🚨In case you were bad and skipped the ad: I'm launching a new channel! Subscribe to it: kzfaq.info and then watch the 1st two episodes 2 weeks early on Nebula, just $15/year with CuriosityStream included: curiositystream.com/polymatter

Imagine spending 70 days in China and not noticing American Credit cards aren't very plentiful among locals

I was living in China when Uber was trying to win the market with free or really really cheap rides. Didi had to do the same for a while to keep up. Man it was good stuff for the consumers.

You know you screwed up when Apple has the ethical high ground.

taking a 20% stake in Didi is probably a win for them given the mistakes that they can only blame on themselves. not accepting WeChat for payment as example is hugely stupid move and ignorance.

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As someone who witnessed the whole thing, I’d say Uber’s biggest failure in this is that it failed to include licensed taxi drivers while Didi did. As you’d imagine a lot of people simply still trust professional drivers who know a whole lot better in driving than those who rely solely on nav apps. That’s home field advantage, not protectionism.

Uber drivers in Nigeria have started defrauding Uber as well. They tell the passenger to cancel the trip then bargain prices with them directly.

The day I moved to China for business an older smart man told me, son, if you think you come here and try to sell to the Chinese something they can build themselves you'll lose, every single time! I remember that comment with every move ever since.

I'm sure a lot more people would show interest in your new channel or its nebula equivalent if we had any idea what it is about

We took Ubers in Bogota and the driver always wanted one of us to sit up front. We found out why. Taxis would sometimes cut off Ubers and they might even drag them out and beat them up so they wanted to appear to be friends in a car.

I remember when Didi was fighting Uber, the people basically got free ride for a year.

"Uber can then take that profit & invest it into the SEA market." SEA: haha, you should watch the next episode....

Uber is also out of South East Asia. Western apps always grossly underestimate the issues with payment methods and localization. No where does this hurt more than China, Southeast Asia, and markets like Korea and Japan.

Uber is unable to generate a profit in the USA and Australia. I can't imagine why they thought they could generate a profit in China if their unable to make money in places that they have already established a strong market presence in.

China: Abuses free rides. Simple man: Stops giving out free rides and instead tries to maybe to provide external benefits like cashbacks, gold tiers, discounted prices on mile count Uber: *hacks apple*

As a person that sat through a bunch of classes about these specific topics, you covered it extremely well without bringing in any technical jargon.

A PolyMatter vid about China? Imagine my shock

Uber : Goddamit! We have lost 2 billion dollars. Some Uber employee : We can sell our part to DD for 7 billion. Also Uber : I see this as an absolute win.

Imagine being the CEO of Uber and dealing with all the stress of fraud and then Apple being upset with you

Gaining a 19% stake in Dede is still a MASSIVE win for Uber

Polymatter: They can invest that money in more winnable markets like South East Asia. South East Asia: *laughs nervously while ordering a Grab*

Uber failed in a lot of Asia countries.

I was wondering why I don't see Uber anymore in China. The end: "Uber China was sold to DiDi". No wonder

Uber was doing relatively well in India. Although, UberEats failed miserable because it came very late - already dominant online food ordering companies like Swiggy and Zomato were prevalent.

Uber also lost in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Tbh getting a cab in China is easy and cheap so there’s no point needing Uber

Currently I live in china. Wechat pay is the shit, being able to pay by scanning a QR code is just next-level impressive, and so much easier than cash. Outside of the most rural regions, people dont use cash, and even when i travelled through outer tibet (gansu) I bought milk from some herders, and paid with wechat, right next to the road!

I'm an Uber driver and they are failing in Texas also. Especially when they want to send you $3 $4 $5 deliveries, to load two bags worth of food and drive across town, and you'll spend your gas and time satisfying those, instead of waiting for a delivery that's worth doing. All Uber drivers should boycott cheap deliveries and they'll stop expecting us to do them.

Uber engineers in China be like: There are two impostors among us

Uber has never turned a profit, how would going and spending billions of dollars in China improve that?

Just a side note: B-roll of 9:53-10:00 is not of PRC. The cabs and street signage are demonstrably Taiwanese.

The whole thing is complicated. The short version is that Uber underestimated the market conditions in China. Everyone who’s been to China can safely say that Google Map is useless in China. Past experiences tell us that whoever try to convince Chinese consumers to give up their old habit can be punished severely by the market and sometimes even by the government.

Invest money in SEA? Dude they lost SEA market to Grab,Gojek/Gocar, Loca, Oway Ride, etc. they lost every single battle in SEA

This actually surprised me! I went to Shanghai for 5 weeks for a short university course (2016). When I went, Uber just started operating in my home town in Australia. My dad is a taxi driver and Uber basically killed his business. In China, tourists basically ruined the taxi experience... Taxis were everywhere, but it would take me sometimes over an hour to hail one; they'd just drive past me or turn their light off as they saw me. Apparently they were sick of dealing with foreigners. I had to turn to Uber while I was in China (and when my dad found out, he was furious, but I had to as catching a taxi was next to impossible). I never realised how much of a barrier there was to riding with Uber to the locals. It seemed flourishing while I was there.

As a loyal Uber driver, its still shocking to me how the company still keep losing money to this day! Just terrible management in general who treats their drivers like shit

Very interesting. Uber was driven out of Vietnam too.

How do you expect people to check out your new channel if there literally no content on it. I get you wana push Nebula/Curiosity but jeez at least have A video on that new channel. An introduction, teaser, full vid, a hi, anything.

Wait so they can afford to spend $40-$50 million a week, but they can't pay their workers?

Talk about 7-eleven’s recent success in China. They seemed to be doing better than many native supermarkets.

Would love it if you had expanded more on why Uber was operating in the grey area. What's illegal about matching drivers with riders?

Honestly screw Uber. I don’t feel bad for them at all.

How to make any topic interesting: A Polymatter Masterclass

Me And The Boys playing King of the Hill “A Hill to Die on”

Uber only managed to get anywhere in America is due to its lack of public transport infastructure and its ridiculous dependence on cars to go anywhere.

Uber also failed in South East Asia as it couldn't complete with local competitors (Gojek and Grab). They sold Uber South East Asia to Grab, a Singaporean company. 10:03

Holy shit, the hacking + location checking to avoid Apple scrutiny is frankly kind of disgusting. Adding that to my list of reasons to never use Uber

We asian, just need cheap ride to destination without having connection and reliable background... Uber: -Expensive ride -Uber driver are encourage to get regular customer, stay in touch (having connection) [I prefer to not have conversation] -Uber are not like taxi, if something happened to customer, stranger danger thing, the customer cannot complain the company..

I don't use credit card in China but I was forced to apply for one especially to pay for food on US flight and check in hotels in US. Some US systems are crazy like I was rejected check in at a hotel in New York because I couldn't provide a credit card copy. They further rejected cash deposit even if the hotel has been paid online beforehand. United Airline does not accept cash and debit card.

Its funny, as you said we would have to wait and see what happens. The kinda same thing happened with Yahoo and Japan, and out of the whole Yahoo expansion to Japan, the only thing that it got back was shares in Soft Bank. And that ended being the only valuable thing for Yahoo at this time :D

Wow, posting time zones for multiple places around the world AND correctly accounting for the confusing DST switch around the world? Respect.

Also, unlike the US; china does have a subsided, functional and usefull public transportation system with busses, trains and metro

Thanks to the interesting video. The whole Ubers failing isn't really new in Asian nations. In my nation of South Korea Uber also failed completely, because all the cab drivers were highly skeptical of the system as well. Thanks for the interesting video.

Polymatter: *C H I N A*

One correction: Google Maps is not BAD in china, it's BANNED in China.

I travelled to China (Beijing) for the first time in June 2015, I now understand why Uber was such a nightmare experience there at the time!🤦🏻‍♂️

Didi also connects private drivers, not only official taxis, and it was already integrated into wechat and alipay. Meanwhile, if uber didn't even know they had to accept alipay or wechat pay at first, then they are doomed to begin with.

To want to conquer Rome without understanding the basics = failure. - Asian Food Nerd

Imagine if they took the $2 billion and paid their workers.

Man, whenever I hear about ANOTHER U.S. company failing in the Chinese market, I become even more shocked that Coca-Cola & Pepsi have somehow managed to coil their tendrils so deep into that seemingly impenetrable market.

I took one Uber ride in 2016 from Guangzhou to Shenzhen going across a typhoon. Most surreal and terrifying experience in my life. Dude was taking videos and absolutely no cars around. Only time.

God now isn’t this wonderful

when our comrades have been supporting the soviet union so much that we mistake the Chinese flag for the soviet one

Great video, it was very informative.

How did Uber fail in China in one question. “Hello, are u sure ur Mr. Chin?”

Sure miss the golden days of it where one could hire a supercar for a ride.

Why Uber failed? Answer: Because it's Uber, not Weber *Communism Intensifies*

Didi are now trying to compete with Uber & Ola here New Zealand. I have been getting ads from Didi saying that they are coming to NZ soon

"... a brand new channel called: "A Hill To Die On", stick around after this video to find out how you can be the first..." I'm like: what?! to die on the hill?!

uber fails in china london, a city: hold my restrictions

3:00 Google maps is bad because the Chinese government requires the map to be imprecise.

It’s like a cocky gang storms into another gang’s territory looking for a fight. The other gang didn’t do much to knock off the cocky one. The cocky gang then gave up and pledged allegiance to the other gang they were once so ambitious to conquer. Now convince me how is that successful business for the cocky gang😅

Now that was interesting as hell!!! TY - Been a UBER driver for 2 days now

Hi polymatter! Here are some details worth mentioning between didi and Uber’s competition: Firstly, Uber was in a significantly advantaged position when it first entered Chinese market. This is because they received a huge investment from Saudi royalties, which made their market value almost 8 times the market value of didi at the time. So it is reasonable for the CEO of Uber to make those statements. Secondly, I believe that the main reason didi was able to force Uber out of the Chinese market is because: not only did they managed to drag Uber into a tight battle in China with a relatively lower cost, they also utilised their cash by funding Uber’s competitors in US, South America and south east Asia. ***if you live in these countries you could probably remember seeing ads on social media about this weird firm called didi in the last few years*** being pushed back from several fronts caused Uber to withdraw from the Chinese market and cut a deal with didi (they swapped ownership of the firm) so that they can handle competitors from their “homeland”. After didi funded Uber’s competitor in south east Asia, gojek and grab, Uber totally lost their market share in countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia. Overall, I think didi is a great example for a local firm to defeat an international super giant. However, I do need to admit that didi is also facing a similar problem as Uber: they are both struggling to find a sustainable business model.

China and Indonesia, both rejecting Uber: 🤝

Uber also kinda failed in Singapore and Indonesia, it was absorbed by Grab Singapore and unable to compete with local player such as Gojek, it also stopped operations in other SEA regions. Basically they lost in china and SEA

I just started the video but let me guess: they made an alternative to uber and uber couldnt compete

Uber: Try to dominate Chinese market. Meanwhile in ASEAN countries: gives its services to Grab.

I lived in Chengdu for a while, Uber rides would always be one to two minutes away and then quit. Taxis were much more convenient.

When you want to rob and end up being robbed by OG robbers😂😂😂😂

They don't understand, China plays a whole different game, and they didn't know how to play. They did their business like they were in the West, but China, and much of Asia, runs on completely different concepts and ideals.

Pls do a video on Taiwan 🇹🇼. I really feel U are the only person who could do it perfectly.

"A hill to die on", well this one has aged weirdly.

It's funny to see that some people always think it's China's problem when a company didn't success in China, not the company's.

A failure, but a profitable one. It's amazing how these companies do everything wrong and somehow fail upwards.

They were stupid to think that the Chinese would play fair.

Unbelievable. So much money, why not just reward the driver a little bit more and have better imagine and better drivers? Just exploits ppl all over the world and burn money., Why human beings have to be this way?

I wonder where did all Uber's money come from, with all those failures and money losses

Its really popular in India now. Because most of people own smartphones and data is incredibly cheap. Prices are rock bottom at $1 per 5km in Tier 2 cities

Uber after disabling the imei logging based on the location: *_Hackerman_*

they haven't even made a profit so they failed everywhere

I don't think Uber failed in China; most people don't know Uber is still getting money in China today as a user in China begging in 2015 when the uber comes from Los angles to China. Uber is a monopoly company because there is no other competitor; the only thing Uber will pay for is request access to the big database from Tencent and Baidu, the two biggest technology companies. Until 2017, all the competitors appear; uber already earns a tremendous amount of money without taxes in Shanghai. During 2017, not only two company pops up in 2017 to plunder uber's big market. The vicious competition is being spread in early 2018. A huge number of taxi drivers lose their job because of the private car business. More than ten compies like DiDi gives a tremendous discount coupon when you ride on every single time. I remembered in 2018, when I took an app to a drive about 40 mins, from Puxi to Pudong, I only spend 41 cents because they give me a 100 RMB coupon, and the original total cost is about 104 yuan. And remember, China has inexpensive transport fees original back in 2016. I remember the starting fee in Los angles is about 15 dollars, and the starting fee in shanghai is only 1.4 dollars. Uber is in the most "badass" and rude competition ever because there is no specific law to sanction all the private car drivers until mid-2018 until the law is published and used. Most of the companies being collapse because they can't follow the rule. The only two Chinese compies that got to stand up is DIDI and Kuaidi. Both of them work with the government and save the Taxi driver. And also an American company Uber. Why? Due to the algorithm of DIDI and Kuaidi, they don't have money to buy all the database just like uber. Usually, you need to spend more than 10 mins for calling a private car or taxi, especially in the morning peak and evening peak, the waiting time could be longer than 1 hour. Moreover, the taxi driver could pick which passenger he wants to ride; if there is a passenger who wants to go to a very far place, they might be no driver who wants to hang them because the driver knows where the passenger wants to go before they get into the car. This is a horrible experience for our users. Unlike Uber, the big database would automatically distribution passengers to drivers in a second. It is way faster and more convenient but not much safety cause there is no taxi. Uber realizes it is a shortage in the competition; then, they make the most significant decision-making, cooperation with didi. Because every foreign enterprise needs to share its market with one Chinese company, I think it is an excellent decision Uber makes this time. Uber shares their bigdata base with DiDi, and Didi shares their app and taxi driver with Uber. Therefore, when you use the uber app call taxi, the call could automatically switch to DiDi's app for the driver and still maintain the driver's driver's features could not pick the passenger. Therefore it is way more convenient and faster. The reason why Uber and DiDi want to cooperate together because they can beat the other ride app called Kuaidi (the one I mentioned before). Because of the fast speed and lower price, Kuaidi got kicked out of the market in 2019. In 2019, Uber gives permission to Didi and gradually withdrew from the Chinese mainland market (u can still use uber in Macao, Taiwan, and Hongkong in 2019, I don't know what about now due to the pandemic). In summary, do uber fail? Yes. But do he lost money? Absolutely no. In a simple calculation, if Uber has 200M user, Didi has 600M user, and Kuadi also have 600 M people user, Uber share 200M user to Didi and Didi use the power of 700M beat Kuaidi and gain all the passenger from Kuaidi, in the final Didi, got 1400M passengers and share 15% to Uber, Uber got 210M user in the end, and the new user will be rise up day by day. I think uber is having the easiest money making method in the world! The money goes into their pocket automatically. I don't think they lost at all.

Uber has failed everywhere, China just didn’t give them a chance. The worst service imaginable, right up there with Deliveroo.

Uber died here when the government banned it (ass-backwards measure, for sure), then they came back with a contract-based premise in which you would technically rent the driver's car and would be responsible for everything that happened to it during the ride, which basically finished off the app here. Uber Eats though is still going strong.

I have never once used any of these services nor do I see it necessary in the near future for me (electrical contractor ) so I do find it interesting to be able to watch as all of this occurs while being in a position as a simple spectator. But there again - I am an Iphone6 & windows 8 user so I am sure there might be a pattern here somewhere. I do believe some people refer to the condition I suffer from as 'Oldguyness'.

Incredible content. Thank you!

优步 excellent step. Interesting translation, but for spending so much time in china he didn't realize no one uses credit cards?

I’m strangely satisfied whenever another western corporation falls flat on its face in Asia.

Excuse me, but what is a "generational brand loyalty"? Even my loyalty to BioWare lasted only 10 years

Pretty much any city you went you will notice onet thing, public transport project underway.