[ethanbond]

Oh good. They oughta be handling those billion dollar 6 month losses just fine then.

Reinvesting in owning a market that is literally an app install away from someone else stealing your lunch is not reinvesting. That's just burning cash.

[JoeAltmaier]

Its not about the app. Its about the Uber lawyers gaining entrance into local markets across the world. That's where the money is going.

[ethanbond]

It's about Uber's very expensive lawyers clearing the regulatory path for competitors (who are only app installs away) to then utilize for free from here until the heat death of the universe?

Clever strategy.

[xapata]

You seem to think it's easy for customers to switch. I think there's enough barrier that they can keep the network intact.

[ethanbond]

What are you talking about? I have like 4 ridesharing apps on my phone concurrently and switch between them based on whoever has the lowest time-until-pickup.

What barrier do you think is there?

[xapata]

I'm too lazy to do that. I used to have 3, then uninstalled Fasten. Now I have both Lyft and Uber and am considering uninstalling Lyft because I never use it.

Why should I waste time tapping on a different app, waiting for it to load, tapping through the destination, etc.? The estimated wait times aren't accurate to the minute, so +/- the error they are almost always equivalent. Enough so that checking the other app feels like a waste of time. In the time it took to load the other app, I could have been waiting for the car to arrive. It's not worth the mental energy to choose.

Further, Uber has a prepay promotion. I pay an amount at the beginning of the month to avoid surge charges and get a discount through the rest of the month. I'm basically locked-in for any month that I prepay.

[ethanbond]

Here's an anecdote to explain how awful of a position Uber is in.

As mentioned elsewhere, I use Juno almost exclusively in NYC when traveling for personal reasons. How did I end up using Juno?

First, I was offered a steep discount via beta invite. By whom? My Uber driver. Problem 1. I sat on the invite for a few weeks through which I had numerous bad experiences with Uber (long wait times, bad drivers, second riders calling while I was in the car, etc.) Problem 2.

I called an Uber and it gave a 15 minute pickup time. Problem 3. I cancelled, found the Juno invite, downloaded the app, made an account, and was in a car within 10 minutes. Problem 4. The Juno driver and car was better than most recent Uber rides, the app was just as good as Uber's, and it cost me about 70% of the money. Problem 5.

So what exactly is Uber buying with these promotions? Another week of sub-15 minute pickup times by overworking their drivers? They're certainly not buying loyalty, nor any meaningful market share. No matter what they do, I'm <10 minutes from a competitor's car.

As the service degrades in order to meet profitability demands (you do believe in basic finance: money in minus money out, right?), the calculus turns ever towards the competitor's favors. These young competitors are simply doing what young Uber did to the cabs: attract higher quality drivers in higher quality cars and higher quality riders, subsidize the hell out of it, and then figure out what to do.

They probably won't last either, but then none of them have to justify a $50bn valuation with a moonshot bet on technology that's not even close to being able to support the core of their business.