[xapata]

> not charging you enough to cover their own costs

Are you an Uber employee revealing private information? If not, it seems you're making a big assumption about the proportion of their expenses that are marketing and growth versus steady-state marginal cost.

Amazon didn't make profit for a while and everyone wondered if they could. Oh, it's a low margin business, they'll never be profitable, blah, blah. Turns out they can, in fact, make a bit of money. Maybe Uber and Lyft can, too. Delta can, even though flights are a commodity business.

[newfoundglory]

wow, you're really attached to this narrative you have, to be so desperately reaching for a reason to discredit the impact of VC money on their operation. I think my previous comments have already said everything relevant about the breakdown of their marketing costs vs steady state marginal costs.

[xapata]

> really attached to this narrative you have

Oddly enough, I was thinking the same thing.

You've asserted that they're ignoring cost in their pricing, but have provided no evidence for it. Uber and Lyft have claimed to be profitable in their biggest markets. Doesn't that suggest they set prices above marginal cost?

[newfoundglory]

Wow. They were apparently profitable for two minutes in 2016, might be what you're referring to? I haven't provided any evidence because I assumed you had access to the same real world information as I do, but if you don't have internet I can mail you some stuff.

[xapata]

You're confusing company aggregate profit for profit within each market.

[newfoundglory]

No, I'm referring to the US market. They have never been profitable overall but for a very brief period in 2016 they claimed that the US operation was profitable.

[xapata]

How about in NYC? Profitable there? I believe they announced that they were.

In any case, even if they're not currently profitable, that may be because of capital expense, not operating costs. Until they go public, it's hard to know.