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 mone

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.