What does Cost of Revenue means?
It sounds like "developing the core product" falls entirely under this bucket, so with what others are saying about what falls under other buckets is right, then the one that looks most cuttable to me is actually "Research and Development". That sounds like the "experimental new stuff that may go nowhere" bucket, and if it's eliminated it would also put them just above break-even. Maybe they could focus on improving profits for their core product for a while before bringing that back.
Maybe there is necessary stuff included in it though, which I guess means that wouldn't be an option.
[0] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cost-of-revenue.asp
A quick look at Ubers annual report states they do not capitalise r&d costs and instead expense it as incurred.
If you look at their financials, they show gross bookings, which include both the full billed values for food and delivery, and transportation of people. Revenues only show their share of that total.
In regards to incentives, it looks like a complicated question, I found an interesting outline[2]
[1] https://seekingalpha.com/article/4293755-insurance-primary-b... [2] https://news.bloombergtax.com/financial-accounting/rideshari...
Cost of Revenue goes a step further, and includes the next layer of costs that are necessary to cause sales to happen for a given product/service line in a reporting period. That includes things like sales and marketing, and distribution. Basically anything that would cause the revenue to stop coming in fairly immediately if it wasn't done.
Neither includes R&D to create the product/service in the first place, or general overhead.