Business seems hard. They've gone from a company that was fiscally irresponsible but beloved by customers to one that is MBA led and customer hostile. Curious if this strategy will work (in the long run, doesn't seem so great in the short run)
Netflix was beloved by customers because they were fiscally irresponsible. Users were getting more for their money than what they paid. Similarly, Uber was absolutely loved by customers when trips were only costing a fraction of what Uber paid for them, aka: VC were effectively paying for a portion of your trip.
Of course that was unsustainable on the long term, and two thing happen: quality will decrease and price will increase until the company can reach profitability which is necessary, at some point, to keep operating. For both Uber and Netflix, this is associated with less customer love since value-per-dollar decreases.
But there is no question that the strategy has to be tried, because the previous strategy was - in fact - not working.
> Similarly, Uber was absolutely loved by customers when trips were only costing a fraction of what Uber paid for them, aka: VC were effectively paying for a portion of your trip.
As a regular though infrequent user of Uber, in the last place in North America where Uber was legalized (Vancouver CA), the lower prices were probably 10% of why people liked Uber. 90% of it was that it was simply light years ahead of the competing experience of: calling a cab, waiting for them to show, except they don't show, so you walk around downtown at 2am trying to find a cab with a light on...
Yeah, surge pricing sucks and the prices have gone up and all that, but even if Uber were more expensive than cabs -- and it very well may be at this point -- I'm still more than willing to pay extra just to be able to order a ride home from my app, and actually see that it's coming and not ghosting me.
Not sure how widespread this is, but I took taxis in my city recently for work and I was surprised at how much it's gotten better on the UX side (for scheduling):
- When I called, a robot answered and prompted me for my current/origin address (the voice-to-text seemed to work very well)
- It sent me a text message with a link to a live GPS map & time estimate
Still, there are some inconveniences which is why I still prefer Uber for personal travel:
- Even if Uber is more expensive, at least I know the cost upfront, vs. only knowing at the end of the taxi ride
- I get a rough time estimate for the closest Uber before I order one
- No need to handle payment/tipping with the driver, which is the worst because IME taxi drivers always try to make you feel bad about whatever amount you end up tipping them. At least with Uber, I can tip exactly what I feel is 'right' without the awkwardness or over-spending.
- Some taxi drivers are still opposed to using a GPS for directions (??), so when I need to get somewhere that's not a peak tourist attraction, I have to guide them myself.
Yeah fair enough, there's more competition now. Still, pre-Uber things were just dire. The BC government was extremely openly corrupt and gave the taxi industry a headstart and tens of millions of dollars to make the Kater app, and it was still completely unusable (and now shut down). Before we got Lyft/Uber you were stuck either using extremely unreliable Yellow Cab dispatch, or using the shady probably-illegal Mandarin-only app that I forget the name of.
Yes, and I became a user of Uber (ubercab in those days) because I preferred being able to book a ride just-in-time using the app rather than well in advance on the telephone, not because it was much cheaper than the car service or the taxis (as I recall, Uber and the car service cost about the same in those days, which was slightly more expensive the taxis for much more reliability and a better UX).
Fiscally irresponsible? I am looking at this graph and they have been profitable since their IPO. Looks like they started tweaking knobs to be highly profitable 4 years ago. From an investor perspective, I see nothing wrong with the business. It's just that it isn't growing subscribers anymore but profit per share is still going up.
Debt, especially low interest debt, is not a bad investment if it is used to grow the company. Since content is the only differentiator in the streaming market, this looks like a good investment.
An IPO is a form of taking on debt but issuing more shares is not the only way to take on debt.
If no debt was required to grow the company and be profitable, the company could have stayed private. Of course this doesn't work because early investors want to see some returns after 5-10 years and an IPO is the obvious way to cash them out.
