Free Now Nomics

[John m]

Just a thought .Why are Free Now adding the Euro tech fee .Could it be ?They are in Financial Difficulty ?Could they go Broke or Sell out to UBER or BOLT ?

When Halo started we subsidized them for about  80 Million Euro by not charging the PUC and giving free waiting time .Halo .My Taxi ,Free Now have bought up the older dispatchers to grow their Brand .They must of borrowed against future earnings ,but the Scamdemic would on impacted their cash flow .They know that 15% of the Gross is the limit drivers are willing to pay and the new Card acceptance rules will bring OUR  Customers back to US no need to app a cab if you have no cash just stick out your hand and swipe .

Could Free Now have borrowed Tens of Millions throughout Europe to acquire other dispatchers .ECB and International bank Interest rate rises and the two year Pandemic could that of put them on the edge ? Is the extra euro per job the last sting of a dying Wasp ?Could they actually be in financial trouble .They cannot increase the Freight now they have Competition from Bolt and UBER .


Watty can you find any returns for Free Now in Ireland or Europe .

[John m]

Part 2 .Myself and Occi are invested in a Crypto coin that protects your personal data .One of the Valuable assets of Free Now was its Data bank .It knows if you go to Work,Restaurants,Casinos but since they were established GDPR has been introduced so they possibly cannot sell on that data to third parties so their Business Plan has been compromised .A lot of People do not understand UBER is the forth biggest harvester of Data after Google,Facebook ,Amazon .They do not sell dinners or taxi rides they actually sell data thats what they collect using the taxi or dinner app in your pocket to harvest your data .I have been considering this and I would not be surprised if Free Now decide to go two euro or the equivalent of the Pick up charge as the payment for jobs .Commission on most jobs would be under 2 euro so they would not lose out .Would not rule out a Duel Free Now App international for overseas registered users and an Irish version where Irish registered users pay a fixed fee have a max  3 euro deduction and on jobs for international travelers they deduct the 15% or More whatever the Comission will be .

Dosent seem to make  any economic sense to introduce a Tech Fee when your competition do not .Only reason I can think of is they are over borrowed at low interest rates and are struggling to make repayments .Will Free Now try to become just a transport app and not try to sell your data .

[mercenary for hire]

They're owned by Diamler and BMW.BMW have just started charging subscription fees to activate your heated seats...Freenow Ireland have likely been told they're not getting any more money and need to start showing that they're able to make a healthy profit.Uber already tried to buy them so no doubt they will again.

I'm starting to notice that I don't get jobs for a while sometimes and then as soon as one offers me a job the others offer jobs within seconds.It wouldn't surprise me if they've done this deliberately to mess each other around.

I believe Uber are moving to a subscription service in some markets already.

This post doesn't really have a point...I'm off to work.Late agian..

[John m]

The Point Merch is Data collected could be sold to third parties .With GDPR does that data have any third party value .If not then Free Now need to make profits from Services rendered not Information sold on .You say They're owned by Diamler and BMW. Are they or are they independent associates .Were they collecting Rout Data for Mercs self driving motors .If GDPR prevents them selling on that Data then their Data Base loses its value .Monies borrowed for buyouts @ 0% interest based on an old business plan could be underwater if they now have to pay increasing Interest rates on diminishing earnings .

 Has a lad in the Car yesterday just lost his job .He was saying his company only retooled costing Millions four years ago Lockdown they were closed the Twss kept the wages paid but the Boss decided that interest rates and Upward Rents meant he could no longer make a profit .So entered Voluntary Liquidation .He also has a load of Prsi and Pension Contributions falling due from Lockdown so by Going into Liquidation they will get Priority .That old Chestnut Upward only Rent Reviews is Not gone away you know .The company were pressing some sort of Bearings and were having trouble getting parts from China and increased input costs made the thing unviable .I notice a fair few of the Middle ranking Horse Trainers in Britain and Ireland have closed up shop .Hailo never made a Profit Im sure Free Now struggled during Lockdown Their offices and the App developers still needed to be paid they could be struggling .

[Octavia1]

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/is-uber-valued-at-91bn-on-verge-of-a-profitable-future-after-a-decade-of-losses-1.4704534#:~:text=Uber%27s%20profitability%20is%20a%20moving,last%20quarter%20to%20June%2030th.

Just readin this about uber ....they recorded a net loss last year of  6.8 billion    Am I readin that right ?  Maybe the flu dun it ...apparently  they've bean losing money for 10 years .....
How the fuk can a company that that doesn't pay
It's workers wages, pensions, medical , prsi etcetera all the tings a normal company has to do ....an on top of that the " employees "  pay the company .....the mind boggles

How can freenow not be making huge profit wen all they need is an app and a handful of staff ?
If I can guesstimate conservatively..for  example 10000 drivers are payin 100 quid a week ....that's 50 million a yer .......don't get it that  they can't make profit

[John m]

Occi 50 Million? how much are their running costs .They pay the Banking Fees out of their 15% on app transactions  then staff then office space then wages and Bonus payments to keep drivers on board .Did they borrow huge sums to buy out Hailo and smaller independent dispatchers .To put 50 Million in earnings in context thats 1 million turnover a week Coppers does three or four times that amount .Every English Second Division team would have a wage bill greater than that .Pennys Turnover on Henry street is about 800 million .Turnover dosent equal profit .


UBER is a Project to Gather Data to make them the fourth largest store and seller of Data .They only use Taxi and Dinner deliveries to collect data .They had no need to make a monetary profit their assetts are the Data they collected and will sell .Read the Small print they own your Data you agreed .They are more active outside Europe as there are no Data Restrictions .Uber share price goes up based on the Data they collected not the Taxi fares or Sandwich Deliveries .

[Octavia1]

Occi 50 Million? how much are their running costs .They pay the Banking Fees out of their 15% on app transactions  then staff then office space then wages and Bonus payments to keep drivers on board .Did they borrow huge sums to buy out Hailo and smaller independent dispatchers .To put 50 Million in earnings in context thats 1 million turnover a week Coppers does three or four times that amount .Every English Second Division team would have a wage bill greater than that .Pennys Turnover on Henry street is about 800 million .Turnover dosent equal profit .


UBER is a Project to Gather Data to make them the fourth largest store and seller of Data .They only use Taxi and Dinner deliveries to collect data .They had no need to make a monetary profit their assetts are the Data they collected and will sell .Read the Small print they own your Data you agreed .They are more active outside Europe as there are no Data Restrictions .Uber share price goes up based on the Data they collected not the Taxi fares or Sandwich Deliveries .

Wats the rent on an office in Dublin? A million ?
Wages for how many staff ?   Cudnt be that many Cople o million ?
Are they declaring a loss for the tax man ?
Any non gig economy company wud be payin millions in wages to 10,000 employees at basic wage ...that's me point ....Still don't know how they
Cud lose money
One tech savy bloke cud run an app in his bedroom......
That reminds me .... zzz   all this tinkin z ...hss me ...bollixed ....zzzz z 

[John m]

Occi is Free Now Ireland A Franchise ?Do they pay the Fatherlund some Marks to use the Name How many Million do they spend per Year on Advertising ?

[Octavia1]

Uber runnin at a loss for 10 yers ...hope our crypto
Does better than that 

[John m]

Uber runnin at a loss for 10 yers ...hope our crypto
Does better than that 

Occi there are Companies that are Zombienomics .They exist to exist borrow to keep going then Float on the Stock Market .The founders Cash out leaving a Zombie Behind .ENRON was the biggest one .The best one I remember in Ireland was Stringfellows Night Club .He got Irish investors to buy in opened in Parnell Street closed 6 weeks later .He done a lot of that around Britain licenced the Name and he did the PR .The product was Him not the Nightclubs .Even if you know that Shares are worthless if you run a tracker fund you must buy them Pro Rata to represent the amount of the index they represent .Christian Brothers have a lot to answer for they thought us to sleep with our hands outside the Blankets but not how to put your hands in the Till .I recon about 40% of Business are trading Insolvent .

[Punter]

Doubt they are going bust John--

I would say that they cant believe they got away with the technology fee and come Sept !st they will be still further in front with the 12% fare increase ,they could afford to lose 30% of their "pre fee "  customers and be still OK when the fee is factored in now--
Their biggest Xs will be technology--they will be paying Google for "maps"on a fee per app user,similar for "billing system" and they are now using AI for customer service,reckon they only have a couple of techies here for local support with HQ in Germany doing the heavy lifting,and sure they have a group of consultants combing tru all facets of the business to get it fit --
Look at Bolt reckon its nearly all A1 with no personal interaction,damsite slimmer and will get to profitability before FN, !

[John m]

Have you noticed if the app is not Pay By app you cannot change it .I tried twice to go pay by app and it refused .I think if the user has not signed up for the 1 euro tech fee it will not let them change .

[watty]

Just a thought .Why are Free Now adding the Euro tech fee .Could it be ?They are in Financial Difficulty ?Could they go Broke or Sell out to UBER or BOLT ?

<snip>

Watty can you find any returns for Free Now in Ireland or Europe .

In 2019, there was talk of Uber buying Free Now but probably bullshit.  This year, they sold Share Now (car sharing) to Stellantis.



Can't find anything specific on FreeNow at EU level.  But this is BMW's half year report to June 2022 (PDF).  I'll come back to that later but there's no mention of Free Now.

Free Now is part of the Your-Now.com group (which may or may not be part of the Intelligent Apps Inc group).  Ultimately it's a joint venture between BMW and Daimler.  In addition to Free Now, Your-Now also has Share-Now, Charge-Now and Reach-Now as part of the group.  They all have that stupid crooked V logo.


Share-Now:

YOUR NOW Holding GmbH, a joint venture of the BMW Group and
Mercedes-Benz Group AG, entered into an agreement with the Stellantis
Group on 29 April 2022 relating to the sale of SHARE NOW GmbH. The
sale was initially subject to the approval of the relevant authorities.
Following receipt of regulatory approval, the sale was completed on
15 July 2022.

Charge-Now:
Electric charging points.  No mention in the BMW report.  But BMW also have a share in Ionity, a Europe-wide charging network already.  BMW is putting money into Ionity -->

IONITY Holding GmbH & Co. KG signed a contract with GRP III HPC Lux
Sàrl (Blackrock) on 12 November 2021 for the provision of financing
amounting to € 500 million to expand the charging network. The exist-
ing shareholders are also investing an additional € 200 million in the
business.

Share-Now:
Car-sharing, ride-hailing etc


Reach-Now:
Software something something.  Closed March 2022


BMW finish this section of their results with "All other changes to the Group reporting entity are not significant in terms of the results of operations, financial position and net assets of the Group."  Which suggests FreeNow is not on the radar of the Directors?


I can't help but feel all these companies saw all these buzzwords on the internet and just threw billions at it and thought they'd work out a way to profit sometime in the future.


I remember reading a report on Uber's business model which was negative.  But the author made the point that taxis have been around for about 100 years.  The horses have changed to cars but there's been little innovation in the business.  Because maybe there isn't any innovation to be had.  It's a very simple business that can't be simplified further or made any more efficient.  20 years ago, you used a phone to order a taxi and a man+car turned up.  Now you use your phone and a man+taxi turns up.


Uber, for example, is still in the 'taxi' business but it makes its money delivering food.  And they're expanding that part into a bigger business by opening mega-kitchens in industrial estates that can kick out any sort of fast food you can think of.  So your local Chinese or pizza shop is fukked.  Uber want to control it all from kitchen to your front door.  Uber is a software company that doesn't physically own any taxis or employ any drivers so they could drop them in a heartbeat if they felt like it.