If you didn’t know better, Uber seems like they are about to fall over with possible losses in the $3.5-$4 BILLION range. Several news outlets have been reporting that they are losing more money than any company in the history of the world, despite growing left and right and making new inroads in the entire cab and taxi industry. Places like Las Vegas, where they fought Uber have accepted them finally. The Taxi industry hasn’t been able to address the issues and their own drivers leaving in droves to Uberize.
Analysts are right: Uber is investing large amounts of money into their company now, growing as fast as possible with the hope that they can in a few years start making profits in the billions. This isn’t uncommon for tech companies to try to corner market share fast, develop new technologies and then pray that their gamble works. Everyone seems to do it.
However, they aren’t investing in technology, or even much advertising. Their word of mouth advertising, with free rides and payouts has worked better than any advertising program, propelling them into a household name overnight. Who hasn’t heard of Uber? Even if you hate Uber, you know about it.
So where are they investing in? They are paying out billions to drivers in bonuses, subsidies, attempting to keep the drivers from fleeing the company. Only a small raise in their own fees last year caused many drivers to quickly leave the company for competitors, or just drop out when they stopped making enough money from rides. In some places they even started doing guaranteed hourly wages, losing millions on those cities. But why? Can’t they just have less drivers, and pay them more?
Then, what is Uber’s Dirty Secret?
Simply put: They will be firing all the drivers within the next few years. Eventually the company will be nothing more than an application that can call a driverless car to their door, and cut out any human involvement except occasional customer service. They just want more people having the app on their phone, and get used to Uber being their driver. With or without an actual person in the front seat.
Despite claiming so, Uber is not part of the sharing economy, they are part of the economy that promises to destroy the human workforce – and they plan to do it, regardless of consequences or safety. Even in California where they have been asked to stop the experimentation of driverless cars, they have ignored the authorities and just continued to plow through anyone and everyone.
Literally.
Uber self driving cars have been seen doing tons of dangerous things, including running red-lights, and worse, driving into bike lanes pushing bicyclists out of the way. As one bicycle activist, Brian Wedienmeir described, “In the ride I took through the streets of SoMa on Monday, the autonomous vehicle in “self-driving” mode as well as the one in front of it took an unsafe right-hook-style turn through a bike lane. Twice,” he said.
“This kind of turn is one featured in a 2013 blog post that is known to be one of the primary causes of collisions between cars and people who bike resulting in serious injury or fatality. It’s also an unsafe practice that we address in all of the safety curriculum we offer to professional drivers, including the videos we consulted on for Uber as recently as this fall.”
Even though the California Department of Motor Vehicles has said they must have a permit, they have just ignored the government thinking that their enormous size, revenue and political clout matters more than running over pedestrians. They just consider a few dead kids and bicycles to be “the cost of business” and have already factored in the lawsuits for their profitability.
Yes, Uber doesn’t care anything about it’s drivers, nor the safety of the general public.
They will run over anyone and everyone who gets in their way, including their own customers.
