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> There's a lot of noise about "transportation as a service". Remember that Uber loses money, even after squeezing its drivers really hard and making them buy a
by Judgmentality 9y ago
> There's a lot of noise about "transportation as a service". Remember that Uber loses money, even after squeezing its drivers really hard and making them buy and maintain the cars.
Uber loses money because it pays the drivers - if you eliminate the driver you eliminate most of the cost. And if you can use simpler electric vehicles which are cheaper to drive and maintain, then you have yet another significant advantage.
I don't think anybody knows what exactly will happen, but there is clearly an enormous opportunity. The trucking industry alone in the United States is nearly a trillion dollar market. Of course when you add in all the complexities of actually scaling the business it doesn't become pure profit, but I'd be amazed if you couldn't print money if the technology worked.
- deafcalculus 9y agoEliminate the driver and Uber loses the already weak marketplace network effect. Why would a taxi fleet service come to Uber rather than having their own app?
- d0lph 9y agoI think still the marketplace is pretty useful, especially if a taxi service is competing with people renting out their autonomous car to uber while they work or aren't using it. It would also be annoying to have to find an app for every city you're traveling in.