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The question is: will Uber and Lyft always be the entities leading car-ordering apps? Hypothetically, Uber and Lyft stock prices could collapse, Google and App

The question is: will Uber and Lyft always be the entities leading car-ordering apps? Hypothetically, Uber and Lyft stock prices could collapse, Google and Apple buy them, respectively, and then they could become features in Google and Apple Maps, as opposed to standalone companies and apps. Sure, there are additional logistics, city management, back-end processing pieces that are not trivial. But the customer app experience certainly can be replicated as companies like Via have done, and Google and Apple could afford the transition costs of taking over all the behind-the-scenes logistics. Not saying this will happen, but it's an illustration of how car-sharing survives but Uber and Lyft do not.

tedsanders 7y ago
I mean, even in this scenario the company still exists, just with a different brand. They'll still have the same code, the same infrastructure, the same users. If Facebook buys Oculus, that doesn't mean Oculus stops existing. It just means Oculus is now owned by Facebook.
- loganfrederick 7y ago
  Correct, the main difference (in my mind, open to other arguments) is how financial resources are allocated. Right now, Uber and Lyft are burning a ton of money on customer acquisition with the goals of gaining enough scale to be sustainable, independent companies. Relating this back to the great-grandparent post, there's an alternative: Google and Apple could use their existing brand recognition and software reach to maintain wide-scale car-ordering apps without having to spend as much (certainly still some) and with bigger balance sheets to take any short term financial hits. Then they could let the supply (drivers and the cost of rides) and demand (how many customers will pay for non-VC subsidized cars) play itself out over time, instead of the Uber/Lyft model of trying to juice both sides of the marketplace with excess spend.
  - bredren 7y ago
    Would the only future for these products be a mix of human and autonomous fleets? And eventually, purely autonomous? If so, does this presuppose Apple’s vision is to include mass transportation as (a major) part of its products?
- simonh 7y ago
  In a strictly legal and technical sense yes, but IMHO a company going down the toilet that is sold for parts at a loss hasn’t really survived in any meaningful sense.

tedsanders 7y ago

I mean, even in this scenario the company still exists, just with a different brand. They'll still have the same code, the same infrastructure, the same users. If Facebook buys Oculus, that doesn't mean Oculus stops existing. It just means Oculus is now owned by Facebook.

loganfrederick 7y ago
Correct, the main difference (in my mind, open to other arguments) is how financial resources are allocated. Right now, Uber and Lyft are burning a ton of money on customer acquisition with the goals of gaining enough scale to be sustainable, independent companies. Relating this back to the great-grandparent post, there's an alternative: Google and Apple could use their existing brand recognition and software reach to maintain wide-scale car-ordering apps without having to spend as much (certainly still some) and with bigger balance sheets to take any short term financial hits. Then they could let the supply (drivers and the cost of rides) and demand (how many customers will pay for non-VC subsidized cars) play itself out over time, instead of the Uber/Lyft model of trying to juice both sides of the marketplace with excess spend.
- bredren 7y ago
  Would the only future for these products be a mix of human and autonomous fleets? And eventually, purely autonomous? If so, does this presuppose Apple’s vision is to include mass transportation as (a major) part of its products?
simonh 7y ago
In a strictly legal and technical sense yes, but IMHO a company going down the toilet that is sold for parts at a loss hasn’t really survived in any meaningful sense.