[zby]

Ubers problem is that it needs to compete locally: https://thinkgrowth.org/uber-is-going-to-0-and-benchmark-kno... . A taxi company does not need to challenge Uber globally to compete with it in any given city - because most taxi rides are from local population. This is different from AirBnB - where the customers need something that can be trusted globally.

[roenxi]

I doubt AirBnB actually has a moat either, in practice. I think I'm using the right income - AirBnB's profit margin is something like 3.5% [0]. You don't need much of a moat to defend 3.5% profit margins. JP Morgan is sitting at around 30% [1] - that is the sort of margin that needs a bit of defense.

That aside, yeah, Uber has a negative moat; I don't see why the car drivers themselves couldn't band together to make a competing app if the mother company started to take a real cut.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbnb [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPMorgan_Chase