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Leaked Documents Suggests Uber Is 'Losing Millions'
New submitter DaneTerry88 points out an article about the financial state of Uber, poster child for the sharing economy. Documents leaked to Gawker seem to indicate the company is still far from profitable, despite its popularity. "They show operating losses of more than $100m (£65m) in the second quarter of 2014, albeit coupled with steady growth in revenue." Uber did not deny the leak, but pointed out they are still building the business, which requires a lot of investment. The company has been valued as high as $50 billion, and only a few days ago received a $100 million investment from Microsoft.
They keep breaking laws and having to pay out the ass in fines. Their model won't be profitable until they buy off enough lawmakers to get the regulations changed.
The big difference is that Amazon has pretty obvious infrastructure investments, what does Uber have? Aerons, hookers & blow?
"Access to free capital" is severely limited by expectations of an IPO or profits. How is this particular taxi company going to survive competition from other taxi companies, given that municipal governments all over the world are beginning to investigate Uber for unpaid dues? Uber can't pretend forever they are immune from paying taxes, fees, insurance and social security.
I assume it's just fighting off the lawsuits. Their business model is fundamentally sound. Horribly, horribly vile, but sound. They find folks who recently lost a job and still have a decent car, declare them 'contractors' while forcing them to act as employees in all respects (can't work for anyone else, work when we say or we fire you, use our phone, etc, etc), don't pay benefits or unemployment. They get the benefits of employees without the responsibilities, which for a society like America where we're based our entire quality of life on your job ends fabulously for the employer.
Uber's just like Amazon. They'll keep getting money because if they can clear their hurdles (for Uber it's legal, or Amazon it's just killing brick n mortar) they'll be insanely profitable. If you're a billionaire investor then you can afford to wait it out.
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I've got a theory that the people behind Uber are the lawyers. Pickup a fight with every government and Uber has to bring their legal team in a very high billing rates to resolve the issue. Uber will never make money but the lawyers will be billing for ever.
I think the biggest difference is that Amazon didn't have to fight a retail mafia/guild on their way to the top.
Yes they did. And still are. The government is still trying to establish some sort of nationwide sales tax, and individual states have made Amazon collect sales tax if they have a presence in the state. But that is all just obeying existing laws. Uber is facing the same thing, having to obey existing laws. It is not the taxi companies trying to keep Uber down. It is the municipalities insisting that Uber's taxi service complies with the same laws and regulations as every other taxi service.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
But the people who demand the carry their guns wherever they go don't understand that they are crazy.
You don't understand that many of those people are demonstrably not crazy; that many of them chose to carry because of clear and present threats from which law enforcement could not protect them.
It's too bad that you're so stuck in your mentality of "power is bad". I would rather make people better than disempower them. Seems like all we focus on is how to stop bad people from doing bad things, and not on making people better. So if we take away the guns, we will have less mass killings... but will we have less killings? Mass killings don't substantially change the percentage of people who die, and the USA doesn't even have the most mass killing deaths per capita in the world... we're about in the middle of the top ten. All taking carried weapons away from people achieves is making people helpless.
I'm really glad for you that you don't have any serious, immediately, life threatening problems. That's great! A lot of people are not in your situation. While I don't carry my pistol, I bought a handgun to function as a nightstand weapon so that if my alcoholic, out of control father showed up at my house again and escalated from threats to violence, that I could protect myself and my lady. He told me repeatedly how many ways he knew how to kill someone with his bare hands etc., to the point that I feared him. And he was completely out of control, and quite dangerous. My family has a history of violence, in which I have never been involved. One of my brothers stabbed the other one in the neck, for example.
I'm glad your life is so functional. But other people are trying to make the best of a dysfunctional situation, and you think they're crazy. Maybe it's a crazy world. Nobody should ever have to fear injury or death at the hands of their own parents. And there's lots of people whose problems are way the fuck worse than mine. And you are sitting on top of a very tall, very secure ivory tower, and pissing on the people beneath you. You don't get a medal.
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