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Uber loses $2.9B, offloads bike and scooter business

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Re: Uber loses $2.9B, offloads bike and scooter business

#41

Post by clairity »

opportune wrote: post #30
martythemaniak wrote: post #9

First, they were gonna make the jump to be an autonomous robotaxi service, but that's going nowhere fast. Then they were going to be mobility service - cars, bikes, scooters, everything would go through them. But no more. So what are they going to be now? Just milk their taxi service until Waymo, Tesla or whoever comes and wipes them off the market? Honestly, what are their long-term prospects? I've been staying away…

I've invested in uber so here's my take - If uber leaves growth mode and makes smarter investments in new services/markets, they can be profitable. They have positive margin on ridesharing in most markets. I believe uber eats could also earn money in the short term. And I want them to continue investing in last-mile delivery (which I believe they have canceled for now). Even though eats isn't earning a lot now, I bel…

> "I believe uber eats could also earn money in the short term."

uber eats isn't a revenue play, so investors shouldn't expect any real margin contribution from it. instead, it's meant to protect the flanks--to control supply-side costs for rideshare and provide some risk mitigation through product diversification.

Re: Uber loses $2.9B, offloads bike and scooter business

#42

Post by legolas2412 »

opportune wrote: post #30
martythemaniak wrote: post #9

First, they were gonna make the jump to be an autonomous robotaxi service, but that's going nowhere fast. Then they were going to be mobility service - cars, bikes, scooters, everything would go through them. But no more. So what are they going to be now? Just milk their taxi service until Waymo, Tesla or whoever comes and wipes them off the market? Honestly, what are their long-term prospects? I've been staying away…

I've invested in uber so here's my take - If uber leaves growth mode and makes smarter investments in new services/markets, they can be profitable. They have positive margin on ridesharing in most markets. I believe uber eats could also earn money in the short term. And I want them to continue investing in last-mile delivery (which I believe they have canceled for now). Even though eats isn't earning a lot now, I bel…

> However I find it much more plausible that Waymo and Tesla will vendor out the details of the rideshare service rather than build their own from scratch.

Yeah, but that puts all value add in waymo or Tesla's hands, not Uber's. Uber will have no advantage, and cannot charge juicy margins.

Re: Uber loses $2.9B, offloads bike and scooter business

#43

Post by opportune »

clairity wrote: post #41
opportune wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've invested in uber so here's my take - If uber leaves growth mode and makes smarter investments in new services/markets, they can be profitable. They have positive margin on ridesharing in most markets. I believe uber eats could also earn money in the short term. And I want them to continue investing in last-mile delivery (which I believe they have canceled for now). Even though eats isn't earning a lot now, I bel…

> "I believe uber eats could also earn money in the short term." uber eats isn't a revenue play, so investors shouldn't expect any real margin contribution from it. instead, it's meant to protect the flanks--to control supply-side costs for rideshare and provide some risk mitigation through product diversification.

That's fair. To be clear I don't expect it to be a huge money maker in the short term, just something that's worth doing. Long term the margins look much better once the food delivery market starts to see some consolidation/higher margins due to less promotions and subsidies.

Very good point on the supply-side costs for rideshare, hadn't thought of that.

Re: Uber loses $2.9B, offloads bike and scooter business

#45

Post by robbiep »

gffrd wrote: post #11
martythemaniak wrote: post #9

First, they were gonna make the jump to be an autonomous robotaxi service, but that's going nowhere fast. Then they were going to be mobility service - cars, bikes, scooters, everything would go through them. But no more. So what are they going to be now? Just milk their taxi service until Waymo, Tesla or whoever comes and wipes them off the market? Honestly, what are their long-term prospects? I've been staying away…

This is what I want to know. Ridesharing fares are obviously underpriced … and if they were raised 30% to make them sustainable, it becomes "not worth it" for a good chunk of people who use ridesharing as a supplement to car, bus, transit, etc. I assume the strategy is a long-play to have people + communities become wholly dependent on your services (they skip buying cars, skip learning to drive, transit fails to evo…

For a long time ubers have been more expensive in sydney (which is known to be one of their most profitable markets) for many rides than taxis - there is an added convenience of Uber that taxis are only just catching up to (in terms of seeing where your ride is/wait time) but a fair percentage of the time I prefer taxis these days now - fixed price and the driver generally knows where he’s going instead of following a map and driving like a person who only got behind the wheel last week

Re: Uber loses $2.9B, offloads bike and scooter business

#46

Post by clairity »

opportune wrote: post #43
clairity wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I believe uber eats could also earn money in the short term." uber eats isn't a revenue play, so investors shouldn't expect any real margin contribution from it. instead, it's meant to protect the flanks--to control supply-side costs for rideshare and provide some risk mitigation through product diversification.

That's fair. To be clear I don't expect it to be a huge money maker in the short term, just something that's worth doing. Long term the margins look much better once the food delivery market starts to see some consolidation/higher margins due to less promotions and subsidies. Very good point on the supply-side costs for rideshare, hadn't thought of that.

even long-term, it's tempting to think that synergies and market consolidation would lead to higher utilization rates through stacking (making multiple delveries at once), but indications from current players in the space are discouraging in that regard.

last-mile logistics is an exceedingly tough nut. i think it's really going to take a wholesale reconfiguration of cities around much more density and mixed-use where shared industrial kitchens and warehouses can make the synergies work out, but of course that's decades in the making.

Re: Uber loses $2.9B, offloads bike and scooter business

#47

Post by axguscbklp »

martythemaniak wrote: post #9

First, they were gonna make the jump to be an autonomous robotaxi service, but that's going nowhere fast. Then they were going to be mobility service - cars, bikes, scooters, everything would go through them. But no more. So what are they going to be now? Just milk their taxi service until Waymo, Tesla or whoever comes and wipes them off the market? Honestly, what are their long-term prospects? I've been staying away…

Here's what I don't get about the robotaxi stuff - did the company and the investors ever actually believe that the robotaxi stuff was even close to viable, or was it just a scam all along? To me it seems obvious that fully self-driving cars are almost certainly, at best, several decades away - and, if it turns out that fully self-driving technology really does require artificial general intelligence, it's quite plausible that humanity actually will never build fully self-driving cars. This isn't something that I've just realized recently - I've thought for several years now that full self-driving is almost certainly at best quite far away. How did it happen that thousands and thousands of rather smart people fell for the delusion that there was any realistic chance of implementing full self-driving any time soon? Of course it's not just Uber in question, it's also Tesla, Waymo, and so on.

Re: Uber loses $2.9B, offloads bike and scooter business

#48

Post by untog »

axguscbklp wrote: post #47
martythemaniak wrote: post #9

First, they were gonna make the jump to be an autonomous robotaxi service, but that's going nowhere fast. Then they were going to be mobility service - cars, bikes, scooters, everything would go through them. But no more. So what are they going to be now? Just milk their taxi service until Waymo, Tesla or whoever comes and wipes them off the market? Honestly, what are their long-term prospects? I've been staying away…

Here's what I don't get about the robotaxi stuff - did the company and the investors ever actually believe that the robotaxi stuff was even close to viable, or was it just a scam all along? To me it seems obvious that fully self-driving cars are almost certainly, at best, several decades away - and, if it turns out that fully self-driving technology really does require artificial general intelligence, it's quite plau…

> did the company and the investors ever actually believe that the robotaxi stuff was even close to viable

IMO, absolutely. The hype for self driving cars a few years ago was massive. I forget who, but a prominent SV investor offered to make a bet with someone that self-driving taxis would be on the road in five years. There was plenty of it in HN, too.

That's the investors. Did Travis think so too? The insane amounts of money they spent on acquisitions and developing the tech suggests yes: they were trying to be first to a huge potential market. But maybe he was doing all that to scam investors, who can tell.

Re: Uber loses $2.9B, offloads bike and scooter business

#49

Post by meritt »

martythemaniak wrote: post #9

First, they were gonna make the jump to be an autonomous robotaxi service, but that's going nowhere fast. Then they were going to be mobility service - cars, bikes, scooters, everything would go through them. But no more. So what are they going to be now? Just milk their taxi service until Waymo, Tesla or whoever comes and wipes them off the market? Honestly, what are their long-term prospects? I've been staying away…

> I've been staying away from Uber stock because they have a market cap of 50B

Not defending Uber here in the slightest, but given your post history on Tesla, I find it amusing you think Uber's market cap is egregious

Re: Uber loses $2.9B, offloads bike and scooter business

#50

Post by filmgirlcw »

warent wrote: post #44

Can anyone explain why Lyft is not experiencing the same pain? I've always used them over Uber (not an investor in either, just a customer) and now as much as ever Lyft just seems to be a smarter, more mature company.

But they are? Lyft laid off 17% of its staff the other day, despite promising no layoffs weeks ago [1]. Lyft doesn’t have Uber’s exposure in other business sectors like food delivery or scooters (a sector it actually exited in November), and it doesn’t have Uber’s global business (for better or for worse — it could be better now but be worse if other parts of the world recover before the US), but I would hardly call it the “smarter, more mature company.”

This sector is in trouble, period. Lyft is the smaller player. That could work to their advantage or not — but I would say both companies are experiencing the same pain and are equally troubled.

[1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/laid-off-lyft-employees-desc...

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