10 ms·

Honestly, I think they are subsidizing the drivers. I think the play is to subsidize rides to prop up user counts until they can sell those users to a self-dri

Honestly, I think they are subsidizing the drivers. I think the play is to subsidize rides to prop up user counts until they can sell those users to a self-driving car fleet. (or own one themselves). This would be my guess why a GM or ford (Can't remember which) would invest in someone like lyft. There's nothing to crazy here outside of an app that pairs two GPS coordinates. Access to user pools for self driving car fleets is going to be big money though. This is why uber could be in so much trouble over the otto/waymo thing. If they get barred from self driving cars, their competators will be able to offer the same or lower rates without having to pay drivers. Uber will have to continue to subsidize until then or loose mass user base.

s73ver_ 9y ago
But the drivers really don't make anything.
matt4077 9y ago
The numbers just don't add up for this scenario: Current valuation is 70 billion, Last known monthly active users is 40 million. Monthly spend per user is $50. Meaning: instead of buying those users for 70 billion, a car company could offer each one of those users $1700 of free credits, or about 3 years of their typical use. Considering that switching is as easy as installing some other app, I'm pretty sure they could buy marketshare for less than a 10th of that. ...and I haven't even factored in that the novelty of self-driving cars would probably make it incredibly easy to sign up users for whatever car company is first-to-market.