[HN Gopher] Post-pandemic, the battle between Uber and Lyft is l...
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Post-pandemic, the battle between Uber and Lyft is looking more
one-sided
Author : prostoalex
Score : 58 points
Date : 2022-10-03 16:50 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| kaycebasques wrote:
| My anecdotal experience last week is that Lyft's experience has
| fallen off a cliff. Even in SF it often takes 10 minutes to get a
| ride (not including the time for the driver to pick me up).
| Sometimes Lyft just leaves me hanging and can't find me any rides
| whatsoever. I'm gradually switching to Uber simply out of lack of
| confidence that Lyft will get me a ride in the timeframes I've
| been conditioned to expect based on past experience.
| curiousDog wrote:
| Lyft seems like a great candidate for Tesla to acquire and
| eventually replace with their autonomous fleet. But Elon is busy
| winning the culture wars atm.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| _What_ autonomous fleet? Such a thing does not exist, nor will
| it in the foreseeable future.
| efficax wrote:
| There's little reason currently to think that fully autonomous
| vehicles are just around the corner, and even less reason to
| think that Tesla will be the company that gets there first,
| given the lack of LiDAR on Teslas. Musk's twitter gambit is
| focusing on the real engine of his wealth, public relations.
| curiousDog wrote:
| Indeed, meant to say he should acquire this if he's at all
| serious about the autonomous/robo taxi thing becoming a
| reality but we all know it's hot-air for the foreseeable
| future. But kind of the premise based on which these
| companies thought their unit economics would eventually work
| out.
| mwattsun wrote:
| As a former driver, I concur that Lyft is better than Uber for a
| couple of reasons: customer service and serving the needs of the
| poor. I was able to actually get a human at Lyft to talk to
| several times to resolve issues in favor of the customer. The
| bill was corrected on the spot. I was never able to get a human
| at Uber for any reason at any time.
|
| For the poor, I did a lot of runs taking older low income
| patients to dialysis clinics. Several rides were set up before
| hand where I took mentally disabled people to clinics (I was
| instructed not to drop them off in between home and the clinic if
| they requested.) Admittedly, Lyft is not a charity, so they're
| probably making good government money, but I like that Lyft made
| the effort to help the less fortunate and gave me the opportunity
| to feel like I was doing something that mattered.
| guywithahat wrote:
| https://archive.ph/4vM9v
| shagie wrote:
| gift link - https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-lyft-is-eating-
| ubers-dust-1...
| Lendal wrote:
| Any way to read this using my Apple News+ subscription? They have
| wsj.com, but I can't find this story in there.
| jrullman wrote:
| If you click the share button and then select the News app, it
| should open the full version.
| Lendal wrote:
| Wow, that worked perfectly. Thanks!
| renewiltord wrote:
| On Reddit, drivers are claiming that Uber pays surge pricing to
| drivers but Lyft pays a fixed hours plus mileage and takes the
| surge increase for itself. Is this true?
| smachiz wrote:
| The one common thread is that neither Lyft nor Uber drivers
| _have any idea_ how they get paid, or why they got paid $X
| instead of $Y even though the customer said they 're paying $ZZ
| for the ride.
|
| My anecdotal experience recently is that Uber is much better at
| communicating a lot of hand wavy reasons why it's not _them_
| that are impacting their net pay $random_government_entity
| taking all your money. Or I 've just gotten some especially
| _out there_ drivers recently.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Sounds about right from the chats I've had with Lyft drivers,
| but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a per-ride bonus
| somewhat like Doordash when they need drivers.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Sounds unlikely. That wouldn't make any sense. The surge is
| there because demand exceeds supply.
| Izkata wrote:
| Why I switched from Uber to Lyft within a week of installing it:
| After having already used my card for a ride, Uber insisted on
| verification (using the phone's camera to take a picture to show
| you actually have the physical card), but it uses an auto-shutter
| and didn't recognize my card, so it wouldn't let me verify.
|
| Luckily I remembered Lyft existed or I would have been stranded
| that night. Installed and set up in less time than I had already
| wasted trying to get Uber to verify.
| 43920 wrote:
| I have the opposite problem: after signing up for Lyft, it made
| me "verify my payment method" by adding a second payment method
| with the same address. My second payment method had the same
| problem, and the only option left was to directly connect a
| bank account, which I didn't want to do. Uber took my credit
| card without a problem.
|
| ...anyway, fraud detection is largely anecdotal.
| reaperducer wrote:
| I hope that Lyft stays around, because I can't use Uber for a
| similar reason as you.
|
| Uber insists on sending me an SMS verification code. But the
| code never arrives.
|
| I have no problem with any other app, just Uber. But I can't
| get anyone at Uber to look at the problem because I'm an human
| being (read: "edge case") and I don't scale.
| SilverBirch wrote:
| Do we really need a graph of a tech stock that goes "'20 Boom,
| '22 bust". Here's the thing - in this article about how Uber is
| beating Lyft, you could have shown a chart of _Uber 's_ stock
| price, and no one would've noticed the difference. Even the
| central thesis of the article is flawed. Both of these companies
| are starting to trade like they're big taxi companies. Which they
| are. The only advantage that Uber has is they do food delivery
| (that's going to go great during a recession) and scooters. Now,
| I don't know how much Uber makes on scooters, so shall we look at
| a competitor to see how well that industry is doing? Bird Scooter
| spac'd at 2.3Bn. How's that going? Oh well, you know, they're
| being delisted by NYSE because they're a penny stock.
| andrewmutz wrote:
| I was curious to see if you are right about the stock
| performance over time. It turns out that the two companies
| stock traded very similarly until May of this year. After that,
| Lyft really has had terrible performance relative to Uber:
|
| https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/LYFT/chart?p=LYFT#eyJpbnRlcn...
| _jcrossley wrote:
| Lyft also have bikes and scooters
|
| https://www.lyft.com/scooters
| tomashertus wrote:
| > food delivery (that's going to go great during a recession)
|
| I'm just curious why you think that food delivery will do great
| during a recession, could you comment on that? I find Uber Eats
| to be utterly overpriced. I would assume that people will scale
| down on eating out during a recession or will look for ways to
| save on it (picking up by themselves, eating more at home,
| etc.)
| sithadmin wrote:
| It's clearly sarcasm.
| SilverBirch wrote:
| Sorry, sarcasm
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Uber also has Uber Health.
| nradov wrote:
| Lyft has exactly the same service to transport patients to
| medical appointments. Uber and Lyft routinely copy each
| other.
|
| https://lyft.com/healthcare
| SoftTalker wrote:
| WTF is that? Non-emergency ambulance?
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean it is a niche that is desperately underserved and is
| the same people moving logistics as anything else.
| reaperducer wrote:
| It didn't used to be underserved. We used to have taxis.
|
| And while taxis didn't always like to pick up people in
| low-traffic areas, they always came for medical
| transports because they could bill insurance companies
| extra.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Yes. It makes a lot of sense.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Yeah, that sort of thing. I'm hurt, I need to go to
| hospital, but I don't need a mobile mini-hospital to rush
| to me.
| TylerE wrote:
| Basically. Healthcare offices can use it to arrange
| transport for patients to appointments and such.
| bombcar wrote:
| Uber Hearse is next.
| [deleted]
| coderintherye wrote:
| Here's a comparison of Uber vs. Lyft stock price over last 5
| years:
| https://www.google.com/finance/quote/LYFT:NASDAQ?comparison=...
| cactus2093 wrote:
| Right if the above comment is trying to simplify it as both
| of them following the pattern of "'20 Boom, '22 bust", it's
| not true.
|
| They did both start declining at the same time about 9 months
| before the overall market did, in April 2021 instead of Jan
| 2022. But from IPO up until that decline started, Lyft was
| already down 20% whereas Uber was up 50%. Then this decline
| has been much worse for Lyft as well, down 80% from April
| 2021 whereas Uber is down 55%.
|
| That's a pretty big difference between the two companies.
| sytse wrote:
| I'm surprised that article doesn't discuss Uber Eats which brings
| in more revenue that the taxi part (called Mobility by Uber, both
| are 13b in the quarter that ended June 30, 2022
| https://investor.uber.com/news-events/news/press-release-det...
| ). Lyft doesn't have this revenue.
| [deleted]
| rblatz wrote:
| I started using Lyft because every time I book an Uber it would
| end up taking 3x as long to get picked up vs the estimate shown,
| typically 15+ minutes. Additionally, it was always "completing a
| trip nearby". Lyft would offer to let me pay a few bucks extra to
| get a ride in 3 minutes, for the same price or lower.
| bergenty wrote:
| Exact opposite. The few times I've tried to use Lyft, it's
| either unavailable, people don't show up or they're late.
| standardUser wrote:
| I've experienced the opposite in NYC where Lyft often never
| even finds me a car and Uber is usually nearly-instant. But on
| the West Coast (recent trips to SF and Seattle) the two seem
| comparable.
| channel_t wrote:
| I live on the west coast and generally try to use Lyft first
| when I need a cab because they seem to be the marginally more
| ethical company, but I still often find that I can get a car
| from Uber faster and more affordably than Lyft. I've also
| found the UX of the Uber app to be a little more mature than
| that of Lyft. Like I can effortlessly send a cab to someone
| else with Uber while with Lyft it's awkward.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > but I still often find that I can get a car from Uber
| faster and more affordably than Lyft.
|
| Lyft surge prices are much higher IME. At a particularly
| bad time, a surge Uber trip downtown where I live might be
| $25, Lyft will charge me $60 for the same ride. I wonder
| how much of that the driver sees.
| metadat wrote:
| I've had the opposite experience - It was 1:45am At SJC,
| and Uber surge pricing for the ride home from the airport
| was $210.00 (this exceeded the cost of the airfare to fly
| 3,000 miles).
|
| I was grateful to take a Lyft home for $28.00.
| zeruch wrote:
| Ultimately I feel I've had both experiences depending on
| which locale I'm in. Depending on whether 1, the other or
| both ave a critical mass of vehicles in an area on any
| given night, I've seen either be cheaper/faster (although
| I find overall anecdotally that Lyft does better in
| places I frequent on the West Coast, Cleveland and
| Dallas. Everywhere else it's seemingly totally up for
| grabs), but neither service seems canonically "better"
| except that Lyft seems as mentioned previously, slightly
| less ethically challenged than Uber (a threshold that
| isn't hard to beat frankly).
| time_to_smile wrote:
| Cool, let me know when either of them has a positive earnings per
| share.
|
| I'm still a bit surprised that we don't see more investor
| pressure for many of these companies to demonstrate that _they
| actually can turn a profit_.
|
| I get it, when Uber was just in SF, the argument was "don't worry
| about profit, just grow until you eat the entire industry...
| _then_ you turn on the profit switch ". But here we are, Uber has
| IPO'd, is in every city in the US and many countries around the
| world, and has only one major competitor which the WSJ claims is
| "eating their dust".
|
| When do you flip that profit switch if not now?
|
| The most obvious reason I can think for not flipping the switch
| is _there is none_. Still very curious when, if ever, the market
| will care.
| gtowey wrote:
| > The most obvious reason I can think for not flipping the
| switch is there is none. Still very curious when, if ever, the
| market will care.
|
| This is exactly correct. If they could have, it would be
| profitable by now.
|
| A lot of these large tech companies simply act as wealth
| transfer vehicles, enriching a few key players. When private,
| the insane valuations drive ever larger VC funding rounds with
| early investors cashing out with money from later rounds.
| Leadership teams take home millions in compensation and equity.
| All of them have a huge incentive to keep the fiction going.
|
| By the time the company goes public, the last rats leave the
| sinking ship with public money and the company is now a zombie.
| Everyone left is just scavenging the scraps leftover until a
| few unlucky souls are left holding the bag.
|
| The thing is I can't convince myself that this is meaningfully
| different than a classic ponzi scheme. I guess because they
| have a "product" and and a revenue stream. But their business
| is basically selling $1.00 for $0.90 -- no surprise that their
| volume is insane.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| They aren't just scamming the investors, they are scamming
| the drivers. Most drivers barely break even (if even that)
| driving for these services, but they are starting to catch
| on. It's not worth it for drivers, so there aren't enough
| drivers, so the customer experience is getting worse. If they
| paid well enough to actually compensate for the wear and
| depreciation on the driver's car, and also compensate the
| driver for his labor, they would be even less profitable.
| loufe wrote:
| This is such a frustratingly common take. I want to believe
| it but I have met so many Uber drivers with 5000+ rides
| who, when I ask, say they enjoy the job. I really cannot
| imagine these people are these for the pleasure of driving.
| They're making money. Maybe, probably, likely, not lots,
| but they are certainly at the very least making ends meet.
|
| My last driver on vacation said he was on his 3rd vehicle
| over 7 years of driving with Uber. I imagine if he's still
| going, he's doing more than "breaking even".
| viscanti wrote:
| > My last driver on vacation said he was on his 3rd
| vehicle over 7 years of driving with Uber.
|
| I see lots of people argue that drivers don't understand
| depreciation, but you talk to these drivers who have been
| doing it for years across multiple vehicles, and they're
| still doing it. It seems like people want them to be
| exploited, so they feel justified in saying the big tech
| companies are bad, and it's really easy to just ignore
| the reality that there are many of these multi year multi
| vehicle drivers out there who are still doing it and say
| they like it and are making money. If drivers were
| actually losing money, you wouldn't expect to find nearly
| as many multi year drivers as you do.
| ska wrote:
| > If drivers were actually losing money, you wouldn't
| expect to find nearly as many multi year drivers as you
| do.
|
| That might be an oversimplification too. That suggests at
| least _some_ drivers are finding it worth sticking with,
| absolutely. There could be systemic reasons there are
| others who give it up in 6mo or whatever. The ration may
| be interesting also.
|
| It would be particularly interesting in how many people
| are maintaining a one income household with it, without
| other sources of income.
| asdff wrote:
| Best case you are making like $20/hr. It beats a burger
| flipping job but not by much. In n Out starts you at
| $18/hr and actually provides benefits. Factor in the wear
| on the car, lack of a career trajectory (managers at in n
| out do well), and you paying for health insurance
| yourself, maybe it doesn't actually shake out too nice.
| These are uber drivers after all, who work in a field
| that's hard to gleam solid info about from online search
| engines with all the SEO spam around ridesharing topics,
| not accountants who are taking all these external costs
| into account when they calculate their actual take home
| pay.
|
| https://www.gobankingrates.com/money/jobs/uber-and-lyft-
| driv...
| jfghi wrote:
| Would you care to demonstrate how many rides it would
| take to pay for vehicle expenses, rent/mortgage, food,
| auto insurance, health insurance, and any sort of
| discretionary income?
|
| Claiming that there is one happy Uber driver doesn't
| establish the validity of the business model.
| gtowey wrote:
| > They aren't just scamming the investors, they are
| scamming the drivers.
|
| I agree. And this is one of the reasons that their path to
| profitability is impossible. Since they often cite their
| large customer and driver acquisition campaigns as the
| thing they can cut to start taking profits when they have
| scaled enough.
|
| The truth is that they can't stop that spending, they need
| a constant stream of new drivers (suckers) to keep things
| going. If they stop the spend, the drivers go away.
| makestuff wrote:
| Grab app works well enough for big cities for calling a yellow
| cab. Also several big cities have flat rates from the airport
| into the city center. Ex: JFK -> NYC is $75 flat rate. I rarely
| see an uber cheaper than that. Also the taxis are usually
| waiting so you don't have to track down a random car.
|
| All of that to say I don't think there is a profit switch. Uber
| doesn't really give any benefits over a taxi in large metros
| anymore which I assume is where most of their profit comes
| from.
| jen20 wrote:
| 52 from JFK to Manhattan. Much better value than an Uber on
| average - no vehicle moves as fast as an NYC cab on that
| route.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| I really don't think there is one. They have no competitive
| moat, and they know it. That's why we've seen so many antics
| around branching out into parallel and tangential business
| models over the past several years. If they knew how to make
| their core taxi service profitable, then I can't really see why
| they didn't just do that instead of faffing around with all
| these side hustles.
| treis wrote:
| They're still building back from Covid. Lyft had 3.6 billion
| revenue in 2019. That dipped to 2.4 in 2020, and 3.1 in 2021.
| They only got back to their 2019 revenue in Q1 or Q2 of 2022.
| standardUser wrote:
| Being a household name and having a presence in virtually every
| corner of the country is worth a _lot_.
| actionablefiber wrote:
| It's not worth anything if they can't figure out how to turn
| a profit.
| standardUser wrote:
| According to the market it's worth a cool $50 billion or
| so.
| actionablefiber wrote:
| The market seems to have thought it was worth more than
| twice that not very long ago. Maybe the market isn't
| super great at valuing things in the short term,
| especially things that lose money.
| standardUser wrote:
| However we evaluate Uber, we're going to be _way_ off the
| mark if we don 't appreciate the immense value of brands.
| actionablefiber wrote:
| Whatever value we assign to the brand name "Uber", how do
| we appreciate the immense negative value in aggressively
| losing money with no end in sight? Surely that should
| figure into their valuation somehow.
|
| I'm not sure their brand recognition can possibly get any
| better. It's been top-notch for years. All that's left is
| to make the unit economics work out. So, where are they
| on that?
| standardUser wrote:
| The thing is, they don't have to live up to _your_
| expectations of what a valuable company should be because
| they _are_ a valuable company. It 's also the case with
| many "successful" startups that if they decided to stop
| expanding and make profitability their sole prerogative,
| it may be in reach. We don't know because they never
| tried, and they have no incentive to try. Their
| incentives are all geared towards continued massive
| growth.
| actionablefiber wrote:
| I don't dispute that they have a market cap above zero
| and therefore are a 'valuable' company. But ultimately
| that "value" comes from a bunch of people making guesses
| about future cash flows.
|
| Suppose that the unit economics for Uber do not work out,
| especially in a recession with high borrowing costs. It
| would not take long for that "value" to become zero.
| bachmeier wrote:
| I tried Lyft in San Antonio. App kept saying a driver was on the
| way, but they'd mysteriously never show up. Tried it again in
| Philadelphia. Same thing - was repeatedly left hanging. I don't
| know if Lyft actually had drivers on the way, but even if they
| did, I've used Uber since and never had a problem.
| skrowl wrote:
| nativespecies wrote:
| You could phrase this in a way that isn't so gross and
| offensive.
| cercatrova wrote:
| Indeed, I do the same thing and most people I know do the same.
| The fact is that Lyft for me consistently has high prices and
| lower availability of drivers than Uber, so I use Uber. The
| network effect is strong with ridesharing companies.
| ProAm wrote:
| It's hard to over look the horrendous work place culture and
| history of Uber.
|
| Seems like newer generations are okay with it.
| skrowl wrote:
| I think that's the norm for all app-based / gig-economy work
| TylerE wrote:
| Doesn't seem to match the facts?
|
| FTA: "Furthermore, the survey showed Lyft has a significantly
| higher percentage of dissatisfied drivers."
| quantified wrote:
| I read the comment as referring to Uber's staff. But being
| crappy to one doesn't mean your competition isn't crappier.
| telotortium wrote:
| Is there any proof that Lyft's work culture is better even
| for engineers? It's not clear that drivers prefer it.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| Here's my anecdata. Every Uber/Lyft I've taken is clearly
| servicing both. Indicators range from multiple phones, one
| with each app running and multiple logos/stickers on the
| cars. I almost always ask the driver which they prefer. The
| consistent answer is they prefer working with Lyft better
| but Uber more consistently has rides for them to pick up.
| It's unclear whether they get paid better with Lyft or are
| otherwise treated better, but that is what they say every
| time.
| ev1 wrote:
| I usually ask the same (and whether they prefer tip in
| cash etc); I have not seen a _single_ person say they
| would rather drive for uber. It 's been nearly 100%
| toward lyft preference. I ride daily.
| seer-zig wrote:
| Could you elaborate what you're referring to exactly?
| ProAm wrote:
| - Uber driver rapes passenger, Uber executive obtains
| victims medical records [1]
|
| - History of 49 scandals at Uber [2]
|
| - Uber's #MeToo Movement in France [3]
|
| - Uber's #MeToo movement in America [4]
|
| - Sexual discrimination and gender harassment, Uber's
| culture [5] [6]
|
| To name a few, the list goes on.
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40196055
|
| [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-company-scandals-
| and-controversies-2017-11
|
| [3] https://www.politico.eu/article/uber-france-metoo-
| moment/
|
| [4] https://www.vox.com/2017/6/21/15844852/uber-toxic-bro-
| compan...
|
| [5] https://www.infoworld.com/article/3173354/uber-
| ugliness-unma... valleys-bro-culture.html
|
| [6] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/metoo-campaign-sheds-
| light-on...
| borbulon wrote:
| Remind me again how Uber's doing? Still losing lots of money?
| missedthecue wrote:
| They're about as profitable as Lyft.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| It seems like a fundamental issue is that there's no really no
| product differentiation - a Lyft's end result is the same as Uber
| (getting to your destination) so the only path to winning is
| having the money to outspend your opponent. Now that Uber's cut
| out the bullshit with self-driving and endless expansion, and
| started to focus on winning in the US, I see a tough road ahead
| for Lyft.
| deepsun wrote:
| But how to get the money when VC money ended? The only way I
| see is to be more efficient on spending. Hint: taxi companies
| don't need 10k+ software engineers.
|
| So their market is a race to the bottom. Which is a indicator
| of an effective market. Only non-effective markets have large
| profit margins.
| uup wrote:
| Both Uber and Lyft are public companies, so they can raise
| money on the stock market, selling bonds, convertible notes,
| etc.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| For reference, uber now has a 3:1 ratio of debt to equity.
| Lyft is closer to 4.
| treis wrote:
| It's a fair point, but Uber still does a lot of bullshit.
| Freight, Eats, Packages, Scooters, Public transport SaaS stuff,
| and probably others I don't know about. Plus, they're doing
| that stuff internationally. Uber might start to focus on
| winning the US but can they against a leaner, meaner, and more
| focused Lyft?
|
| It's also the classic bundled vs individual components debate.
| Uber is bundled and Lyft is a component. Usually there's room
| in the market for both.
| actionablefiber wrote:
| Lyft's subsidiary Motivate also operates a decent number of
| bikeshare systems.
|
| I have no idea if it's a profitable venture for them -
| supposedly they're the "operating partner" which I guess
| means the actual owners pay them a fee to handle all the
| logistics while the owners themselves are responsible for the
| profit and loss of the system overall. Can anyone provide
| more detail here?
| linuxftw wrote:
| Don't forget, Uber also burned a bunch of cash to kill someone
| with their 'self driving' technology.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| "Lyft has since ditched the facial hair, but it hasn't matured
| much geographically. It remains a North American business
| predominantly focused on the U.S. market. And while Uber has
| enjoyed the Covid-precipitated boom in food delivery over the
| past few years, Lyft remains largely a rideshare company."
|
| "But Lyft's total revenue is forecast by analysts to remain less
| than a third of Uber's global ride-hailing business alone this
| year"
|
| "Not surprisingly, Uber is racing to broaden its horizons, adding
| taxi and other travel bookings as well as alcohol and grocery
| delivery. For now, Lyft is still chugging along the same beaten
| path."
|
| Lyft is a purely rideshare company in only the US market. Uber is
| doing all kinds of different shit, globally. Yet the article
| makes it seem strange that Lyft is "eating Uber's dust", when
| they are barely comparable.
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