This is a foolish viewpoint. Amazon got immense economies of scale as they grew, Uber’s costs scale alongside it.
It drives me crazy that so many people equivocate them.
It drives me crazy that so many people equivocate them.
Is all that money lost just subsidizing the cost of the ride? If they stop subsidizing the drive price, which they will have to at some point I imagine, will people just abandon the service?
This writing has been on the wall for ages, but people keep looking past it.
Uber I think somewhat internally knows this, and have thus tried either moonshots or diversifying. Uber Eats actually looks to be profitable since you take driver surplus and turn it into profits, simplifying a bit. Self driving moonshots are just that - moonshots.
You can already see the effects of them squeezing drivers with recent strikes and issues including a possible 600M+ arbitration costs from drivers.
Retailers can use economies of scale to lower prices and increase variety of products. There are no economies of scale in Uber the way it's structured now and the service is largely homogeneous. There could be economies of scale with self-driving cars, but why should they be the winner there?
The only way they managed to offer lower prices (which is the main concern to riders) is through VC subsidy. There is simply no way to significantly lower prices for taxis, unless you have self-driving cars.
The only thing Uber has is a limited power of a local network effect which is a relatively weak moat.
I think history has demonstrated that betting against Musk is not a wise choice.
He has proved his words countless times now. I have no idea what you are talking about. Only criticism I have about Elon would be his estimations on the time but I work in the tech field too and I can relate to issues coming up which postpone the deadlines.
How exactly is Waymo thought to be the leader? It's like the same argument short sellers have been making for years that Tesla electric cars will be overtaken by other car manufacturers. Come back to me when Waymo has overtaken Tesla in actual and on the market product.