10 ms·

Uber doesn't have much of a moat or lock-in effect. I just switched one day from being a frequent Uber rider to 100% using Lyft, simply because I don't like Ube

• buzzdenver 8y ago
  The reason I'm reluctant to use Lyft is that they do not say beforehand how much my ride is going to be. Edit: I stand corrected. Their UI mislead me because for airport rides the price is only shown after you hit a Confirm button, but that does not order the car as I thought, only takes you to the next screen.
  • Thriptic 8y ago
    Yes, they do
    • buzzdenver 8y ago
      I just tried it out and there is a "Confirm" button but I still don't know how much it'll cost to go to the airport.
      • mikeash 8y ago
        It shows the price after the Confirm button, on the screen where you select what type of car you want.
        • buzzdenver 8y ago
          Oh, Confirm doesn't mean "send me a car"? Inflammable means flammable??? What a country!
          • mikeash 8y ago
            Yeah, it’s not exactly clear. I figured it must not be the “send me a car” button since it doesn’t have all the info it needs yet, but I can totally see why you’d get stuck at that point. Interestingly, it only uses the “Confirm” label for airports. Other destinations say “Set Destination” which is about eight thousand times more clear.
        • alehul 8y ago
          In the parent comment's defense, I remember trying to price-check with Lyft and being scared about pressing 'Confirm.' They should really think about switching it to 'Confirm route' or 'location'.. something that ensures me I'm not ordering it yet. Maybe an arrow where I can swipe and see the next step? Or some visual cue that there are more steps ahead?
  • lemoncucumber 8y ago
    I'm not sure what you're referring to. They always show the price beforehand for me.
  • benburleson 8y ago
    They do that now.
    • ghostly_s 8y ago
      They have been for years. Ever since I started using it.
  • zitterbewegung 8y ago
    Have you tried booking the trip through google maps ? It shows the price of the ride beforehand for me.
  • bb611 8y ago
    I use Lyft frequently on iOS all over the US, it gives an estimate that tends to be conservative (i.e. high). Do you not see the same thing in your app?
  • buzzdenver 8y ago
    I stand corrected. Their UI mislead me because the price is only shown after you hit a Confirm button, but that does not order the car as I thought, only takes you to the next screen.
    • hathawsh 8y ago
      Ouch. Applying the Confirm label to a continue/next button is asking for trouble.
    • tyre 8y ago
      I just opened the Lyft app and tried it. After entering a destination, I was taken to a screen showing the prices for the various options. There was no confirm button Or anything else hiding prices. (This was on iOS)
      • buzzdenver 8y ago
        As somebody else in this three said, the Confirm button is only for airport destination when you select the airline where you want to be dropped off.
    • meowface 8y ago
      I've been misled in the exact same way when using Lyft at airports. This has caused me to use Uber instead of Lyft at least once, until I figured it out.
• paulddraper 8y ago
  The extent of their lock-in is that of any C2C company: the marketplace. Can one side be confident there are enough on the other side? And then it becomes about brand recognition and marketing. (And in this particular case, the Uber brand has some issues....) No different than, say, consumer rental companies like Airbnb.
  • somerandomness 8y ago
    Most Uber drivers are on Lyft as well AFAICT (where possible). So the marketplaces are basically identical.
  • gjreda 8y ago
    Does this change when the two options are perfect substitutes? As a rider, there's no "cost" to having both apps, so I'll just check both. Similarly, as a driver, I'll just sit with both apps open and see which one I get a rider on.
    • TylerE 8y ago
      Makes you wonder why no one has built an app that interfaces with all of them, and finds you the cheapest rate, while taking a kickback.
      • gregoryrueda 8y ago
        Saw a web app that did this a few years ago. Likely the companies made changes to their API’s. Would love to see it again though.
      • dragonwriter 8y ago
        > Makes you wonder why no one has built an app that interfaces with all of them, and finds you the cheapest rate, while taking a kickback. They did (well, it at least has multiple Uber and Lyft services, and I don't know that they get a kickback); the app is called “Google Maps”.
      • deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
• zhobbs 8y ago
  Agree that the lock-in is weak compared to other markets. Their strategy has been to incentivize drivers and riders to not split usage between other apps. Uber drivers who do a certain number of hours or rides per day/week often get bonuses, so they'd have to forego these bonuses to split time with Lyft. On the rider side, they're pulling a play from the airline playbook, with their version of frequent flier miles and status: https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/14/uber-rewards/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/14/uber-rewards/
  • albertgoeswoof 8y ago
    2 potential fixes on the rider side: - Uber prime - Uber points
    • moorhosj 8y ago
      To attract users to these services, would Uber have to take a further hit to profitability? It seems they would in order to make customers lock themselves in.
      • albertgoeswoof 8y ago
        Does amazon lose money on prime?
        • moorhosj 8y ago
          I'm not sure. We would need to add up the costs of free shipping, unlimited photo storage, licensing of 3rd party video content, creating 1st party video content, licensing music content, free 6-month Washington Post subscription, Whole Foods discounts, free eBooks, free games and more. [1] They also don't have a direct competitor/s like Uber. I think the better comparison would be the loyalty programs from United or American. [1] https://www.cnet.com/how-to/amazon-prime-20-benefits-every-member-gets/ https://www.cnet.com/how-to/amazon-prime-20-benefits-every-m...
  • mkolodny 8y ago
    Here's a link to the HN discussion of the new loyalty program: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18455104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18455104
• alaskamiller 8y ago
  This is one of those no-shit responses, parroted over and over again. At the end of the day, Pepsi and Coca-Cola sells you sugar water. McDonald's and Burger King get the same meat form the same vendor trucks. You charge a credit card whether Visa or MasterCard. The point isn't who brings you the convenience, it's that you have convenience at all. Uber/Lyft has commoditized driving to a product sold at ~$2/mile. That's why this week they both launched loyalty programs, back to back. And from there they'll just keep trying to add more value bit by bit. Not surprised at all if in 10 yrs Uber doesn't have cab hailing anymore, but you ended up on an Uber flight to Shanghai.
  • moocow01 8y ago
    I think the problem really is profit. Pepsi and Coca-Cola both sell sugar water, a commodity, at a profit. Lyft and Uber have made rides a commodity but at this point it looks like commoditization of rides is not able to be sold at a profit. I think they both are touting that scale and technology will lead them to profitable rides but its not obvious that this is going to ever come true in a way that justifies their value. To me the scary part for them is that they already have commoditized their product.
    • windexh8er 8y ago
      In my opinion the outstanding question today is: are they both too early? It's currently a race to the bottom of driver oriented rides. As soon as driverless becomes viable the current rider fee suddenly shifts to being a more positive profit margin and also shifts opex back in favor of both. But can either last long enough to get there?
      • LordHumungous 8y ago
        Driverless could become viable in five years, ten years, or never. It's too unknown at this point to make business decisions on.
      • spookthesunset 8y ago
        > As soon as driverless becomes viable Alexa can't even turn on my living room lights more than 50% percent of the time. I'm not holding my breath for driverless cars coming any time soon (if ever).
• agrippanux 8y ago
  I have found that the drivers for Lyft are much happier than the drivers for Uber. This holds true even when a driver drives for both services. I asked several drivers why this is and the universal response was that Lyft treats them better, so they are happier to pick up Lyft customers. I switched over to only using Lyft, but like the OP states, if Waymo came out tomorrow I'd probably switch to that.
  • 121789 8y ago
    I've had a slightly different experience. My Lyft drivers have definitely been happier and nicer, but most of them say that there is no real difference between the two services from a driver's point of view. I'm not sure how that could be the case.
    • HenryBemis 8y ago
      Sexual harassment cases were on the HQ, not the drivers. Also, most drivers drive for multiple companies. All they need is 'one more app' on their phones, and they're off to go. Since Lyft/Uber/everyone is monitoring their competitors' s prices, they make sure they adapt pricing to make themselves antagonistic. Thus the drivers won't care which app is running, since they will be making (more or less) the same $$$$$. All they need it to do is ensure they are driving people around/keeping busy, and if one company is bleeding customers, they will simple start 'the other app' and continue driving. I may be oversimplifying the above, but it's the general idea/practice.
      • itronitron 8y ago
        doesn't that negatively impact drivers by forcing prices down?
        • why_only_15 8y ago
          I feel like it would force prices down but it would also force Uber/Lyft to reduce their take, because presumably drivers don't care whether the ride was $10 or $11 if they get $7 either way.
• janesvilleseo 8y ago
  Doesn’t UBER know this and that is why they are aggressively working on self-driving. Cut out the middle (hu)man and cut rates?
  • prostoalex 8y ago
    Sure, they and a hundred other competitors.
• golergka 8y ago
  Try Gett. They have less drivers, but their quality is much better – they actually know the city, have excellent manners, and I've hardly ever heard any horror stories.
• cynicalkane 8y ago
  Converse to this, I get a lot of bad behavior when I try to book Uber, especially late at night or in odd areas. Drivers who cancel, intentionally drive in the wrong direction to force you to cancel, who don’t wait or drive to the wrong place to pick you up, who don’t know where to go, who are rude, who refuse to turn off music... I started using Uber because it was worth paying more to not deal with taxis. Now Uber is the cheap, bad option. I really wish there was a “middle of market” ridesharing service. Cheaper than a black car from whatever service, but still with good quality control. Uber used to be that but isn’t anymore. Lyft is kind of that but isn’t quite there. Anyway, it feels like Uber is trading goodwill for volume. I only use it for free rides with Amex platinum or when I need a car ASAP and no taxis are available. Otherwise I use Lyft (and sometimes Lyft is cheaper anyway). It feels like Uber is shorting quality control and trading long-term profitablility for short-term volume with more, cheaper drivers.
  • notyourwork 8y ago
    > Lyft is kind of that but isn’t quite there. Since my impression is a large population of drivers drive for both I don't think you would find different behavior in Uber or Lyft. A dickhead is doing to be a dickhead whether driving for Uber or Lyft right?
    • cynicalkane 8y ago
      I personally haven’t experienced any of that nonsense using Lyft. Your mileage may vary. But here in NYC, Uber’s reputation has fallen considerably.
      • pault 8y ago
        I only use Lyft and I've had the driving in the wrong direction happen several times. It's infuriating.
    • akkartik 8y ago
      A lot of the time, bad behavior is caused by external situation and incentives rather than intrinsic character.
• outside1234 8y ago
  And, somehow, after all that investment, the Lyft app is miles better than the Uber one too.
  • forgot-my-pw 8y ago
    I haven't used Lyft before, how so?
  • realdlee 8y ago
    care to elaborate?
• Barrin92 8y ago
  To this day I don't even really understand the value that Uber et al are supposedly adding that justifies the size and evaluation of their companies. At the end of the day they're a layer on top of a taxi business. Sure this is useful in some way but like Airbnb or weworks or all these other companies that just throw one layer of service over the actual business I don't understand why they are treated like high tech companies. The most extreme example was possibly moviepass which was basically just a subsidy from investors to movie goers.
  • bad_good_guy 8y ago
    I believe it was originally a big bet on the eventual profit margins from having the market share when deploying driverless cars instead of human drivers
    • toasterlovin 8y ago
      That always seemed insane to me. The potential moat I saw was in controlling a two sided market (like eBay for collectibles). Drivers drive for you because you control the riders. Riders ride with you because you have all the drivers. This would be a competitive advantage because you’re getting your drivers to deploy capital (cars) for you. But driverless cars change that dynamic. Now you need to own a fleet. Well, guess what: there are already businesses like this! They are called car rental companies. Last time I checked, they were shitty, low margin businesses.
      • hcknwscommenter 8y ago
        It changed way before driverless cars. It changed the day lyft came out. Heck, it changed the day flywheel came out.
    • kayoone 8y ago
      That is the story they spin since their growth exploded and they realised that they will never be profitable with the original model. That future is so far away though.
  • 8y ago
• garysahota93 8y ago
  With their new loyalty program and Uber Visa card, I definitely think they are trying hard to build that lock-in effect. Once that happens, I do think they'll reap the rewards of their platform. It's just hard at first. I hope they can pull it off tho. But then again, I do know a lot of Uber drivers who only use Lyft personally for rides.
  • hcknwscommenter 8y ago
    > I hope they can pull it off tho. Why? I mean, most taxi cab companies have rideshare apps. They were a first mover and showed us the way, but they burned a ton of cash and did some really shitty things. Heck, they've killed more than a few people.
• dzhiurgis 8y ago
  Except Lyft has probably 1% of coverage that Uber has.
  • dzhiurgis 8y ago
    (Outside of US)
• hornetblack 8y ago
  Depends, where I am there's Uber or Traditional Cabs. My experience phoning for a cab is pretty pleasent though (quicker than using uber). Although their app is unusable. (When it comes to dodgey companies CabCharge is pretty terrible)
• rvn1045 8y ago
  while it is true that you can easily switch from uber to Lyft or vice versa, there are only two of them. so they do have moats. its not easy for a new competitor to emerge unless they are doing something different like perhaps driverless cars.
  • rorykoehler 8y ago
    In Singapore Uber did an equity swap with Grab (they both own parts of each other and are invested in by Softbank too) to cease business. Now I just use a normal taxi booking again (as well as Grab when it's cheaper).
• babesh 8y ago
  It doesn't matter if the end result is a duopoly. The two need only stop competing and raise prices. It will be hard for a third entrant to come in because of the large cost to enter markets. The only viable entrant is, as mentioned Waymo, because driverless cars alters the economics and because they have the tech.
  • SomewhatLikely 8y ago
    I thought this for a while but I'm pretty sure I was wrong. When thinking about all these services that exist I didn't understand how divers would stay busy: Uber, Lyft, Uber eats, Amazon restaurants, doordash, GrubHub, etc. Then I realized they actually reinforce each other because all divers can work for all the services. So they don't have to wait around for an Amazon restaurants order to come in, they'll just do Ubers until then, or whatever else comes in first. This actually makes it easier for new entrants the more services are already out there demanding divers and maintaining a large pool of contract drivers.
    • babesh 8y ago
      Uber is betting that it will consolidate all that. Always give it's drivers something to do: food delivery, package delivery?, transportation, etc....
• 8note 8y ago
  I switched pretty easily because suddenly Uber stopped accepting my credit card
• abrookewood 8y ago
  No moat? Of course it has a moat! So far Lyft has raised $1.5 BILLION dollars in order to compete [1]. Capital requirements are absolutely a barrier to entry and protect their position. [1] http://fortune.com/2017/12/05/lyft-gets-1-5-billion-funding-boost-thanks-to-google/ http://fortune.com/2017/12/05/lyft-gets-1-5-billion-funding-...
  • dreamcompiler 8y ago
    Why do these ride companies need so much capital? They don't buy cars; the drivers aren't employees. They're a mobile app with a big backend. So why do they need more capital than, say, a game company?
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    • csin 8y ago
      You're not gona like this answer. They need capital because they are making loses year on year. Without the capital, they will be run out of money.
    • abrookewood 8y ago
      Marketing, software development and subsidised rides until market penetration takes off ... there must be more, but I'm not sure.
• xster 8y ago
  They have different company culture for now but at the end of the day, the business practice dictates direction and I don't think there's anything fundamentally different with Lyft. Their rides are both VC subsidized and unsustainable. They both punish customer loyalty. My wife and I rotate hiring rideshares. If one of us books too many, one person's fare becomes much costlier than the other. They're both godsends when initially disrupting markets (our Egyptian Uber driver definitely took a lot of personal risks engaging in shouting matches against street touts who were throwing themselves at the car and ready to drag us out so we spend our money at their shops) but once they reach semi-duopoly status in mature markets like the Bay Area, more and more crappy things happen. Things like drivers canceling you after 10 minutes or people using GPS spoofers to pick up rides while not even in the same county. And you clearly see both companies, over the years, trying to hide ways to get problems resolved behind more and more layers of circular forms labyrinths. I've been taking more traditional taxies to keep the balance of power competitive (and because it's sometimes less frustrating).
• megy 8y ago
  Nor does google.