The last thing that Uber needs is to basically say to their investors, "We have no ability to outcompete a much smaller competitor, we just have to buy them out

The last thing that Uber needs is to basically say to their investors, "We have no ability to outcompete a much smaller competitor, we just have to buy them out." I also think that people overestimate the effect that Lyft per se has on Uber's prices/margins. Uber competes not just with Lyft, but with other, smaller "use an app to get a ride" apps, and with taxis, public transit, using your own car, and not going to where you're going. Even if Lyft rolled up its operations tomorrow, I don't think you'd see more than a marginal effect on Uber's unit-profit/volume tradeoffs.