| Interesting S-1. I was actually kinda bearish on Uber in terms of scale for future growth/profit opportunities, compared to Lyft, but now I feel like Uber has the upper hand. Yes, profitability is a big piece, but Uber is more diversified, in that they have other rev streams - Food Delivery and Freight, which they are ramping up (Focused on growth for now). Also, by way of partnerships/equity, they have stakes in a lot of different market leaders in other markets/geographies. These companies are further diversified in terms of other rev streams (payments, commerce, food delivery etc). Not sure how much of that is captured in the valuation. SDCs (L5) are definitely a ways off in terms of becoming ubiquitous. Companies are doing fixed route or city/geo-fenced testing and for any of these companies to actually get to Uber's scale will take a long time and maybe Uber can acquire/partner with one/more of these before that happens. Also, if we consider ride sharing as a commodity, Uber benefits from economies of scale as opposed to other competitors who may operate in smaller regions/markets so that's also going in their favor. All of this is to say, they are definitely focusing on growth for now (which there is a lot of opportunity for), but at a certain point they could probably start becoming profitable by either reducing costs or ramping up prices (in tiny percentages) and still be better than the alternative. |