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This is the oft-repeated argument in favor of Uber ("they're a logistics company!"), and to be honest, it's quite hand-wavey. Why is the expertise they have bu
by dharmon 10y ago
This is the oft-repeated argument in favor of Uber ("they're a logistics company!"), and to be honest, it's quite hand-wavey.
Why is the expertise they have built up in car-hailing directly applicable to other logistics problems, and what advantage will they have going in that creates a barrier to entry for newcomers?
I think there is one answer to this for Uber, and its the same strategy Amazon stumbled into: have your "main" business be breakeven, but provide the scale needed for a pure profit business. In Amazon's case, the main business is retail and the profit center is AWS.
In Uber's case, this would look like individual ride-taking customers providing the demand to keep a critical mass of drivers on the road. This business is breakeven at best, likely slightly money-losing (sorry folks, but an increases in ride costs will quickly stamp out demand to pre-Uber days).
Then, with this "infrastructure" of drivers on the road, they can leverage it into nearly pure profit areas like last-mile delivery.
There's a huge catch, though. Amazon just has to buy new machines every 3-5 years. Uber's driver turnover is much much higher, and is absolutely killing them. All the claims of profitability are deceptive, because they assume current demand with current set of drivers; those statements do not factor in driver recruitment costs next month, or tomorrow.
Unfortunately this appears on the surface to be a structural problem. Current pay with driver-owned vehicles is probably not a long-term or full-time possibility for most candidate drivers.
Edit: to save a step, the predictable response to my objection is always, "but... self-driving cars!"
- cylinder 10y agoYep. Uber Eats is a joke, horrible experiences with that, it just seems like a joke they're running almost.
- bduerst 10y agoYep. The reason that's the next predictable response is because Uber is holding off for self-driving cars, so it can become the logistics network for delivery. That doesn't mean that they will, of course. I have a feeling that these platform-locked services like Uber and Lyft will not be able to compete with the scalability of an open auction network.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago> I have a feeling that these platform-locked services like Uber and Lyft will not be able to compete with the scalability of an open auction network. This is the non-profit I want to invest in.
- nfc 10y agoIf you are serious about it my contact is in my profile, the project description is in www.alfiv.org and some of the products already created at www.alfiv.com. Completely bootstrapped up to now. We've got a small prototype api.
- kuschku 10y agoThey also won’t be able to compete with the likes of DHL, delivering within of a single day across the whole globe for affordable rates, and already – even before Amazon announced their drones – test flying with their own drones first test deliveries in some select cities.
- zeckalpha 10y agoAmazon's profit center is AWS?
- ceejayoz 10y agohttp://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-reports-surge-in-profit-1461874333 http://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-reports-surge-in-profit-1... > The cloud division’s sales rose 64% to $2.57 billion. While that is less than one-tenth of Amazon’s overall revenue, AWS generated about 67% of the company’s operating income in the quarter.
- thesimpsons1022 10y agoif you know the predictable response then why not answer it?