Uber internal documents leaked to BuzzFeed show that Uber is doing what it can to be the ultimate ride sharing service. It seems that they will stop at nothing to cement their position as well as craft out the market for themselves.
Two years back, in the summer 0f 2015, Uber launched what it called UberPool in San Francisco. The service was meant to allow passengers to share a ride towards that destination. Nothing new but in the bigger picture, the ultimate aim would be to create the “Perpetual Trip”. The perpetual trip meant that drivers didn’t need to have to stop and wait for passengers but rather through the use of UberPool, a driver would constantly be getting enough passengers so that they just need to drive non-stop, increasing their income and efficiency as well.
Unfortunately, that was far from happening. In order to boost ridership with UberPool, Uber was subsidising the service of up to $1million per week with no real end in sight.
“HQ was telling us we could not be burning the amount of money we were,” one former employee told BuzzFeed. “We couldn’t just give out subsidies that high anymore.”
In the documents leaked, it showed that as of June 2015, Uber had spent $6 million per month to “get UberPool right,”. Unfortunately for the ride-hailing service company, the moment when they removed subsidies, customers and passengers left and went on to other cheaper services such as Uber’s competitor, Lyft.
