I think you're right. It's not perfect, I just gave a lowest-tech example that would be serviceable to some people with low middle-man cost. A lot of Uber driv

I think you're right. It's not perfect, I just gave a lowest-tech example that would be serviceable to some people with low middle-man cost. A lot of Uber drivers aren't loyal though, they'll have both apps open in order to get fares and I think that's the end-game. Discovery services often live and die by their exclusives and if there's no viable way to force driver exclusivity, the discovery medium becomes way more important than the driver. I'm sure I'm being naive, but I don't think Uber is all that special of a service. It handles queues, paths and estimation. Other services could out-feature it with relatively low-tech provided the regulatory overhead isn't prohibitively expensive, especially if U/L chose not to operate in a that geographic market.