Uber has massive costs as it scales, but unlike Amazon that has fixed costs, Uber's problem is that it has massive VARIABLE COSTS in three areas: driver recruitment, local advertising and local regulation.

The work Uber needs to do to onboard a driver in Alberta, Canada is completely different from Ontario, Canada (e.g. drivers needing a commercial class 4 vs consumer class 5 license).

As a result, they are facing unique regulations that is making it difficult to automate the work that is being done in each local market.