Uber Says Sales Growth Outpaces Losses
Sales growth in commodity product that is loosing money on ever sale?  I&#x27;ll never understand this. Uber won&#x27;t own the market. There is zero lock-in. If Lyft is cheaper this week, I&#x27;m riding Lyft.<p>I sold my car over a year ago and use a mix of ridesharing and rentals for transportation. Uber and Lyft&#x27;s greatest competition in my life is a small Google product where people pick up people on their daily commute to and from work and the drivers are compensated only for gas money.<p>Locally, there is a company that will allow you to rent an electric car for free for two hours (it has an electronic billboard on the ceiling).<p>In the future, cheap electricity and efficient manufacturing might make a world where rides of a certain distance would be free or extremely low cost in exchange for advertising.<p>Transportation is a commodity. For a short ride, I don&#x27;t care that much about the differences, whether I&#x27;m sitting in a Toyota Corolla or Mercedes S-Class. It gets me from point A to point B.<p>In this environment, I think the VCs pouring billions of dollars into Uber are throwing their money away subsidizing Uber&#x27;s leadership in commodity market. Cheaper wins. I get to choose on each ride. There&#x27;s no lock-in, there&#x27;s really no reason for brand loyalty. Whatever is cheaper wins. If it&#x27;s free, whomever gets here first wins. If they are both available right now, it&#x27;s who has the nicer seat.<p>This is a race to the bottom and as a customer I&#x27;m only going to remember negative experiences with the brand. Lyft is better by encouraging themed cars but, they&#x27;ve stopped doing that from what I&#x27;ve seen.<p>There&#x27;s a good chance that Lyft and Uber might face huge backlash for bait and switching drivers when they roll out driverless cars.<p>I&#x27;m bearish on Uber in the long term.