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Comment by matte_black | Hacker News Reader

The only thing Uber can ever deliver is people and things to their final destinations. When Uber shuts down and goes out of business I as a consumer will just roll into the next service, and will not shed even a single tear for all who invested in Uber.

Sorry, but thanks for all the cheap rides.

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Yes, they are a pure commodity.

Sure, but we need commodities and there are tons of profitable commodity businesses. If Uber is able to deliver ride cheaper than everyone else, they can make a ton of money, and the logistics and scheduling competencies can be applied to other verticals. That being said, I'm still pretty bearish on Uber's longterm success, and their current numbers do look pretty bad.

"If Uber is able to deliver ride cheaper than everyone else, they can make a ton of money,"

They are repeatedly demonstrating that they are not able to do this profitably.

I am not saying they will or won't be able to do it profitably, but saying they won't be profitable because their product is a commodity seems wrong. People need and are willing to paying for commodities, it's a matter of whether or not Uber can execute.

Agreed. It looks like Uber is not Walmart or Amazon who can thrive in low margin markets though. They are producing huge losses right now.

> If Uber is able to deliver ride cheaper than everyone else, they can make a ton of money.

More specifically, if Uber is able to deliver rides cheaper than everyone else, at a cost to them that is even cheaper than that, they can make a ton of money. If it's the other way around, they lose a ton of money instead.

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