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If it's so easy to compete, why aren't there more competitors with a larger market share? I don't know of any ride share market with more than two major players

If it's so easy to compete, why aren't there more competitors with a larger market share? I don't know of any ride share market with more than two major players. US: Uber / Lyft South East Asia: Grab / GoJek Australia: Mainly just Uber (lots of smaller players but none with very significant market share)

bradleyjg 7y ago
In NYC Via is making a big dent, and is actual ride sharing to boot.
freehunter 7y ago
It's easy to compete with the company, but hard to compete with the VC money Uber pulls in. Uber's only competitive advantage is the $24b they were given to keep them alive. If VCs keep funding Uber, Uber is unstoppable. But as soon as that money runs out, they're just another taxi company. Except they're a taxi company who loses $350 million dollars every month. That's not hard to compete against.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  Or are they a taxi company that makes $100MM/month and spends $450MM on R&D that they could stop if they aspired to only be a taxi company? (I think UBER is comically over-valued, but I also think their core business is probably quite profitable.)
  - freehunter 7y ago
    In this situation I don't think it really matters. If the VC money stopped, Uber would either go out of business or shrink back down to being a taxi company, in which case they have no competitive advantage and no network effects, making switching costs extremely low. Being a more profitable taxi company doesn't mean much when most of your employees are also employees of your competitors, and most of your customers are also customers of your competitors. There's just no lock-in.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    They're spending a lot of money on subsidizing rides still. More than on speculative R&D.
  - nosianu 7y ago
    "R&D" sounds grandiose but what meaning does it actually have in this context? I think that's the bet on autonomous cars? Problem is, they won't be the only one to have them, and not even among the first and best ones it seems. Nor is it clear how anything but complete autonomy could solve their problems. Actually, not even if that actually worked it's clear why Uber's Über-ambitious plans would work out. As far as I can tell that "R&D" money is just wasted - but I'm mainly saying this in order to hear counter-arguments, not because I know (I don't really)...
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      "R&D" typically includes software and application development, so it's probably not all wasted.
batbomb 7y ago
Uber is worldwide - I’ve used it on 4 continents. I actually signed up for it when in South Africa. Considering they sold their business to Grab, I think you could safely say Uber+Grab are as close to a global service as you can get, and probably represents a significant fraction (though maybe not 50%+) of the global market
skywhopper 7y ago
Uber and Lyft are running huge deficits. Of course they can keep the competition at bay so long as they don't have to make money.
sabujp 7y ago
india: ola
Jommi 7y ago
What about Europe?

bradleyjg 7y ago

In NYC Via is making a big dent, and is actual ride sharing to boot.

freehunter 7y ago

It's easy to compete with the company, but hard to compete with the VC money Uber pulls in. Uber's only competitive advantage is the $24b they were given to keep them alive. If VCs keep funding Uber, Uber is unstoppable. But as soon as that money runs out, they're just another taxi company. Except they're a taxi company who loses $350 million dollars every month. That's not hard to compete against.

sokoloff 7y ago
Or are they a taxi company that makes $100MM/month and spends $450MM on R&D that they could stop if they aspired to only be a taxi company? (I think UBER is comically over-valued, but I also think their core business is probably quite profitable.)
- freehunter 7y ago
  In this situation I don't think it really matters. If the VC money stopped, Uber would either go out of business or shrink back down to being a taxi company, in which case they have no competitive advantage and no network effects, making switching costs extremely low. Being a more profitable taxi company doesn't mean much when most of your employees are also employees of your competitors, and most of your customers are also customers of your competitors. There's just no lock-in.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  They're spending a lot of money on subsidizing rides still. More than on speculative R&D.
- nosianu 7y ago
  "R&D" sounds grandiose but what meaning does it actually have in this context? I think that's the bet on autonomous cars? Problem is, they won't be the only one to have them, and not even among the first and best ones it seems. Nor is it clear how anything but complete autonomy could solve their problems. Actually, not even if that actually worked it's clear why Uber's Über-ambitious plans would work out. As far as I can tell that "R&D" money is just wasted - but I'm mainly saying this in order to hear counter-arguments, not because I know (I don't really)...
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    "R&D" typically includes software and application development, so it's probably not all wasted.

batbomb 7y ago

Uber is worldwide - I’ve used it on 4 continents. I actually signed up for it when in South Africa. Considering they sold their business to Grab, I think you could safely say Uber+Grab are as close to a global service as you can get, and probably represents a significant fraction (though maybe not 50%+) of the global market

skywhopper 7y ago

Uber and Lyft are running huge deficits. Of course they can keep the competition at bay so long as they don't have to make money.

sabujp 7y ago

india: ola

Jommi 7y ago

What about Europe?