> I mean... if drivers aren’t in the picture it might work, no? Driver wages are a cost to Uber, but the drivers supply the cars, so they're also a source of w

> I mean... if drivers aren’t in the picture it might work, no? Driver wages are a cost to Uber, but the drivers supply the cars, so they're also a source of working capital. A driverless taxi company would save on the wages, but would have to put up all the capital for the cars itself. This is not a slam dunk. And yes, Uber is a bit more complicated because they often finance drivers' purchases of cars. But since they make money doing that, you can't make Uber more profitable by taking that out of the equation! But on the gripping hand, we are not going to get replacement-level self-driving cars within the next decade, so whether Uber could make money with such cars just doesn't matter.