Source: Amazon is building an Uber-like app that connects shipments with truck drivers, slated to launch summer 2017
Eugene Kim / Business Insider :
Context & Ripple Effects
Two months after Uber quietly launched its 'Uber for trucking' marketplace, Business Insider reports Amazon is building its own version — an app matching shipments with truck drivers, targeted for summer 2017. The move puts the two companies on the same ground just as Uber prepares to commercialize freight, including plans for Otto self-driving trucks in 2017.
The report reads as a supply-chain play rather than a standalone business bet: Amazon already moves enormous volumes of cargo and would be turning internal shipping demand into a marketplace others can plug into. The arc validated years later, when Amazon confirmed an online freight-matching service had been running since testing began.
First-order effects
- Uber Freight enters its 2017 launch facing a competitor with captive shipping volume — every load Amazon routes through its own app is one Uber's marketplace never sees.
- Truck drivers and shippers gain a second on-demand matching option, splitting loyalty in a market Uber had briefly to itself after its October soft launch.
Second-order effects
- Traditional freight brokers become the squeeze point: if Amazon prices loads off its own network economics, intermediaries whose margin is the match itself face direct disintermediation.
- Uber's parallel push into autonomous hauling via Otto means the two rivals could end up competing on both the marketplace layer and the driverless-truck layer simultaneously.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, freight brokerage consolidates around platform owners who control their own demand — asset-light middlemen give way to apps backed by guaranteed shipment volume.
- Amazon extending its logistics infrastructure outward to third-party shippers foreshadows the same playbook it ran in cloud computing: build for yourself, then rent the capability out.
The trend: On-demand consumer marketplaces are being transplanted into freight, where the winners will be platforms that own their own shipping demand rather than pure matchmakers.