3 ms·

FedEx is still cheaper in terms of market cap than Uber, if Amazon was going to make any major acquisition to deliver parcels it surely would not be Uber.

m_ke 7y ago
I doubt Amazon would want to deal with all of those employees. I'm not even sure that they'd want to handle deliveries for other businesses. With Uber they have a 24/7 flexible contractor workforce and physical interaction with millions of potential customers. Amazon could help them save a ton of money by moving their infrastructure onto AWS and reduce their marketing spend by promoting it on their properties. Tying an uber subscription to Amazon prime could also help both businesses. I'm sure both Lyft and Uber are already working on some monthly membership model.
- jonknee 7y ago
  > I doubt Amazon would want to deal with all of those employees. Amazon is the second largest private employer in the US, they seem to be fine with paychecks. I was just pointing out that buying Uber so you can deliver stuff is a phenomenally dumb idea, it would be cheaper to buy a company like FedEx that is valued by real assets and has proven capable at delivering stuff. > With Uber they have a 24/7 flexible contractor workforce and physical interaction with millions of potential customers. Amazon already does this and since Uber relies on contractors, they could sign up every driver in the country without paying a penny for Uber. > Amazon could help them save a ton of money by moving their infrastructure onto AWS and reduce their marketing spend by promoting it on their properties. Uber also already uses AWS. Getting paid for it seems better than spending billions to not get paid? tl;dr I don't think Amazon buys either company, but there is no way in hell they buy Uber.
  - rchaud 7y ago
    > Amazon is the second largest private employer in the US, they seem to be fine with paychecks. I think the bigger issue is unionization. In Canada, many Fedex workers belong to a union. Pretty sure that is non-existed at Uber.
    - m_ke 7y ago
      Yes, it looks like unionization is the reason why they ran away from Long Island City.
  - m_ke 7y ago
    > Amazon is the second largest private employer in the US, they seem to be fine with paychecks. Everything that I've seen from them in the past few years leads me to believe that they want to get rid of as many blue collar jobs as possible. > I was just pointing out that buying Uber so you can deliver stuff is a phenomenally dumb idea I'd agree with that but I'm arguing that combining ride sharing and delivery makes a lot more sense for both sides than being a courier. If Uber and Lyft survive they'll have to do it on low margins and high volume. Nobody understands that game better than Bezos and Amazon. Uber has built a great engineering team, including a ton of top notch machine learning / self driving researchers. They'd be a much bigger value add than anything they'd get from FedEx. > Amazon already does this and since Uber relies on contractors, they could sign up every driver in the country without paying a penny for Uber. You're describing postmates, which is too expensive for their average customer. By overlaying door to door delivery on top of something like uber pool you get the riders to eat a large portion of the cost. Uber is already making progress in that direction with Uber Eats (https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2019/02/06/ubers-secret-gold-mine-how-uber-eats-is-turning-into-a-billion-dollar-business-to-rival-grubhub/#44df2ff41fa9 https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2019/02/06/ubers-secr...) > Uber also already uses AWS. Getting paid for it seems better than spending billions to not get paid? Oh I could have sworn I just saw someone mention that they migrated off of it recently. > tl;dr I don't think Amazon buys either company, but there is no way in hell they buy Uber. As long as both of them are around they will continue to bleed. They might start looking like a good acquisition target in a few quarters.
- hawaiianbrah 7y ago
  Way ahead of you: https://www.uber.com/newsroom/ride-pass/ https://www.uber.com/newsroom/ride-pass/ https://blog.lyft.com/posts/subscribe-and-save-with-the-all-access-plan https://blog.lyft.com/posts/subscribe-and-save-with-the-all-...

m_ke 7y ago

I doubt Amazon would want to deal with all of those employees. I'm not even sure that they'd want to handle deliveries for other businesses. With Uber they have a 24/7 flexible contractor workforce and physical interaction with millions of potential customers. Amazon could help them save a ton of money by moving their infrastructure onto AWS and reduce their marketing spend by promoting it on their properties. Tying an uber subscription to Amazon prime could also help both businesses. I'm sure both Lyft and Uber are already working on some monthly membership model.

jonknee 7y ago
> I doubt Amazon would want to deal with all of those employees. Amazon is the second largest private employer in the US, they seem to be fine with paychecks. I was just pointing out that buying Uber so you can deliver stuff is a phenomenally dumb idea, it would be cheaper to buy a company like FedEx that is valued by real assets and has proven capable at delivering stuff. > With Uber they have a 24/7 flexible contractor workforce and physical interaction with millions of potential customers. Amazon already does this and since Uber relies on contractors, they could sign up every driver in the country without paying a penny for Uber. > Amazon could help them save a ton of money by moving their infrastructure onto AWS and reduce their marketing spend by promoting it on their properties. Uber also already uses AWS. Getting paid for it seems better than spending billions to not get paid? tl;dr I don't think Amazon buys either company, but there is no way in hell they buy Uber.
- rchaud 7y ago
  > Amazon is the second largest private employer in the US, they seem to be fine with paychecks. I think the bigger issue is unionization. In Canada, many Fedex workers belong to a union. Pretty sure that is non-existed at Uber.
  - m_ke 7y ago
    Yes, it looks like unionization is the reason why they ran away from Long Island City.
- m_ke 7y ago
  > Amazon is the second largest private employer in the US, they seem to be fine with paychecks. Everything that I've seen from them in the past few years leads me to believe that they want to get rid of as many blue collar jobs as possible. > I was just pointing out that buying Uber so you can deliver stuff is a phenomenally dumb idea I'd agree with that but I'm arguing that combining ride sharing and delivery makes a lot more sense for both sides than being a courier. If Uber and Lyft survive they'll have to do it on low margins and high volume. Nobody understands that game better than Bezos and Amazon. Uber has built a great engineering team, including a ton of top notch machine learning / self driving researchers. They'd be a much bigger value add than anything they'd get from FedEx. > Amazon already does this and since Uber relies on contractors, they could sign up every driver in the country without paying a penny for Uber. You're describing postmates, which is too expensive for their average customer. By overlaying door to door delivery on top of something like uber pool you get the riders to eat a large portion of the cost. Uber is already making progress in that direction with Uber Eats (https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2019/02/06/ubers-secret-gold-mine-how-uber-eats-is-turning-into-a-billion-dollar-business-to-rival-grubhub/#44df2ff41fa9 https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2019/02/06/ubers-secr...) > Uber also already uses AWS. Getting paid for it seems better than spending billions to not get paid? Oh I could have sworn I just saw someone mention that they migrated off of it recently. > tl;dr I don't think Amazon buys either company, but there is no way in hell they buy Uber. As long as both of them are around they will continue to bleed. They might start looking like a good acquisition target in a few quarters.
hawaiianbrah 7y ago
Way ahead of you: https://www.uber.com/newsroom/ride-pass/ https://www.uber.com/newsroom/ride-pass/ https://blog.lyft.com/posts/subscribe-and-save-with-the-all-access-plan https://blog.lyft.com/posts/subscribe-and-save-with-the-all-...