Uber starts selling ride/eats data to marketers
by sethops1 on 12/8/2025, 3:00:29 PM
Comments
by: dfxm12
So many times on this website, people say, "I will pay for the service to get rid of advertising." You pay for this service and rides aren't getting any cheaper. It is naive to think any company isn't finding ways to monetize your behavior, whether you're paying them or not.
12/8/2025, 3:27:33 PM
by: jacquesm
The business life-cycle:<p><pre><code> - Ascension - solve problem - proof of concept / MVP - investment - roll-out in home market - polished product - more investment, global roll-out - disruption of existing industry - non-autonomous growth by acquisition of other players - land-grab growth - lots of hiring - fancy offices, founders and stockholders make out like bandits - market domination - data hoarding as part of the 'moat' - continued innovation: go to 'step 1', otherwise... - Milk the cow - eventual competition - market share reduction - eroding margins - first reorganizations, lay-offs - founders replaced with financial managers - Data hoarding phase ends, data is sold *<- you are here* - Decline - reduced sales - shrinking profits - downsizing - terminal phase - lawsuits - patent portfolio and other IP used as strategic weapon - brand and IP acquisition by other players, not necessarily the same party acquiring both</code></pre>
12/8/2025, 3:55:31 PM
by: gnatman
I’m pretty surprised they haven’t been doing that for years already tbh.
12/8/2025, 3:27:38 PM
by: Permit
> Uber starts selling ride/eats data to marketers<p>Is this accurate? If so, where can I buy it? Or do they just mean targeted ads?<p>Edit: I see this is just an editorialized headline. It should probably be adjusted to match the original article's headline in a more faithful way.
12/8/2025, 4:06:20 PM
by: buellerbueller
Advertising is a virus that seeks to invade every ecosystem.
12/8/2025, 4:26:50 PM
by: lwhi
Uber really are the piranhas of the corporate world.<p>I can't imagine any depth they wouldn't dive to, in order to get a morsel to feed on.
12/8/2025, 3:11:17 PM
by: nerdponx
I'm surprised they weren't already doing this. Maybe they wanted to give it some time to see if there were other ways to monetize it before opening up the aggregates for sale.
12/8/2025, 3:29:01 PM
by: everdrive
I'm quite surprised this was not already being done. But yes, ALL services will do their best to maximize value and make the service worse for you. One way in which they do this is to sell your data to marketers.
12/8/2025, 4:11:38 PM
by: jadyoyster
There should be a law forcing ride hailing apps to give anonymized ride data to local governments so that they can plan public transport better. If they sell it to marketers they must be able to do this technically.
12/8/2025, 3:36:27 PM
by: keehee
Will gladly start using and paying for local car services instead.
12/8/2025, 3:49:25 PM
by: like_any_other
Back in the day in my country, if your neighbor or taxi driver was informing the authorities of your habits and travels, this was considered a dangerously hostile action. If no willing informant could be found, there were torture basements to get it. It's what kept the government in power for so long. E.g. travel data makes it easy to identify nascent political groups.<p>Thankfully corporations have proven themselves so trustworthy and benevolent, we don't think twice about giving them the data they used to have to torture out of us. Likewise the governments, that we know are among the buyers [1], are just as beloved and uncontroversial, unlike in the old days.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/14/23759585/odni-spy-report-surveillance-data-location-tracking" rel="nofollow">https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/14/23759585/odni-spy-report-...</a>
12/8/2025, 3:55:22 PM
by: techterrier
At this point im just going to move to Shetland, live in a hut and spend the next 30 years making wooden boats. It's the only way to be free of this nonsense.
12/8/2025, 3:57:16 PM
by: xnx
Another reason to use Waymo (for now).
12/8/2025, 3:52:39 PM
by: vasco
As long as it is to advertise in their own platform sounds great. I'd rather have nice restaurant suggestions on top than McDonald's and Dominoes or whoever paid the most every day. Using Uber eats is like some app from the past with ads as global banners that are the same for all users. If you're going to throw me ads at least use my history to try and do something useful.
12/8/2025, 3:30:16 PM