5 ms·
I'm not sure why a Level 3 needs to be a person in the vehicle? Uber may time their IPO just before they start having growth problems. That seems to have a hig
by AJ007 10y ago
I'm not sure why a Level 3 needs to be a person in the vehicle?
Uber may time their IPO just before they start having growth problems. That seems to have a high probability.
The contrarian side of me thinks that the more negative people become about a tech company the more likely it is to succeed (assuming a real product and not elaborate fraud.) Markets become far more favorable when all of your competitors believe what you are doing is a joke. The paradox being, perhaps the more people become convinced Uber will fail, the more likely it is they can pull this off.
It definitely is not as clear cut as starting an airline -- and it is a dynamic game. Is Uber/Lyft the starting point for calling a car or is it Android/iOS ; or is it Google Maps/Apple Maps ; or may be it is Siri/Alexa/etc.
I've suggested in other posts a ride sharing company may be able to get exclusivity contracts for a large metro area. This would be a step towards a lock in/monopoly. Earlier gen self driving vehicles may actually even need this.
Whatever behaviors Uber has created, I think they are going to survive in some form for a long time. Whether Uber goes belly up may be more about how carefully they hedged their financial risks.
- tobrepeels 10y ago"Is Uber/Lyft the starting point for calling a car or is it Android/iOS ; or is it Google Maps/Apple Maps ; or may be it is Siri/Alexa/etc." - This is an extremely good and often overlooked point. With Apple, Google, and Amazon now offering AI-powered smart-home devices (i.e., Google Home, Alexa) as well as mobile assistants like Siri and Android Assistant, they will increasingly own the first point of contact for a user when they need to hail a car. You could hail a ride without even having to open the Uber App at all, meaning that from a consumer perspective the relationship has shifted upstream to the phone OS or connected device, and Uber now becomes the behind-the-scenes middle-layer that runs the dispatch logistics. Right now, Google/Apple/Amazon operate under the guise that they are "integrating" with Uber's services, but when Google and Apple roll out their own autonomous vehicles (which they already are working on) and Amazon starts rolling out autonomous logistics (i.e., trucks and drones) then they will own both the upstream point of contact, as well as the downstream supply of cars/trucks/drones. When they have built the user behavior of people ordering directly from a phone OS or in-home device, what's to prevent them from connecting directly to their self-owned fleet and cutting out the middle layer (Uber) completely? While everyone is focused on Lyft...Uber's real competitor is one or all of the above situations. Piggy-backing off Uber in the connected home / OS integrations is as classic of an example of a trojan horse maneuver as I have ever seen.
- tenminuteslater 10y agoUber is not even the middle layer here. The middle layer is an as-yet nonexistent aggregator that will search all of the services (Uber, Lyft, Google, Amazon, whoever) to get you the best price for your ride at that moment.