to-t...

Uber and Lyft could win--depending on location--based on product. But they also deeply undercut taxis on the basis of price until people got used to using them.

>What if Lyft and Uber were 25% cheaper than taxis; primarily because they didn't need to pay a dispatchers' salaries?

I'm pretty sure dispatchers are cheaper than expensive SV engineers.

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Re:Silicon Valley’s business model is a scam by Robotbeat on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @11:29AM (#36774071)

> >What if Lyft and Uber were 25% cheaper than taxis; primarily because they didn't need to pay a dispatchers' salaries? >I'm pretty sure dispatchers are cheaper than expensive SV engineers.

That’s like saying paying human computer wage is less than electrical engineers who develop electronic computers.

Non-recurring engineering cost is higher BUT IT’S NON-RECURRING and largely independent of the number of users, unlike dispatchers.

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Re:Silicon Valley’s business model is a scam by grogenaut on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @11:33AM (#36774153)

How much engineer staff does Uber / lift still have on taxis? Dispatchers were 1 person low pay to 100 cabs or so.

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Re:Silicon Valley’s business model is a scam by adleyjulian on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @02:52PM (#36777491)

Per SEC filings Uber has close to 4 million drivers worldwide. Even if you divide by 4 to account for part time drivers, you'd need 10k dispatchers. If their engineers make 5x as much as the dispatchers than you could have 2k engineers solely dedicated to automating dispatch and still break even.

I think they roughly have 2k engineers total and I have no idea what the breakdown is of what they do.

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Re:Silicon Valley’s business model is a scam by grogenaut on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @05:33PM (#36779385)

I'm betting dispatchers were making $30-50k. So devs make 10-20x that. But still similar math. I am just guessing at a lot of the numbers tho.

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Re:Silicon Valley’s business model is a scam by Robotbeat on Tuesday July 18, 2023 @10:51PM (#36781573)

So, a much better paying job that probably doesn't suck as much. I think this is a win.

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Re:Silicon Valley’s business model is a scam by fragmede on Wednesday July 19, 2023 @12:35AM (#36782161)

Not for dispatchers who aren't able to code.

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Re:Silicon Valley’s business model is a scam by Robotbeat on Wednesday July 19, 2023 @08:48AM (#36785456)

Most people are able to code. Vast majority of people who can function as dispatchers would be mentally capable of coding.

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Re:Silicon Valley’s business model is a scam by grogenaut on Wednesday July 19, 2023 @09:46PM (#36795952)

Many people don't have the luxury of free time to learn skills like coding or the opportunity.

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