7 ms·

I smell a buyout or merger coming. They can't take on Uber individually.

by jbob2000 11y ago

umeshunni 11y ago
Agree. The best case for Lyft is that they enable a major international player (Didi, Ola etc) to enter the US market. Similar to what UrbanSpoon did for Zomato (vs Yelp).
tedmiston 11y ago
Don't we think transportation is big enough that both Uber and Lyft can coexist "peacefully"? Especially with Uber experimenting into non-ride services on top of their infrastructure, like food delivery, etc. Maybe I haven't followed closely enough, but my understanding is that Lyft is still really focused on just making a good, friendly, affordable ride option.
- prawn 11y ago
  If one eventual use for these services is as a smart-routed bus of sorts, why can't one of the companies tackling Uber jump straight to that? Or at least make a serious experiment of it?
  - rory096 11y ago
    That's basically Lyft Line[1], which offers fixed price $5 (at least in Manhattan[2], not sure about other markets) smart routed shared taxis. Seems like buses would just be a matter of improving routing further and scaling each vehicle up. [1] https://www.lyft.com/line https://www.lyft.com/line [2] http://blog.lyft.com/posts/highfivenyc http://blog.lyft.com/posts/highfivenyc
    - SilasX 11y ago
      Yeah, you can imagine it as a continuum: as you go from left to right, you have lower convenience (how far out of your route or schedule it takes you), longer trips, and lower costs, and vice versa. On the left end would be a private, dedicated chauffer. (Or private helicopter for extreme left!) On the right end would be public transit or walking. Putting transit options on the continuum would look like: Private Chauffer -- Personal Car -- Taxi -- Livery/Lyft/Uber -- Lyft Line/UberPool -- Lyft Line + Hotspots -- <potential new bus-like offerings> -- public transit -- walking My earlier comment on the continuum: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10122701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10122701
      - tedmiston 11y ago
        That's an elegant way to think about it. Perhaps one slight deviation in Lyft Line is is when other people being picked up by your car are running late [0]. 0: Personal experience in SF in October.
        chimeracoder 11y ago
        > Perhaps one slight deviation in Lyft Line is is when other people being picked up by your car are running late [0]. FYI, the Lyft driver is supposed to wait no longer than one minute. If they wait longer than that, you can prod them to move on (or mention that in their review). I spent this summer in SF and took a Lyft Line home every day. This was only an issue once, and the driver left after ~1 minute, so it didn't actually delay my ride at all.
        SilasX 11y ago
        I'm not sure what you mean; that's consistent with the continuum. It's less convenient (more stops not on your route) and takes longer than regular Lyft, and in return it costs less.
        tedmiston 11y ago
        I thought of the abrupt stop as a deviation in convenience / increase in time (out of your control) that doesn't happen on public transit.
        SilasX 11y ago
        Right, but public transit also doesn't (generally) go directly to your pickup spot or destination, and likewise has to make a significantly greater number of stops that don't have to do with your route. Similarly, they can be held up by passengers. The point is, in general, public transit routes are farther from your ideal route and schedule. Taxis and regular Uber/Lyft go direct, while Lyft Lines are in between, requiring some compromise on route and schedule (waiting for a match).
  - wittekm 11y ago
    A number have tried, and failed. Interestingly, the following three failed as a function of being based in transit-legislation-heavy San Francisco: * Loup * Leap * Night School My understanding is that Chariot is still operating and doing well, though.
    - gorkemyurt 11y ago
      All of them "failed" for legal reasons, not because there weren't making enough money, with enough funding legal reasons also vanish..
- oconnore 11y ago
  Especially given that most drivers I've seen use both the apps, and other operating costs are pretty slim.
  - brianbreslin 11y ago
    customer acquisition costs are high, and driver acquisition costs are very high.
    - tedmiston 11y ago
      At least, as long as drivers are human [0]. ;p 0: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/01/27/how-ubers-autonomous-cars-will-destroy-10-million-jobs-and-reshape-the-economy-by-2025-lyft-google-zack-kanter/ http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/01/27/how-ubers-autono...
  - dylanjermiah 11y ago
    It's the worldwide presence where Uber had the massive advantage. If Didi/Ola/Lyft/Others decide to merge/parter only than will they stand a chance.
- beatpanda 11y ago
  The point of Uber isn't to fix transportation, it's to feed Travis Kalanick's god complex. So, no, they won't be able to co-exist peacefully.
  - dylanjermiah 11y ago
    What evidence do you have to support this? What personal knowledge to do you have to support this? What accompanying expertise do you have to support this? It's odd to me that people with (assumingly) no knowledge on the matter feel they can aptly deduce complex situations into one sound bite of a sentence.
    - beatpanda 11y ago
      The fact that the company is called Uber, which is an obvious reference to Nietzsche's idea of the Ubermensch. The fact that Kalanick has said, publicly, that the point of starting the company was to enable his already-rich friends to "be baller" in San Francisco. The fact that he had Uber build a thing called "God Mode" into their software so that he could watch famous people come and go on the service and occasionally put that enormous power on display to other powerful people. He's a raging, power-hungry narcissistic sociopath, in public, all the time. This isn't guess work. The parent of my original post is suggesting that Uber exists for reasons other than the ones Kalanick has given in public, and that's just silly.
      - dsacco 11y ago
        I can appreciate a point about someone violating privacy by building that particular feature, but your comment is so caustic and accusatory it's just noise, not a valid addition to a legitimate debate. You cannot call someone a "raging, power-hungry narcissistic sociopath" or accuse him of having a "god complex" for 1. wanting to build a successful company catering to rich people or 2. naming a company after a Nietzschian ideal. Does NASA have a god complex because they used the name Apollo? Your points about Travis do not seem to be informed by reason or experience with the man. In fact, it just seems as though you're emotionally invested to the point of complete and utter bias.
- gorkemyurt 11y ago
  Happened to me last week in San Francisco; an Uber driver accepted a Lyft pickup, as I was still in the car for my Uber ride..
  - wingerlang 11y ago
    How does that work? How did the Uber driver get a hold of the Lyft costumer?
    - horatiumocian 11y ago
      I assume he was also a Lyft driver and was accepting rides on both apps.
      - wingerlang 11y ago
        Ah, makes sense.
      - gorkemyurt 11y ago
        yep, exactly
marcinkw 11y ago
I don't think so. I think they're much better off focusing the product on one specific market. The partnership would let people use the basic service and if they wanted to use market specific feature like Lyft Line or Ola Food, they would have to download the app for that local market.
- jbob2000 11y ago
  I disagree. If Lyft goes too deep into a specific market, then they risk Uber using their dominance in another market to push them out of this one. They need to compete on all fronts to keep Uber away from their cash cow.
  - r00fus 11y ago
    Can you please explain that? How can Uber's strength in other regions impact performance in a specific one?
    - jbob2000 11y ago
      Consumers in the app-hire/ride-share market aren't stuck to one market; Someone who uses Lyft-Line may also use UberX. If Uber release "Uber-Line", and Lyft doesn't have a comparable "LyftX", then there's no reason to use Lyft anymore. Everything you need is in Uber.

I smell a buyout or merger coming. They can't take on Uber individually.

Agree. The best case for Lyft is that they enable a major international player (Didi, Ola etc) to enter the US market. Similar to what UrbanSpoon did for Zomato (vs Yelp).

tedmiston 11y ago

Don't we think transportation is big enough that both Uber and Lyft can coexist "peacefully"? Especially with Uber experimenting into non-ride services on top of their infrastructure, like food delivery, etc. Maybe I haven't followed closely enough, but my understanding is that Lyft is still really focused on just making a good, friendly, affordable ride option.

prawn 11y ago
If one eventual use for these services is as a smart-routed bus of sorts, why can't one of the companies tackling Uber jump straight to that? Or at least make a serious experiment of it?
- rory096 11y ago
  That's basically Lyft Line[1], which offers fixed price $5 (at least in Manhattan[2], not sure about other markets) smart routed shared taxis. Seems like buses would just be a matter of improving routing further and scaling each vehicle up. [1] https://www.lyft.com/line https://www.lyft.com/line [2] http://blog.lyft.com/posts/highfivenyc http://blog.lyft.com/posts/highfivenyc
  - SilasX 11y ago
    Yeah, you can imagine it as a continuum: as you go from left to right, you have lower convenience (how far out of your route or schedule it takes you), longer trips, and lower costs, and vice versa. On the left end would be a private, dedicated chauffer. (Or private helicopter for extreme left!) On the right end would be public transit or walking. Putting transit options on the continuum would look like: Private Chauffer -- Personal Car -- Taxi -- Livery/Lyft/Uber -- Lyft Line/UberPool -- Lyft Line + Hotspots -- <potential new bus-like offerings> -- public transit -- walking My earlier comment on the continuum: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10122701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10122701
    - tedmiston 11y ago
      That's an elegant way to think about it. Perhaps one slight deviation in Lyft Line is is when other people being picked up by your car are running late [0]. 0: Personal experience in SF in October.
      - chimeracoder 11y ago
        > Perhaps one slight deviation in Lyft Line is is when other people being picked up by your car are running late [0]. FYI, the Lyft driver is supposed to wait no longer than one minute. If they wait longer than that, you can prod them to move on (or mention that in their review). I spent this summer in SF and took a Lyft Line home every day. This was only an issue once, and the driver left after ~1 minute, so it didn't actually delay my ride at all.
      - SilasX 11y ago
        I'm not sure what you mean; that's consistent with the continuum. It's less convenient (more stops not on your route) and takes longer than regular Lyft, and in return it costs less.
        tedmiston 11y ago
        I thought of the abrupt stop as a deviation in convenience / increase in time (out of your control) that doesn't happen on public transit.
        SilasX 11y ago
        Right, but public transit also doesn't (generally) go directly to your pickup spot or destination, and likewise has to make a significantly greater number of stops that don't have to do with your route. Similarly, they can be held up by passengers. The point is, in general, public transit routes are farther from your ideal route and schedule. Taxis and regular Uber/Lyft go direct, while Lyft Lines are in between, requiring some compromise on route and schedule (waiting for a match).
- wittekm 11y ago
  A number have tried, and failed. Interestingly, the following three failed as a function of being based in transit-legislation-heavy San Francisco: * Loup * Leap * Night School My understanding is that Chariot is still operating and doing well, though.
  - gorkemyurt 11y ago
    All of them "failed" for legal reasons, not because there weren't making enough money, with enough funding legal reasons also vanish..
oconnore 11y ago
Especially given that most drivers I've seen use both the apps, and other operating costs are pretty slim.
- brianbreslin 11y ago
  customer acquisition costs are high, and driver acquisition costs are very high.
  - tedmiston 11y ago
    At least, as long as drivers are human [0]. ;p 0: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/01/27/how-ubers-autonomous-cars-will-destroy-10-million-jobs-and-reshape-the-economy-by-2025-lyft-google-zack-kanter/ http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/01/27/how-ubers-autono...
- dylanjermiah 11y ago
  It's the worldwide presence where Uber had the massive advantage. If Didi/Ola/Lyft/Others decide to merge/parter only than will they stand a chance.
beatpanda 11y ago
The point of Uber isn't to fix transportation, it's to feed Travis Kalanick's god complex. So, no, they won't be able to co-exist peacefully.
- dylanjermiah 11y ago
  What evidence do you have to support this? What personal knowledge to do you have to support this? What accompanying expertise do you have to support this? It's odd to me that people with (assumingly) no knowledge on the matter feel they can aptly deduce complex situations into one sound bite of a sentence.
  - beatpanda 11y ago
    The fact that the company is called Uber, which is an obvious reference to Nietzsche's idea of the Ubermensch. The fact that Kalanick has said, publicly, that the point of starting the company was to enable his already-rich friends to "be baller" in San Francisco. The fact that he had Uber build a thing called "God Mode" into their software so that he could watch famous people come and go on the service and occasionally put that enormous power on display to other powerful people. He's a raging, power-hungry narcissistic sociopath, in public, all the time. This isn't guess work. The parent of my original post is suggesting that Uber exists for reasons other than the ones Kalanick has given in public, and that's just silly.
    - dsacco 11y ago
      I can appreciate a point about someone violating privacy by building that particular feature, but your comment is so caustic and accusatory it's just noise, not a valid addition to a legitimate debate. You cannot call someone a "raging, power-hungry narcissistic sociopath" or accuse him of having a "god complex" for 1. wanting to build a successful company catering to rich people or 2. naming a company after a Nietzschian ideal. Does NASA have a god complex because they used the name Apollo? Your points about Travis do not seem to be informed by reason or experience with the man. In fact, it just seems as though you're emotionally invested to the point of complete and utter bias.
gorkemyurt 11y ago
Happened to me last week in San Francisco; an Uber driver accepted a Lyft pickup, as I was still in the car for my Uber ride..
- wingerlang 11y ago
  How does that work? How did the Uber driver get a hold of the Lyft costumer?
  - horatiumocian 11y ago
    I assume he was also a Lyft driver and was accepting rides on both apps.
    - wingerlang 11y ago
      Ah, makes sense.
    - gorkemyurt 11y ago
      yep, exactly

marcinkw 11y ago

I don't think so. I think they're much better off focusing the product on one specific market. The partnership would let people use the basic service and if they wanted to use market specific feature like Lyft Line or Ola Food, they would have to download the app for that local market.

jbob2000 11y ago
I disagree. If Lyft goes too deep into a specific market, then they risk Uber using their dominance in another market to push them out of this one. They need to compete on all fronts to keep Uber away from their cash cow.
- r00fus 11y ago
  Can you please explain that? How can Uber's strength in other regions impact performance in a specific one?
  - jbob2000 11y ago
    Consumers in the app-hire/ride-share market aren't stuck to one market; Someone who uses Lyft-Line may also use UberX. If Uber release "Uber-Line", and Lyft doesn't have a comparable "LyftX", then there's no reason to use Lyft anymore. Everything you need is in Uber.