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A comment on Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate. Parent comment

Re:Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate by jonknee on Thursday August 08, 2019 @05:11PM (#20648821)
The only way they survive as such a richly valued company perhaps, my point is they could provide the current level of service with vastly lower spending and be a sustainable company. The financial problems aren't they charge too little for rides, it's that they have thousands of people working on bullshit that brings in little to nothing.
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Re:Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate by kickopotomus on Thursday August 08, 2019 @05:40PM (#20649100)
Sorry, but I have to disagree. R&D is the life blood of a tech company. Some problems are hard. Hard problems take a lot of time and money to solve. If they spend $2B solving a problem that allows them to make $10B in revenue long term, I would say that is a worthwhile investment, wouldn't you?

Frankly, the R&D spend is the least of their worries. They recently trimmed some fat from their marketing department[1] but the subsidized rides problem continues to be the biggest issue they face financially.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/29/technology/uber-job-cuts....

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Re:Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate by jonknee on Thursday August 08, 2019 @06:57PM (#20649748)
I'm suggesting that ride sharing doesn't have to be a tech company. I just want to get across town, there's no requirement that the company that does this has to fund flying car research or have fancy offices around the globe.
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Re:Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate by thelittleone on Friday August 09, 2019 @01:17AM (#20651511)
I travel across Asia Pacific for work. The global nature of ride hailing apps are convenient in this context in a similar way to MacDonalds (fast, convenient and you kind of know what you’re going to get).

Try hailing a cab in Thailand, Indonesia or Malaysia. They will ask your destination and quote you 5-10x meter fare. Use a ride hailing app and you get approximately the meter fare.

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Re:Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate by badestrand on Friday August 09, 2019 @02:49AM (#20651877)
Speaking for Thailand, the ride hailing apps are usually 1.5x - 2x the price of the meter.
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Re:Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate by thelittleone on Friday August 09, 2019 @05:31AM (#20652692)
That's fair but the vast majority of cabs I hail refuse to use meter (sometimes quite aggressively).
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Re:Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate by josteink on Friday August 09, 2019 @12:38AM (#20651378)
> R&D is the life blood of a tech company.

Uber is not a tech company. It’s a taxi-company with a fancy app.

There’s literally no reason their operating expenses should be this big.

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