Also note that in this hypothetical world, Uber suddenly has to make gigantic capital investments in fleets of automobiles, whereas now they don't have that limiter on their growth.
I find that a LOT of people go from "I envision a world in which rides-on-demand serves massively more rides" to "and thus Uber does very well as a for-profit company" with no steps in between.
Since 1970, the number of passenger miles traveled by air in the US has grown about 6-fold [1]. And airlines have, as an entire industry, overall run a loss. There's a cautionary tale in there for Uber bulls.
(BTW: Driverless cars don't necessarily mean that rides-on-demand becomes the dominant car transportation model, either, though it's certainly within the realm of the possible).
I find that a LOT of people go from "I envision a world in which rides-on-demand serves massively more rides" to "and thus Uber does very well as a for-profit company" with no steps in between.
Since 1970, the number of passenger miles traveled by air in the US has grown about 6-fold [1]. And airlines have, as an entire industry, overall run a loss. There's a cautionary tale in there for Uber bulls.
(BTW: Driverless cars don't necessarily mean that rides-on-demand becomes the dominant car transportation model, either, though it's certainly within the realm of the possible).
[1] http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/pub...