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Devil's advocate: "Growth" (Though of course I only set it up because it's so fun to knock down. Uber's 'growth' is of economically-minded bellweather users ha

Devil's advocate: "Growth" (Though of course I only set it up because it's so fun to knock down. Uber's 'growth' is of economically-minded bellweather users happy to jump ship to save a few bucks, and they have built next to zero and possibly even negative brand loyalty) If Uber can constantly outperform other apps on price (read: without huge ride subsidization) they might be able to maintain a tentuous lead; but even then it'd just be a war they'd be fighting on many fronts as a 'goliath' against hundreds of davids. And they (Uber) are fronting the major legal costs for all of them :)

cookiecaper 9y ago
Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Valve, et al have taught us the major lesson: to have staying power, you must become a platform, and aggressively protect your source of lock-in. An ecosystem of applications/businesses that depend on your platform for access to a userbase is the best way to do this. The platform giants, especially Microsoft and Google and to a lesser extent Apple and Facebook, have the power to "NetScape" any other non-platform tech company at will. Mobile apps are coming to exist at Google's mercy, like web sites dependent on "organic" traffic have for the last decade. If Google decided they'd had enough of Uber, they could integrate ride hailing into GMaps and Uber would be done for. They just did this to a handful of startups that were oriented around real-time location tracking. [0] [0] https://blog.google/products/maps/share-your-trips-and-real-time-location-google-maps/ https://blog.google/products/maps/share-your-trips-and-real-...