I'm not sure why Uber wouldn't be successful. After all, taxis were a profitable enterprise for millennia. Uber faces lower costs, and they have scale which al

I'm not sure why Uber wouldn't be successful. After all, taxis were a profitable enterprise for millennia. Uber faces lower costs, and they have scale which allows them to have better targeted offers, surges, and advertising. I noticed that they spent $3B in R&D last quarter. Presumably a lot of that is going into driverless vehicles. Exclude half of that cost, and exclude their one time IPO related costs, and they're profitable.