[ProblemFactory]

"Uber is a play on self-driving cars" is a misleading but often repeated story.

When Uber started and raised its first investment rounds, self-driving cars were too far away to be part of a business plan. I doubt the latest investors take that view either - spending billions per year until self-driving cars happen is a way too expensive way to build up a fickle user base who will switch the moment a competitor offers 10% lower rates.

And when self-driving cars do arrive, there is no reason to believe that Uber will have exclusive access to them. Google and other software companies will be licensing the technology to anyone who pays for it, car manufacturers will be selling cars to anyone who pays for it.

It may kill taxi driver as a career, but there is no defensible advantage to Uber compared to Lyft, Hailo, Taxify, and so on.

[Cacti]

Yeah. The whole driverless car thing with Uber is such a load of crap. It wasn't even in the plan until they started hemoraging money and had to come up with some excuse to keep investors on board. And by that point they were late to the game.

Uber as a play on driverless cars is a smokescreen to distract people from the fact they have little advantage over other companies and can't for the life of them turn a profit.

[rubicon33]

> they have little advantage over other companies and can't for the life of them turn a profit.

At this point why doesn't Uber just lay off a HUGE portion of their staff and kill the R&D. It's hard to imagine if they downsized significantly and quit investing in self driving cars, that they couldn't tip the needle into profitability.

Isn't that a fairly common move for a startup? Burn money to get off the runway, then downsize to stabilize?