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a normal taxi is about £5 for that trip; an Uber or similar must be cheaper Uber's fares are subsidised (59%) by their VC funding [1], so they make a poor lo
by manarth 9y ago
a normal taxi is about £5 for that trip;
an Uber or similar must be cheaper
Uber's fares are subsidised (59%) by their VC funding [1], so they make a poor long-term comparison. Expect them to either corner the market, at which point fares go up, or run out of runway.
[1] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9a3vye/uber-true-cost-uh-oh https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9a3vye/uber-true-...
- T2_t2 9y agoThe source of that article - https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver-part-one-understanding-ubers-bleak-operating-economics.html https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-delive... - makes no sense to me. The cost of sales and operating expenses seem non-sensical. What are Uber's cost of sale? What are it's operating expenses? How are they different? If Uber takes a 20% cut, the only cost of sale I can't see is credit card costs. Everything else - including servers - is just an operating expense. More than likely the lifetime value of a ride sharing customer is huge, so rather than subsidising riders, they are likely front loading acquisition costs, and hoping to make it back in lifetime value. That seems to me a pretty darned solid strategy.