[Ben-G]

Ugh. This article has virtually no content. Pretty similar to most other shallow coverage of tech in mainstream media (eg NYT).

Same claims of being overvalued/never drawing a profit we’re made about FB, Amazon, etc. too. And even if you actually believe current startups are overvalued, at least provide some kind of analysis.

[dehrmann]

It also discounts how much companies like Uber and Airbnb have changed the way people live their lives in big-dollar ways. Uber might be overvalued, but there's still tremendous value in the leading global taxi company. Compare it to what Amazon did; it's that level of impact.

[lsc]

I personally agree that uber has had the same impact as amazon... I don't have a car, and for the monthly TCO of a nice luxury car, I get driven everywhere. It's pretty great.

The problem is twofold, for uber. First? they're losing money. If they raise prices to solve that problem, it's possible that a lot of people like me will... just buy cars again. I mean, I certainly prefer to be driven over driving, but I'm pretty price sensitive on the subject. Much more price sensitive than I am for most of the things I get from amazon.

Uber's second problem is that the difficult to compete with advantage they have, that is, that they are global, only matters to me when I travel. When I'm somewhere I've been a while, it totally makes sense to install the local taxi apps and take what is best, and most of my car hire use is in places where I am often enough to know the market. This week? Lyft is having a 25% off sale, which makes them cheaper than uber even counting the uber loyalty program and prepay discounts. Once the Lyft sale is up, I'll probably go back to Uber.

I suppose both the problems uber has come down to the same thing; the only difficult thing about replicating their business is that they are willing to lose money doing it. They just don't have a whole lot of a moat.