I don't get any incentives or bonuses either, just ~75% of the gross receipts from the customer.
The only reason I have Uber on my phone is for trips to Ottawa.
While I agree that the service is here to stay, the individual players are likely to shift.
If you really want to go down the rabbit hole I'd recommend reading this series on nakedcapitalism. They're at nine parts now: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/?s=can+uber+ever+deliver
It's pretty clear Uber is in heavy investment mode, in market expansion as well as new businesses (uber-eats, self driving cars, etc), no one can know what their real costs per ride are unless they can break out that detail.
But it's also clear in their core business their cost to dispatch a ride should only be pennies.
If I made my living (or any sizeable chunk of $$) off rides, I'd honestly be looking at positioning Lyft first if it was possible.
If your reasoning is entirely anecdata, there's really no point in you engaging in threads about where businesses are going, since you'd only ever have something to contribute after it already happened.
If anything Uber will have better margins as they can distribute their fixed costs across more rides due to their global availability.
Have you not been paying attention to Uber? They've been leaking funds like a sieve. Settlements, advertising, more employees, generally more aggressive and expensive tactics.
Obviously in larger cities the taxi model can and does thrive, but as Uber's price goes up, more frugal users comfortable with installing new apps will likely move to other platforms that offer the same basic service minus massive investor pockets to fill, while others might use it as a niche transport service for longer-distance ridesharing or as one of several taxi services in cities.
Autonomous could save the margins there, but imo it's another front that Uber won't be able to afford fighting. Once the subsidizing ends, there'll be no love lost between Uber and users eager/happy to stick it to Kalanick and save a few bucks in the process, nor drivers who might've felt slighted/affronted by his or Uber's treatment of them, nor employees/users who don't care for the company's culture.
Time's running out for Uber; whether or not it survives as a big fish basically comes down to how soon autonomous goes mainstream.
In the meantime people won't switch because of branding. They will already have Uber on their phone and be comfortable with it. It will take a lot to get people to switch. Branding is a huge competitive advantage. Better colas than Coke have been developed for a hundred years and they still grew market share.
Uber will get market rates, whatever they are and will make tons of money because their business model is super efficient. It should only cost pennies to dispatch each ride, they get dollars in revenue from each ride, and are developing huge economies of scale cab dispatch companies have never had.
As soon as they stop investing so heavily on opening new markets and businesses their income statement is going to look a whole lot different.
There's definitely a niche, but it's nowhere near the size that Uber's operating at now; so if they're reliant on that volume or higher for the margin they need they're in for some bad news. Once the price goes up the market will be ripe for new public transportation efforts and less-VC-saddled competitors to fill the void.
I dunno, maybe they'll have more luck in foreign markets. (Though last I read, that wasn't the case either...)
I'm hoping not so he can continue to pay rent.