8 ms·

Mockups for a free, ad-supported Uber service

83 points by andrew_null 11y ago

igammarays 11y ago
ugh
m52go 11y ago
> Free, ad-supported Uber rides are inevitable What? Why? ------------------ While we're at it, why not post ads along the sides of houses and apartment buildings in the Bay Area to reduce housing costs? Maybe if we make the ads small enough, we could fit enough ads on a single surface to make rent free!!! /sarc
- mpeg 11y ago
  milliondollarapartment.com I'm selling some ad space on my terrace at $1 per pixel, in 10x10 increments. DPI negotiable.
- icebraining 11y ago
  Too late: "Paint Your House With Ads, Get Your Mortgage Paid" http://www.npr.org/2011/04/07/135199159/last-word http://www.npr.org/2011/04/07/135199159/last-word
ayushgta 11y ago
This reminded me of the future that Black Mirror's Fifteen Million Merits envisions for us: "Everyday activities are constantly interrupted by advertisements that cannot be skipped or ignored without financial penalty." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits
- joshstrange 11y ago
  I've only seen the first season of Black Mirror but I already love the show. I work in tech so some of the "possible futures" are a little scary/humbling. I worry about "Pay $X to skip this ad" becoming common place and similar sensors as were in that episode that detected when the human wasn't paying attention and waited until they opened their eyes or looked back at screen to continue. I highly recommend that everyone check out Black Mirror, it's less of a TV show and more of a small collection (3 episodes per season) of mini-movies that don't really connect to each other but show possible outcomes of certain ideas taken to the extreme.
  - joshuapants 11y ago
    Definitely seconding that recommendation. It is fantastic how uncomfortable it makes me feel; I usually don't get too many emotions from media.
Karunamon 11y ago
Inevitable? I thought engagement with advertising was going down all over the world. How would you ad-support a full ride, anyways? A ~$20 CPI is pretty insane.
- arthurcolle 11y ago
  "I thought engagement with advertising was going down all over the world." Is this true? I thought engagement with digital ads was going up and its only in the "techsphere" that people use stuff like AdBlock et al.
  - exelius 11y ago
    No, engagement metrics are certainly down because total number of ads are way up while the number of eyeballs watching them aren't increasing nearly as quickly. But it's actually really hard to measure engagement with digital ads since the vast majority of digital ads are display ads. Furthermore, there's no real metric that can determine whether or not a user even looked at an ad: yes, the ad was loaded by the user's browser, but the user may not have scrolled down the page far enough to actually see the ad, or if they simply scrolled past it without actually looking at it. Because there is no good way to measure engagement, advertisers tend to create ads that promote being noticed over user engagement. Publishers have reacted by loading ads in different ways (e.g. multiple page articles, progressive page loading, etc.) to support higher ad rates on premium content. There was a recent trend in last few years that showed mobile ads had higher engagement levels, though many in the industry now think that a substantial portion of this is due to "mis-clicks" on mobile ads. The trend is moving away from click-throughs as a measure of engagement as a result of unscrupulous publishers building sites that make it reeeeeally easy to mis-click on an ad. Regardless, measurement is a huge problem in the digital space when it comes to engagement; though the trends relating to engagement on a per-ad basis are almost certainly declining simply due to the increase in quantity of ad inventory and the reduction in transactional friction involved in advertising over the last 10 years.
  - archemike_ 11y ago
    It's called banner blindness. "Engagement" of ads is dropping like an anchor yet prevalence of ads is skyrocketing. So you could say the mean effectiveness is really dropping because of this.
jjulius 11y ago
I pay for Netflix and Spotify so that I don't have to deal with ads. I'll happily continue to pay for Uber and similar services for the very same reason.
- lnlyplnt 11y ago
  there's no reason we can't have both. Uber can always have an option to disable ads if the user isn't interested in saving money.
  - jjulius 11y ago
    Oh absolutely. While I despise advertising for my own personal reasons, I know that there are plenty of people out there who would happily accept a free, ad-based version of these services (assuming it's possible for this model to actually generate enough revenue).
    - rglullis 11y ago
      What would you do if Netflix/Amazon/Google/Apple started thinking it was acceptable to both display ads and charge you?
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
  - rprospero 11y ago
    I thought you were going the other way around. There's no reason that we can't have both: Uber could charge us and still show us ads. It works for Comcast.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - krschultz 11y ago
      There is also heavy advertising on existing transit. Subways, buses, and taxis in New York are plastered with ads.
bgnm2000 11y ago
Weird to see all this hate in the comments. Ads aren't the devil. More options to paying for something of value is always beneficial.
aslewofmice 11y ago
I don't get the hate, I think it's a great idea. It's completely opt-in and both sides win.
- nfoz 11y ago
  "Both sides win" when a consumer chooses to spend their money on gambling. They're getting what they pay for, of their own volition. I consider advertising to be offensive, and think it's appropriate for a society (big or small) to control what forms of ads are allowed via law. I'd like to see limits on what sorts of trade-offs we can make with respect to ads, so that the life experience of a citizen need not be drowning in advertisement. Riding a taxi in NYC (where ads are built-in to the cabs and cannot be stopped) is a distinctly unpleasant experience compared to elsewhere. We can only have so many forms of transit available to the people of NYC. I would rather we choose to remove the ads and pay for the transportation system via direct-monetary transfer, or taxation, or some combination. shrug
  - phdp 11y ago
    Hit the button on the bottom right corner of the screen. First thing I do when I get in a taxi.
    - nfoz 11y ago
      It doesn't turn off the screen, and it doesn't turn off the ads. It stops the moving video and audio, and replaces it with a mostly-static blue screen with a few ads that jump position on the screen now and then.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    "Both sides win" when a consumer chooses to spend their money on gambling. They're getting what they pay for, of their own volition. Yes, they do. With some exceptions, gambling is an harmless activity that people engage in just for the fun, not expecting to win. Or quoting Motörhead: You win some, lose some, it's all the same to me / The pleasure is to play, it makes no difference what you say / I don't share your greed
kak9 11y ago
I'm fine with ads. But I see much more promise for ads before getting in car, then after. While waiting for Uber/Lyft I check my phone non-stop. The second I'm in the car the last app I'm opening is Uber/Lyft.
nijiko 11y ago
That's not free. You're spending time in exchange for goods. Time you otherwise could save by just spending a few dollars. The real annoyance is surge pricing.
- gojomo 11y ago
  "Due to extremely high demand, surge pricing is in effect. Your ride will now cost a 30-minute timeshare presentation, by a sales agent who'll be riding along with you."
- savanaly 11y ago
  Can I make a friendly reminder that if they didn't use surge pricing then the wait during heavy traffic times would be a lot longer. So it is a tradeoff between higher cost and shorter wait times. I think the real annoyance then is the other customers who want to use the service bidding up my price.
pbreit 11y ago
Advertising works best where the marginal cost of delivering the impression is near-zero (i.e., TV, radio, newspaper, magazine, internet search, Facebook newsfeed, etc).
yellowapple 11y ago
I'd be fine with this as long as there's a way to turn this off (or better yet, to make it something entirely opt-in and have to turn it on). I wouldn't want to be bombarded with ads if I'm not interested in them subsidizing my ride. Also, is there a way to make these companies just pay me to look at their ads? It'd cut out the middlemen, and seeing how many ads I'd probably be confronted with on a daily basis without things like AdBlock Plus, I could probably turn it into a career if the figures in this article are accurate.
dotcoma 11y ago
Remember the New Economy? No, a lot of us don't. See, that's the problem.
xb 11y ago
Wow, now having looked at the mockup images under the Redirection heading, this does really seem inevitable. Free might be a stretch, but I'd bet that we'll see these types of ads when using rideshare services in the very near future.
WhitneyLand 11y ago
I think there is a bit of a fallacy around certain business models. We're constantly amazed at how much is free or low priced due to being ad supported (Google), Moores Law et al (Dropbox), or strategically subsidized (Amazon). The fallacy is that these apply to everything or that it seems easier to apply than it actually is. In the case of free Uber, the most I can stretch is to imagine it's possible when the targeting gets so good that a lead is very valuable (weren't cancer class action click throughs going for $200 at one point?). Or as part of some partnership with another company such that other economics are at work besides watch ad = ride free. So not only is it not inevitable, it would require some pretty special conditions.
pjc50 11y ago
There are some countries where the taxi drivers will "advertise" businesses by taxing you to them whether you asked them or not. That's pretty much the only way you could make ad-supported taxis work.
codazoda 11y ago
I can imagine these being offered free by companies who want an ear to talk to. If I'm selling time shares, for example, I might want to give free rides and tell people about it on the way. If you got a multi-thousand dollar sell every 100 rides, maybe it's worth it.
niche 11y ago
An accessible business model that anyone can openly innovate on. Certainly, this must contribute to the $24B valuation...
krschultz 11y ago
One of the reasons that ad supported models work is that the marginal cost of providing software is near zero. The marginal cost of providing rides is decidedly non-zero. I would argue that the marginal cost of a ride is going to increase from its present cost. * There is a price war going on and some of the providers are losing money. In the short term this will continue, but long term it will correct itself. * I believe the regulations on company -> contractors a la Uber will increase and that will cost Uber more per ride. * Even if you think the drivers will be replaced with self driving cars, those cars will be more expensive than present day cars. I don't think any of that is a problem for Uber as a business charging money. I do think it precludes ad-supported rides.
brianbreslin 11y ago
Honestly I hate the idea of MORE ads. Also the install driven ad market has its limits. These are all funded by startups buying customers with their VC money.
stealthlogic 11y ago
No thanks.
prawn 11y ago
Half-bakery: Uber rides funded by menial tasks. You're in a van heading from A to B, while ironing shirts or folding clothes or packing boxes.
mitul_45 11y ago
This makes me sad. The mock-ups, I don't like them much.
BIair 11y ago
Why do you think Google has invested so much in self-driving cars?
mbesto 11y ago
Some of the ideas of "why it would work" make sense, but the economics are way off. > For example, targeting travelers who are arriving from the airport, to target them with highly personalized hotel/tour offers. Or targeting hardcore movie or concert-goers for their next night out. This is the basic premise of the OP's advertising argument. Does anyone book hotel or conferences ad hoc? Anything that is "event" based selling opportunity is a no go, because most event organizers want high up front guarantees of attendees (due to high fixed costs) and usually sell last minute excess at very low margins, so paying a converted CPM at $20 (or heck even $10) is most likely going to bring a negative return.
sebastialonso 11y ago
I've welcome Uber's business plan. Ads are not the answer for everything. Quite the contrary, I'd argue that ads are the answer for very few problems. Money or any monetary transactions plays two roles in these kind of business. The unrecognized one is that it plays the role of guarantee (ideally, but in reality is something like 'more or less'). What guarantee do I have as a driver or as a client if I use an ad-supported billing system, which we all know is next to crap? This is a really poorly-thought idea. Uber's strength is in the elegance of its business model.
ghobs91 11y ago
We're getting to a point where it's just services supported by ads for other services which are supported by ads for other services and so on.
- wdr1 11y ago
  s/getting/returning/ This was a driving force in the dotcom crash. dotcom revenue was based on advertising other dotcoms. The problem with castles in the air is they always come crashing down.

83 points by andrew_null 11y ago

ugh

m52go 11y ago

> Free, ad-supported Uber rides are inevitable What? Why? ------------------ While we're at it, why not post ads along the sides of houses and apartment buildings in the Bay Area to reduce housing costs? Maybe if we make the ads small enough, we could fit enough ads on a single surface to make rent free!!! /sarc

mpeg 11y ago
milliondollarapartment.com I'm selling some ad space on my terrace at $1 per pixel, in 10x10 increments. DPI negotiable.
icebraining 11y ago
Too late: "Paint Your House With Ads, Get Your Mortgage Paid" http://www.npr.org/2011/04/07/135199159/last-word http://www.npr.org/2011/04/07/135199159/last-word

ayushgta 11y ago

This reminded me of the future that Black Mirror's Fifteen Million Merits envisions for us: "Everyday activities are constantly interrupted by advertisements that cannot be skipped or ignored without financial penalty." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits

joshstrange 11y ago
I've only seen the first season of Black Mirror but I already love the show. I work in tech so some of the "possible futures" are a little scary/humbling. I worry about "Pay $X to skip this ad" becoming common place and similar sensors as were in that episode that detected when the human wasn't paying attention and waited until they opened their eyes or looked back at screen to continue. I highly recommend that everyone check out Black Mirror, it's less of a TV show and more of a small collection (3 episodes per season) of mini-movies that don't really connect to each other but show possible outcomes of certain ideas taken to the extreme.
- joshuapants 11y ago
  Definitely seconding that recommendation. It is fantastic how uncomfortable it makes me feel; I usually don't get too many emotions from media.

Karunamon 11y ago

Inevitable? I thought engagement with advertising was going down all over the world. How would you ad-support a full ride, anyways? A ~$20 CPI is pretty insane.

arthurcolle 11y ago
"I thought engagement with advertising was going down all over the world." Is this true? I thought engagement with digital ads was going up and its only in the "techsphere" that people use stuff like AdBlock et al.
- exelius 11y ago
  No, engagement metrics are certainly down because total number of ads are way up while the number of eyeballs watching them aren't increasing nearly as quickly. But it's actually really hard to measure engagement with digital ads since the vast majority of digital ads are display ads. Furthermore, there's no real metric that can determine whether or not a user even looked at an ad: yes, the ad was loaded by the user's browser, but the user may not have scrolled down the page far enough to actually see the ad, or if they simply scrolled past it without actually looking at it. Because there is no good way to measure engagement, advertisers tend to create ads that promote being noticed over user engagement. Publishers have reacted by loading ads in different ways (e.g. multiple page articles, progressive page loading, etc.) to support higher ad rates on premium content. There was a recent trend in last few years that showed mobile ads had higher engagement levels, though many in the industry now think that a substantial portion of this is due to "mis-clicks" on mobile ads. The trend is moving away from click-throughs as a measure of engagement as a result of unscrupulous publishers building sites that make it reeeeeally easy to mis-click on an ad. Regardless, measurement is a huge problem in the digital space when it comes to engagement; though the trends relating to engagement on a per-ad basis are almost certainly declining simply due to the increase in quantity of ad inventory and the reduction in transactional friction involved in advertising over the last 10 years.
- archemike_ 11y ago
  It's called banner blindness. "Engagement" of ads is dropping like an anchor yet prevalence of ads is skyrocketing. So you could say the mean effectiveness is really dropping because of this.

jjulius 11y ago

I pay for Netflix and Spotify so that I don't have to deal with ads. I'll happily continue to pay for Uber and similar services for the very same reason.

lnlyplnt 11y ago
there's no reason we can't have both. Uber can always have an option to disable ads if the user isn't interested in saving money.
- jjulius 11y ago
  Oh absolutely. While I despise advertising for my own personal reasons, I know that there are plenty of people out there who would happily accept a free, ad-based version of these services (assuming it's possible for this model to actually generate enough revenue).
  - rglullis 11y ago
    What would you do if Netflix/Amazon/Google/Apple started thinking it was acceptable to both display ads and charge you?
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
- rprospero 11y ago
  I thought you were going the other way around. There's no reason that we can't have both: Uber could charge us and still show us ads. It works for Comcast.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - krschultz 11y ago
    There is also heavy advertising on existing transit. Subways, buses, and taxis in New York are plastered with ads.

bgnm2000 11y ago

Weird to see all this hate in the comments. Ads aren't the devil. More options to paying for something of value is always beneficial.

aslewofmice 11y ago

I don't get the hate, I think it's a great idea. It's completely opt-in and both sides win.

nfoz 11y ago
"Both sides win" when a consumer chooses to spend their money on gambling. They're getting what they pay for, of their own volition. I consider advertising to be offensive, and think it's appropriate for a society (big or small) to control what forms of ads are allowed via law. I'd like to see limits on what sorts of trade-offs we can make with respect to ads, so that the life experience of a citizen need not be drowning in advertisement. Riding a taxi in NYC (where ads are built-in to the cabs and cannot be stopped) is a distinctly unpleasant experience compared to elsewhere. We can only have so many forms of transit available to the people of NYC. I would rather we choose to remove the ads and pay for the transportation system via direct-monetary transfer, or taxation, or some combination. shrug
- phdp 11y ago
  Hit the button on the bottom right corner of the screen. First thing I do when I get in a taxi.
  - nfoz 11y ago
    It doesn't turn off the screen, and it doesn't turn off the ads. It stops the moving video and audio, and replaces it with a mostly-static blue screen with a few ads that jump position on the screen now and then.
- icebraining 11y ago
  "Both sides win" when a consumer chooses to spend their money on gambling. They're getting what they pay for, of their own volition. Yes, they do. With some exceptions, gambling is an harmless activity that people engage in just for the fun, not expecting to win. Or quoting Motörhead: You win some, lose some, it's all the same to me / The pleasure is to play, it makes no difference what you say / I don't share your greed

kak9 11y ago

I'm fine with ads. But I see much more promise for ads before getting in car, then after. While waiting for Uber/Lyft I check my phone non-stop. The second I'm in the car the last app I'm opening is Uber/Lyft.

nijiko 11y ago

That's not free. You're spending time in exchange for goods. Time you otherwise could save by just spending a few dollars. The real annoyance is surge pricing.

gojomo 11y ago
"Due to extremely high demand, surge pricing is in effect. Your ride will now cost a 30-minute timeshare presentation, by a sales agent who'll be riding along with you."
savanaly 11y ago
Can I make a friendly reminder that if they didn't use surge pricing then the wait during heavy traffic times would be a lot longer. So it is a tradeoff between higher cost and shorter wait times. I think the real annoyance then is the other customers who want to use the service bidding up my price.

pbreit 11y ago

Advertising works best where the marginal cost of delivering the impression is near-zero (i.e., TV, radio, newspaper, magazine, internet search, Facebook newsfeed, etc).

yellowapple 11y ago

I'd be fine with this as long as there's a way to turn this off (or better yet, to make it something entirely opt-in and have to turn it on). I wouldn't want to be bombarded with ads if I'm not interested in them subsidizing my ride. Also, is there a way to make these companies just pay me to look at their ads? It'd cut out the middlemen, and seeing how many ads I'd probably be confronted with on a daily basis without things like AdBlock Plus, I could probably turn it into a career if the figures in this article are accurate.

dotcoma 11y ago

Remember the New Economy? No, a lot of us don't. See, that's the problem.

xb 11y ago

Wow, now having looked at the mockup images under the Redirection heading, this does really seem inevitable. Free might be a stretch, but I'd bet that we'll see these types of ads when using rideshare services in the very near future.

WhitneyLand 11y ago

I think there is a bit of a fallacy around certain business models. We're constantly amazed at how much is free or low priced due to being ad supported (Google), Moores Law et al (Dropbox), or strategically subsidized (Amazon). The fallacy is that these apply to everything or that it seems easier to apply than it actually is. In the case of free Uber, the most I can stretch is to imagine it's possible when the targeting gets so good that a lead is very valuable (weren't cancer class action click throughs going for $200 at one point?). Or as part of some partnership with another company such that other economics are at work besides watch ad = ride free. So not only is it not inevitable, it would require some pretty special conditions.

pjc50 11y ago

There are some countries where the taxi drivers will "advertise" businesses by taxing you to them whether you asked them or not. That's pretty much the only way you could make ad-supported taxis work.

codazoda 11y ago

I can imagine these being offered free by companies who want an ear to talk to. If I'm selling time shares, for example, I might want to give free rides and tell people about it on the way. If you got a multi-thousand dollar sell every 100 rides, maybe it's worth it.

niche 11y ago

An accessible business model that anyone can openly innovate on. Certainly, this must contribute to the $24B valuation...

krschultz 11y ago

One of the reasons that ad supported models work is that the marginal cost of providing software is near zero. The marginal cost of providing rides is decidedly non-zero. I would argue that the marginal cost of a ride is going to increase from its present cost. * There is a price war going on and some of the providers are losing money. In the short term this will continue, but long term it will correct itself. * I believe the regulations on company -> contractors a la Uber will increase and that will cost Uber more per ride. * Even if you think the drivers will be replaced with self driving cars, those cars will be more expensive than present day cars. I don't think any of that is a problem for Uber as a business charging money. I do think it precludes ad-supported rides.

brianbreslin 11y ago

Honestly I hate the idea of MORE ads. Also the install driven ad market has its limits. These are all funded by startups buying customers with their VC money.

stealthlogic 11y ago

No thanks.

prawn 11y ago

Half-bakery: Uber rides funded by menial tasks. You're in a van heading from A to B, while ironing shirts or folding clothes or packing boxes.

mitul_45 11y ago

This makes me sad. The mock-ups, I don't like them much.

BIair 11y ago

Why do you think Google has invested so much in self-driving cars?

mbesto 11y ago

Some of the ideas of "why it would work" make sense, but the economics are way off. > For example, targeting travelers who are arriving from the airport, to target them with highly personalized hotel/tour offers. Or targeting hardcore movie or concert-goers for their next night out. This is the basic premise of the OP's advertising argument. Does anyone book hotel or conferences ad hoc? Anything that is "event" based selling opportunity is a no go, because most event organizers want high up front guarantees of attendees (due to high fixed costs) and usually sell last minute excess at very low margins, so paying a converted CPM at $20 (or heck even $10) is most likely going to bring a negative return.

sebastialonso 11y ago

I've welcome Uber's business plan. Ads are not the answer for everything. Quite the contrary, I'd argue that ads are the answer for very few problems. Money or any monetary transactions plays two roles in these kind of business. The unrecognized one is that it plays the role of guarantee (ideally, but in reality is something like 'more or less'). What guarantee do I have as a driver or as a client if I use an ad-supported billing system, which we all know is next to crap? This is a really poorly-thought idea. Uber's strength is in the elegance of its business model.

ghobs91 11y ago

We're getting to a point where it's just services supported by ads for other services which are supported by ads for other services and so on.

wdr1 11y ago
s/getting/returning/ This was a driving force in the dotcom crash. dotcom revenue was based on advertising other dotcoms. The problem with castles in the air is they always come crashing down.