Why I don't believe in Uber's Success

Post by oculusthrift » Thu, Jan 19, 2017, 7:30 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #117

avn2109 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TFA and a lot of commenters here don't seem to understand that Uber doesn't want to compete with taxi services, which are a niche business to be disrupted en route to the real prize. It wants to compete with your car - imagine 12 lanes of L.A. traffic composed mostly of Ubers. That's their dream. They even admit this in public. [0] The day they can get cost per mile one penny below what you'd spend owning a Toyota Ca…

I can believe that's their goal: I see little reason to believe they'll succeed in it, beyond making the market a bit bigger than the current taxi/minicab market. Just because they're very good at supplying an unlicensed minicab service (apparently subsidised by VC money in many areas) doesn't mean they can (i) run a minicab business at a profit so much more efficiently than every other minicab business in history th…

Post by oculusthrift » Thu, Jan 19, 2017, 7:31 PM UTC

avn2109 wrote: post #68

CoffeeDregs wrote: post #52

The commercial airline industry has lost money over the whole of its existence. If I'm flying from NYC to DAL, I'm flying the cheapest carrier (with a slight nod to Frequent Flyer programs). I'm not sure how Uber, Lyft, etc are any different than Southwest, American, etc. Cab companies (which I hate) and airlines saw this years ago and promoted regulations to protect their fees (and, thereby, wages). Airlines lost th…

TFA and a lot of commenters here don't seem to understand that Uber doesn't want to compete with taxi services, which are a niche business to be disrupted en route to the real prize. It wants to compete with your car - imagine 12 lanes of L.A. traffic composed mostly of Ubers. That's their dream. They even admit this in public. [0] The day they can get cost per mile one penny below what you'd spend owning a Toyota Ca…

Post by EduardoBautista » Thu, Jan 19, 2017, 7:32 PM UTC

ahuja_s wrote: post #26

EduardoBautista wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lower fare is because they are not even trying to make a profit.

Disagree, they are profitable in many territories already. Check your facts.

Post by wnevets » Thu, Jan 19, 2017, 7:32 PM UTC

zelias wrote: post #109

dageshi wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is in a low margin commodity business with massive amounts of competition, but they're still massive and becoming even bigger because they do what everyone else can do just that little bit better that there's no real reason to switch away.

Amazon also has crazy AWS profits to subsidize major investments. Uber lacks such a super profitable but tangential revenue stream.

Post by metaphorm » Thu, Jan 19, 2017, 7:34 PM UTC

discodave wrote: post #122

LordHumungous wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Uber doesn't want to compete with taxi services, which are a niche business to be disrupted en route to the real prize. It wants to compete with your car ...which is exactly what cabs are. In major cities cabs exist because it's cheaper and easier to hire a cab than to drive yourself. That cabs only really exist in densely populated urban areas should tell us something about the economics of this business model.

Removing the driver reduces the price significantly, so the business model of cars on demand is probably viable outside of dense areas with self driving cars. That being said, for Uber to win the self driving car race they have to beat Google, Apple, Tesla, Didi and the automotive incumbents as Sarah Lacy has been pointing out for at least 12 months.