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I never understood why anyone thought otherwise, unless you believed self-driving cars would be ready by now. I'm not going to pretend to understand the intric

I never understood why anyone thought otherwise, unless you believed self-driving cars would be ready by now. I'm not going to pretend to understand the intricacies of Lyft and Uber and their experiments with food delivery, carpooling, and other endeavors. But scaling up does not solve the problem of paying your contractors more than they're making you - in fact it only scales up the problem. Granted, I've thoroughly enjoyed my cheap rides subsidized by VCs for years. But it's just not a viable business, and I have never heard a convincing argument to the contrary. I feel as though few VCs are looking to create value so much as they're looking to get in early and cash out before the house of cards falls over.

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bobthepanda 8y ago
It is basically the Moviepass situation writ large, except fueled by a massive hype bubble around self driving cars that even VCs were eager to buy into.
RodgerTheGreat 8y ago
Even if self-driving cars were ready right now, why would Lyft or Uber have an advantage? In theory, their current competitive edge over taxi services comes from pushing externalities to drivers. If they had to worry about owning and maintaining all their cars, suddenly they're in a new and very capital-intensive line of business. I'd expect at least one of the established rental car chains- which have physical infrastructure like motor pools, mechanics and relationships with local auto shops, and logistics experience with all of the above- to eat Uber's lunch! Every way I look at it, work on self-driving technology by rideshare companies is 100% smoke and mirrors to drive investment, and not a serious business plan.
- lykr0n 8y ago
  There was a great post about Avis (I think) who had an incubator to explore ideas about what they could do with their fleet of cars. I think if you looked at rental companies, they are actively thinking about the future.
marcosdumay 8y ago
My impression is that the rationale is that they monopolize the market first, and exploit it latter. Of course, that depends on a large barrier to entry, and I can't see how the barrier to entry on that market could be large. But well, VCs clearly disagree with me.
- blihp 8y ago
  Scale and consumer behavior would be their moat. See Amazon, Google and Facebook for examples of what they have in mind.

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bobthepanda 8y ago

It is basically the Moviepass situation writ large, except fueled by a massive hype bubble around self driving cars that even VCs were eager to buy into.

RodgerTheGreat 8y ago

Even if self-driving cars were ready right now, why would Lyft or Uber have an advantage? In theory, their current competitive edge over taxi services comes from pushing externalities to drivers. If they had to worry about owning and maintaining all their cars, suddenly they're in a new and very capital-intensive line of business. I'd expect at least one of the established rental car chains- which have physical infrastructure like motor pools, mechanics and relationships with local auto shops, and logistics experience with all of the above- to eat Uber's lunch! Every way I look at it, work on self-driving technology by rideshare companies is 100% smoke and mirrors to drive investment, and not a serious business plan.

lykr0n 8y ago
There was a great post about Avis (I think) who had an incubator to explore ideas about what they could do with their fleet of cars. I think if you looked at rental companies, they are actively thinking about the future.

marcosdumay 8y ago

My impression is that the rationale is that they monopolize the market first, and exploit it latter. Of course, that depends on a large barrier to entry, and I can't see how the barrier to entry on that market could be large. But well, VCs clearly disagree with me.

blihp 8y ago
Scale and consumer behavior would be their moat. See Amazon, Google and Facebook for examples of what they have in mind.