Well the crazy thing was the cash being pumped into it.... Shared Office Space is NOTHING new, and it sure isn’t “DISRUPTIVE”... been around for decades... in fact, every office complex that has space it has difficulty getting rented, tends to fill it with this sort of things...
Its an insanely low barrier, relatively low cost, simple way to get cashflow from vacant space.
Its unfathomable that investors pumped the kind of cash they did at this idea, and let alone throw more good money after bad, once the wheels finally came off when it was revealed as the snake oil it always was... Softbank, or whoever it was, should see their CEO immediately removed after making that play.
Most of the new “tech” stuff is not “visionary” at all.. its low hanging fruit.... Uber/WeWork/etc they are all low hanging fruit... not revolutionary... and most are not even remotely financially sustainable. Uber can only hope to see positive cash if the automated car arrives, which is decades away, and once it exists, their entire business is commoditized... as anyone can fire up a fleet of them, and a request app together quickly.. so the first mover advantage really holds no benefit long term,..... other than if they happen to get some very profitable patents for self driving... The model itself is not ever cashflow positive with humans in the equation and once you remove them, your entire model is a commodity.
But they burn BILLIONS per quarter, and fools keep throwing money at it.....
excellent post
uber can only compete with the competitors entering the market (speaking at this phase, before self driving) on price and service....
to your point, the economic law that margin will continue to erode is even more relevant, because the barrier to entry is very low.
uber only has first mover advantage (which will diminish with margins). perhaps it has a “labor supply” advantage if they take care of drivers (I think they are doing well there for now). but the more you take care of your labor supply, the more your costs go up.....which leads back to the first point.
uber is simply a super efficient taxi.
and taxis are NOT disruptive.
theyve been around forever.......