The Information’s Private Company Index

Subscriber sentiment towards Uber continues to be overwhelmingly negative, improving only slightly in our latest monthly survey. In contrast, attitudes to Lyft are much more positive.

Uber’s sentiment score was negative 75.5% for the April survey, compared with negative 79% a month earlier. It had plunged 59 percentage points in the March survey after sexual harassment allegations involving company employees broke. Since then a cascade of tough stories has hit Uber, focusing on the company’s growth-at-all-costs culture. (The sentiment score is the percentage of subscribers who are more optimistic minus the percentage who are less optimistic.)

The survey showed that sentiment towards Lyft has continued to improve. The sentiment score for Uber’s main rival hit 49%, up from 47% a month earlier. In January, before the controversies about Uber, Lyft’s sentiment score was just 5%. The latest survey was conducted between April 28 and May 18.

Attitudes towards Dropbox improved slightly, continuing a steady trend. Its score hit 4.9%, the first time it has turned positive since The Information began its survey in November, 2014. Early last year Dropbox’s score hit a low of negative 62%. The improvement may reflect some positive news about Dropbox’s business, including its revenue and turning cash flow positive.