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Comment by alaskamiller | Hacker News Reader

This is one of those no-shit responses, parroted over and over again.

At the end of the day, Pepsi and Coca-Cola sells you sugar water. McDonald's and Burger King get the same meat form the same vendor trucks. You charge a credit card whether Visa or MasterCard.

The point isn't who brings you the convenience, it's that you have convenience at all.

Uber/Lyft has commoditized driving to a product sold at ~$2/mile. That's why this week they both launched loyalty programs, back to back.

And from there they'll just keep trying to add more value bit by bit. Not surprised at all if in 10 yrs Uber doesn't have cab hailing anymore, but you ended up on an Uber flight to Shanghai.

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> McDonald's and Burger King get the same meat form the same vendor trucks

No, they don't. They have their own suppliers and logistics for all their raw ingredients and supplies.

I think that commenter meant Beef Products Inc that treated its beef with ammonia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_Products

"BPI was a major supplier to McDonald's and Burger King, as well as restaurants and grocery stores, and its products were reportedly used in 75% of the United States' hamburger patties in 2008. The School Lunch Program, another large buyer of Beef Product's goods, used about 5.5 million pounds in 2009."

I think the problem really is profit. Pepsi and Coca-Cola both sell sugar water, a commodity, at a profit. Lyft and Uber have made rides a commodity but at this point it looks like commoditization of rides is not able to be sold at a profit. I think they both are touting that scale and technology will lead them to profitable rides but its not obvious that this is going to ever come true in a way that justifies their value. To me the scary part for them is that they already have commoditized their product.

In my opinion the outstanding question today is: are they both too early? It's currently a race to the bottom of driver oriented rides. As soon as driverless becomes viable the current rider fee suddenly shifts to being a more positive profit margin and also shifts opex back in favor of both. But can either last long enough to get there?

Driverless could become viable in five years, ten years, or never. It's too unknown at this point to make business decisions on.

> As soon as driverless becomes viable

Alexa can't even turn on my living room lights more than 50% percent of the time. I'm not holding my breath for driverless cars coming any time soon (if ever).

This is so sad alexa play despacito

To nitpick: Neither Coke nor Pepsi actually sells sugar water. They sell syrup. It's the independent local bottlers that actually add water.

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