by Eben Griger Amid several controversies, the most recent of which being actions during the immigration ban, Uber is losing money and customers, fast. Broadest of all controversies is the fact that Travis Kalanick has no clear business plan for Uber, idea hopping and investing into new ideas seeming as they come to him. From UberX, an attempt at stripping down their business model, to UberEats, a food delivery service, and now ventures into self-driving cars and flying cars, Uber workers have a lot on their plates. The workers though, have their own controversies. On the internal side of things, female engineers have claimed sexual harassment runs rampant at Uber, and that the company’s Human Resources department refuses to do anything about it. Externally, Uber workers face problems too. Namely that they’re not actually workers. Uber classifies their drivers as contractors, not employees, meaning that even full time drivers are barred from benefits such as health care vehicle reimbursements, like gas and maintenance. Uber is also reportedly losing money, and a lot of it. UberEats is set to lose $100 million each year, but continues to be offered as a service. In 2016 it was found that fares from riders only cover about 40 percent of what the ride costs the company, the remaining 60 percent covered by the investors in the company. Uber has also had a lawsuit filed against them after former Google employees allegedly took the blueprints for a self-driving car system to Uber’s engineers. All of these problems lead to a very clear outcome for Uber: Whatever the ever-changing business model is, it’s not working for anyone.
Sources: http://jalopnik.com/uber-is-doomed-1792634203 http://gizmodo.com/ex-uber-engineer-says-the-company-has-a-culture-of-sexu-1792536942 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/technology/uber-ceo-travis-kalanick-trump-advisory-council.html?_r=0 https://www.ubereats.com http://www.idrivewithuber.com/service/uberx/ Image: http://theavion.com/uber-looking-up-to-vtol-for-future-transportation/
