[adameast9000]

I respectfully disagree. I think that Uber has done a great job of hooking a large volume of consumers on their core product, and now there is a huge opportunity to leverage that base to create income streams all over the travel space. Considering their trouble with reaching profitability, I think this makes too much sense to avoid doing it due to concerns of losing focus on the core product. Uber is a not a startup anymore!

[beager]

It also creates large swaths of potentially lucrative revenue opportunities based on the size of the Uber user base, without the quantifiability of those swaths that you would see in core-product market expansion, or core-product optimization.

The cynic in me says that you can juice Uber with a bunch of these tie-ins, box out competitors by creating these partnerships, and IPO at a valuation based on aspirational performance of these partnerships that would make most people happy.

[dalbasal]

I can certainly see our two positions sitting on the table with a strong, conventional business case for yours. It might even be right.

(btw, thanks for the friendly disagreement. Much appreciated)