Uber faces a race to the bottom as ride-hailing becomes commoditized and prices keep falling, leaving all players losing. The winners in such markets sell something else, the way Google and Amazon make money from ads. x.comÂ
Ross Gerber
CEO of Gerber Kawasaki, Portfolio Manager of GK ETF
Every Waymo ride is a lost Uber ride, because the pool of new riders is not expanding, so Waymo's growth comes at Uber's expense. That counters Uber CFO Balaji Krishnamurthy's claim of share gains in markets where it competes with Waymo, which @TheRideshareGuy notes may partly reflect Waymo expanding into new Bay Area territory. x.comÂ
Uber looks rather negative because driver reclassification, consumer cutbacks and easy switching threaten its business. Making drivers employees could raise costs and push ride prices up around 40%. Food delivery and comfort rides are cut when budgets tighten; riders switch to Lyft or Bolt for a few euros. Tesla or Waymo could bypass Uber with their own apps, and Google can scale quickly. Despite being a great company, Uber has too many unknowns; it is preferable to stay on the sidelines. x.comÂ
Tesla and Alphabet do not need to destroy Uber to hurt its shareholders; they only need to change the industry's economics. If autonomous vehicles lower cost per mile, pricing pressure follows, so Uber could post record ride volume and still earn less per ride. Uber's fight with Lyft already brought lower prices, incentives and margin pressure; two well-funded rivals with a far lower cost base will fight for the densest, most profitable markets, so assuming Uber's economics hold is aggressive. … Show more
Uber is cheap because it is priced as a self-driving loser, yet self-driving tech should become commoditized, making off-peak demand management the key differentiator; if private cars become autonomous and shared, Uber would likely manage that. Its own autonomous plans look viable, a Delivery Hero takeover would be very good, and Appaloosa, which did well buying Lyft, is very long. Longer term, managing fleets of shared robots for cleaning, cooking or home care could be big. x.comÂ
Uber has big long-term secular problems, enough to make even CEO Dara Khosrowshahi's $10M token insider buy a moment to consider shorting, though actually shorting is not recommended. Beyond the Waymo and robotaxi threat, an AI agent that constantly checks every app for the best price would hurt Uber, consistently the highest-priced ride service. Uber would need to lower prices, and it lacks the tech stack. x.com x.comÂ
Uber's market share would shrink to the point of unprofitability if Tesla's Cybercab is 40-50% cheaper, since riders already switch between Lyft and Uber based on whichever is cheapest. x.comÂ
Robotaxis could widen Uber's moat rather than destroy it, because its real advantage is the network matching huge pools of demand with whatever supply is available, not drivers' lack of negotiating power. Robotaxis change the supply but don't eliminate the network. The question is whether Uber becomes the toll road for autonomous mobility, letting Waymo and dozens of competing AV suppliers fight over the economics while Uber owns the customer, demand and dispatch layer. x.comÂ
Uber's demand-side scale could let it aggregate fragmented or commoditized autonomous vehicle supply, though judging by the stock price nobody believes this. @WaterworldCapi1 argues autonomy at scale removes the need for its driver network and invites many competitors. But scaling rivals may not be cheap, Uber need not build its own fleets, and the shift will take decades, giving a hybrid network time. The stock becomes interesting only if the price gets low enough. x.com x.com x.com x.comÂ
Cheap AI-generated code lets new entrants like Empower upend Uber's and Lyft's commission-based rideshare model. Empower is exploding in New York City by charging drivers a monthly software subscription, roughly $40 to $350, while they keep 100% of the fare and set their own rates, so drivers can earn more and riders may pay less. The same disruption will happen in many other industries. x.comÂ
Uber is one of the most interesting opportunities in the market, down 31% from its highs while printing more cash. The market treats it as a low-margin business that autonomous driving could disrupt, missing its real moat: distribution. A network of consumers, drivers and merchants is very hard to replicate and lets it add verticals without paying acquisition costs again. Uber also owns about 13% of Grab, down 85% and building financial services on the same model. x.comÂ
Waymo is becoming the strongest disruptor to Uber and Lyft in US ride-hailing. Autonomous vehicles can compress the cost and margins of human ride-share sharply, and riders pick the cheapest option, where Waymo or Tesla would likely win; a Waymo rival to Uber Eats could do the same to delivery. Per the FT, Waymo is exploring a split from Uber, which only ever served as Google's distribution funnel. The near-term impact is negligible, but long term both look cooked in the US unless they act. … Show more