>Realistically, Uber has a higher cost basis than a taxi because taxis cut down on insurance and fleet expenses through pooling. But Uber's price / taxis' pric

>Realistically, Uber has a higher cost basis than a taxi because taxis cut down on insurance and fleet expenses through pooling. But Uber's price / taxis' price is wider than Uber's revenue / Uber's costs. Uber addresses various problems with taxis: - driver certification: the brokenness of taxi certification arguably created Uber, via unreasonable constraints on the number of taxis in many jurisdictions - availability: Uber's surge pricing may suck, but it's more fair than random price gouging by drivers at odd times in weird places - rider pooling: you don't have to pass a hailing rider to combine trips; there's an algorithm for that - verification: fake taxis used to be a serious problem, but Uber (usually) gives you the license plate # of your driver Also, with regard to fleet expenses, Uber is arguably taking advantage of decaying capital that would have gone to waste. The cost of a car is often quoted in cents per mile, but that's not quite accurate. A car that sits in a garage will eventually fail; the lifespan of a car is limited by time as well as distance. Many people weren't driving their cars as far as they could in the time that they had -- and in my experience, Uber drivers tend to drive in the machine-gentlest way they possibly can (sometimes annoyingly so -- but why wouldn't they?). The use of own cars potentially yields a significant savings over a dedicated fleet. (Likewise, Uber "pools" the cost of insurance on the taxi with the cost of insurance on the own car.)