Uber etc

[zed]

I've had this idea for a while so will put it out there.
Now we all know uber is worth mega bucks, with most of this going to a few 'nice' guys, they get their profits from taking a rather large surcharge 20% off the ride cost OK (when I first heard about the company idea I thought they would get ~2% but when I read 20% its like a jaw dropping percentage).
Their software / idea etc ain't esp amazing i.e. its not something that requires years of research, large investment to get off the ground, agreed.

There are competitors already I believe, but they run along the same profit models.
AFAIKS uber made ~$2 billion profit last year & rapidly growing

My idea is create a version where the profits go to a good cause, eg space exploration or whatever worthy blue sky research that doesn't get enough money (you could have say the cambodian version, paying for unexploded ordinance removal, btw Im aware taxi's in the western sense don't exist in that land) but I would prefer a worldwide goal

Im sure given the choice between riding uber (where profits go to the 'good' guys) or spacedrive (where profits go to space research) Im sure a lot of people would choose option B

So, What are the flaws in this idea?

PS - Yes Im aware uber would prolly go from 20% to 15% etc

 

[Alexko]

The flaw is that you might have trouble sustaining your endeavor without making money.

 

[Grall]

@Alexko There's degrees of difference between making two billion dollars a year in profits, and not making any money at all.

 

[London Geezer]

Might make a bit more sense if users could choose which charity/venture to donate to.

 

[zed]

@Alexko there are heaps of endeavors where noone makes money, A lot of open source software for example, or Soup kichens. Though it is making money, the difference is the money is going into 'worthwhile' causes
@London-boy yes I did think of that, and would encourage more usage I assume ( you would have to have a selected pool of organisations or else it would be like the 'money from pokie machines here in nz' which is meant to go into charities, it does but a lot of them are 'horseracing charities'. The problem with that idea is it would greatly lessen the amount any one organization would receive, $2 billion a year could send ppl back to the moon, (perhaps even the beginnings of a base). Imagine that

 

[NRP]

My employer has a grants/incentives division with a fairly substantial budget. You would be surprised how hard it is to give money away. At least I was.

 

[milk]

I believe there are a lot of people that see space research as a not very humanitarian cause (wrongly in my opinion) and not the most autruistic or nicety-nice type of charity. Kids in africa... People love them starving kids.

 

[zed]

elieve there are a lot of people that see space research as a not very humanitarian cause (wrongly in my opinion) and not the most autruistic or nicety-nice type of charity

Yes perhaps true, though I assume >50% of ppl would rather money going to that instead of ... I don't know?
this guys pockets

 

[homerdog]

You would be surprised how hard it is to give money away. At least I was.

I was super surprised at how hard it was to give away my old GPU.

 

[Alexko]

I was super surprised at how hard it was to give away my old GPU.

Next time, just PM me. Unless it's a GeForce 2 MX or something like that.