In addition to the search algo moat, Google also has a giant wall around double click and other tracking capabilities that nobody else has. Google knows more about us than most of us know about ourselves.

Cookies to check how many times you are served an ad is Google's moat?

Just the fact you think their search algo is a moat is completely idiotic.

No. Just that they aren't the odds on favorite.

To do what?

With all due respect, you have no idea of the real nature of double click and its role in Google's business model.

Google's search algo does a lot more than just making their search results 5% better than Bing's.

Please enlighten me as to the real role of double click is and how it is possibly a moat.

Google's personalization algos for tracking and localization are great, but that isn't really their search algo. That is what n00b described as their ability to process data. Boiling their model down to a couple whiz bang algos is silly.

This is all completely aside from the fact that google.com is the cornerstone of this business and derives nearly all its traffic from embedded installation rather than organic. So the whole idea that anyone actually prefers google to bing/yahoo/etc is absurd to begin with and completely unsupported by any facts. (Actually there is a giant pile of evidence that no one cares.)

Even their vastly superior Maps product has a fraction of the market compared to Apple Maps. (on iOS obv)

I honestly don't think you even understand how technology works to begin with, how the business models work, or how these companies make money. You (and others) continually trot out the most buffonish ideas, while insisting you are correct which flies totally in the face of reality.

Driver's protest:

http://recode.net/2015/10/18/the-flo...m-to-organize/

Well that article has stopped the posting it seams like.
But it was to expected, all the numbers of the worth of uber, and the drivers don't see it in their paycheck.
Not good for the rest of the uber cities, striking is contagious and seeing the short time the app/uber exists, very fast too, not good for the image, time for hr/pr/uber too prove they are up for the job.

I suspect that Uber is monitoring the driver situation pretty closely. While they may have their eyes on self-driving cars down the line, they need the drivers now to expand their reach and become firmly entrenched as the go-to ride-sharing middleman. It would be a simple matter to raise driver compensation to quell pushback if needed.

Whether striking will be contagious remains to be seen. I'd guess it won't be, at least not in the U.S., because I think people are lazy and don't want to expend too much effort getting involved, but who knows.

I see a parallel to Amazon in terms of the initial resistance and protests about unfair competition, and we see how that turned out.

Self-driving cars are far enough into the future that we'll know whether Uber is a success or not before that happens.

Within 5 years I expect Uber or Lyft or some other platform will emerge as the main taxi alternative (or maybe it's just an app that coordinates taxi hailing). Also this platform winner will probably IPO.

Uber is deployed on Amazon Web Services. Every company has access to AWS.

Since every company has the IT assets of Uber, I think your estimate of 300 is low.

Since every company has the ability to scale as much as Uber I think your estimate of 25 is also low.

<thumbs up>

...wat? Uber is already the main taxi alternative in almost every big city worldwide.

You realize scaling isn't as easy as just firing up a few more EC2 instances right?

Do you realize I didn't post about scaling?

Someone mentioned the IT assets that Uber had. It didn't seem plausible to me that they actually had assets.

A quick internet search revealed the fact that I was correct, and that they rented.

"Since every company has the ability to scale as much as Uber I think your estimate of 25 is also low."

Uber has their own physical datacenters. They recently built their own in China as well at a huge cost. While they use AWS for some things, they don't use it for as much as you'd think. (Maybe a few years ago, sure)

fwiw, uber is perpetually in surge mode in Santa Monica despite tons of available drivers. Most of my friends and myself included have jumped over to lyft for price reasons. (I prefer Uber because I spend my AMEX points with them, but why other paying 50-100% more for the same product)

Well ok you could be right about the striking in the USA[since i don't live there] and i guess most people that drive on the uber-pop app know it is not a career job, and most do it temporary[they should start a agency] and/or having not much other choices/jobs otherwise.

But i don't think with personnel changing so often and fast[because everybody can stop at any moment, not like uber gives out contracts] that they get firmly entrenched so fast [or at all].

But to be fair i don't know what kind of agreement there is between uber and their drivers.

And i think there is a big difference between the licences and permits needed to start amazon and a taxi--service like uber.

petjax, I think you're coming at this from a European perspective, with its entrenched socialism and unions and third world thinking. This is what recently happened in Paris, for example:

Taxi blocade including cars turned over, set alight
Uber executives indicted by French authorities

I definitely think parts of Europe will be tougher for them. Most of the world will be tougher than San Francisco, which had the perfect mix of population density, tech savvy, horrible taxi service, people willing to work for terrible wages, etc.

entrenched socialism??????, third world thinking??????!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHA, so sad you think that, and too dumb to respond on more.

You might be possibly misunderstanding him. Or he might just be confusing reality with an Ayn Rand novel. Or both.

Hard to tell.

I don't know how fast Uber is churning through drivers, there's a lot of conflicting numbers/estimates, but they seem to have made a significant dent already in several cities around the world and they're pushing hard in China and India.


The parallel with Amazon isn't perfect. I just hear the same things about Uber that I used to hear about Amazon: it's cheaper, more convenient, competing on a non-level field, hurting an existing industry, willing to lose money to gain market share, poor treatment of workers. Granted, this is a very general comparison, but it seems like we're in the midst of a similar global phenomenon (check out what Uber has already done in China).

I live in Europe. And yes, much of Europe has entrenched socialism and third world thinking. Bureaucracy and old power and cronyism and entrenched habits before innovation. I mean, look at Brussels and the rules it makes - the definition of innovation-stifling socialism. I'll grant you that Holland isn't as bad as elsewhere.

There's a reason a Silicon Valley company - and not a Dutch or French or German company - is disrupting transportation in Europe in entirely new ways. You think it's because Europeans are less socialist, or more?

Anyway, my point being that Europe is a much tougher nut to crack. They're a lot more inclined to enforce the laws on taxi monopolies and protect the existing way of doing things, than the more forward thinking US.

Thanks. The laws taxi's have to conform to aren't just part of the random bureaucracy. What cab has better/stricter regulation, a random LA cab or a random Amsterdam cab ? Ill agree that we're more socialist/ruled by law, thats probably also the reason less people live below the poverty line here vs the USA. This does enable the USA to operate on a more flexible basis so that part is undoubtedly true. I'm just saying, I don't think you can have the one without the other and taxi regulations exist for a reason.

I'm expecting them (EU governments) to keep cracking down on Uber(pops) operation and Uber will be the one to budge in the end. The good news is that they (Uber) have started the process of reviewing regulations among governments, it just wont happen as fast as they want it to.

I think you exaggerated with your 2 statements, off-course there is third-world thinking going on in europe, just as it is in the USA, China, india, brazil, but saying in the whole of europe there is is simply wrong and to easy.

Google "entrenched socialism" and see that in the USA all kinds of people saying that it is going on there too[an example http://www.politicalpolygon.com/the-...e-reversed/2/] the same as you saying it is in europe, so lets agree to disagree, and i guess it is a century's ongoing discussion between democrats and republicans to say it simple, because for instance in the USA it are almost all republicans that are acusing the democratic governments of entrenched socialism.[same in the UK for instance].

And for disrupting transportation in Europe i think it is way to early, and frankly i don't see it happening by one company, way to much different country's and different rules, but time will tell i guess.

And since i am one of the people that rather[and expect] see the eu and that legitimate political mafia in brussel disappear, i agree that brussel makes way to much rules that only should be made by country's them self if they wish to do so.