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I hope this doesn't get entirely buried at this point, but I think you bring up something interesting with driving marginal costs down. Ostensibly both Uber an

I hope this doesn't get entirely buried at this point, but I think you bring up something interesting with driving marginal costs down. Ostensibly both Uber and Lyft are doing the same thing, but with the item that will bring the marginal cost down being self-driving cars. They've both bet big in order to capture the market, because it's likely that whoever owns the market before that transition will own it afterwards as well. It does seem like there was probably more optimism that the technology would materialize sooner than it really has, but assuming it materializes some time in the near future it's likely that whatever company manages to hold onto the market until then will reap massive rewards. It's clearly a risky bet, but at least from my view doesn't seem like a pump and dump type of scheme.

legitster 7y ago
I'm not sure if there was any thought beyond "make it really big and figure out details later". It's certainly interesting. But I am doubtful about the self-driving cars being a factor. There are at least 4 companies developing the technology and there is really no indication that it will prove a barrier to entry at this point.
spookthesunset 7y ago
Not to pick nits, but gambling your business on self driving cars being just around the corner is nuts. They aren’t gonna happen for decades, if ever. We may well have teleportation before self driving cars because it turns out that solving teleportation is easier...
- dblotsky 7y ago
  Humans can drive cars, but not teleport. Driving cars is definitely easier.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Today, but if the ability to teleport (last I heard we can teleport a single particle half a meter - but not even an atom) gets the needed breakthroughs... If teleportation worked and was safe [insert other considerations that I don't know here] I'd teleport to work instead of hoping for a self driving car. Today it looks like the self driving care will be practical sooner, but who knows how the science and engineering will really advance.
pdonis 7y ago
> Ostensibly both Uber and Lyft are doing the same thing, but with the item that will bring the marginal cost down being self-driving cars. The key factor in the Uber/Lyft business model is not so much anticipating self-driving cars, as offloading the overhead costs of inventory (who owns and maintains the cars) onto someone else, so they can focus on just being a service broker and not have to get into all the messy details of large, expensive physical objects. From that viewpoint, self-driving cars really improve things more for the car owners, by decoupling having the car provide a service from having to drive the car yourself, thus reducing the overhead to the car owner.
SKILNER 7y ago
The Economist had a good essay on taxi companies going back to the 1600's. Basically it's always a race to the bottom and no one wins for long. Four hundred years of history there through all kinds of changes in transportation. Paywall: https://www.economist.com/business/2019/04/27/can-uber-ever-make-money https://www.economist.com/business/2019/04/27/can-uber-ever-... Really excellent post by OP - thank you.

legitster 7y ago

I'm not sure if there was any thought beyond "make it really big and figure out details later". It's certainly interesting. But I am doubtful about the self-driving cars being a factor. There are at least 4 companies developing the technology and there is really no indication that it will prove a barrier to entry at this point.

spookthesunset 7y ago

Not to pick nits, but gambling your business on self driving cars being just around the corner is nuts. They aren’t gonna happen for decades, if ever. We may well have teleportation before self driving cars because it turns out that solving teleportation is easier...

dblotsky 7y ago
Humans can drive cars, but not teleport. Driving cars is definitely easier.
- bluGill 7y ago
  Today, but if the ability to teleport (last I heard we can teleport a single particle half a meter - but not even an atom) gets the needed breakthroughs... If teleportation worked and was safe [insert other considerations that I don't know here] I'd teleport to work instead of hoping for a self driving car. Today it looks like the self driving care will be practical sooner, but who knows how the science and engineering will really advance.

pdonis 7y ago

> Ostensibly both Uber and Lyft are doing the same thing, but with the item that will bring the marginal cost down being self-driving cars. The key factor in the Uber/Lyft business model is not so much anticipating self-driving cars, as offloading the overhead costs of inventory (who owns and maintains the cars) onto someone else, so they can focus on just being a service broker and not have to get into all the messy details of large, expensive physical objects. From that viewpoint, self-driving cars really improve things more for the car owners, by decoupling having the car provide a service from having to drive the car yourself, thus reducing the overhead to the car owner.

SKILNER 7y ago

The Economist had a good essay on taxi companies going back to the 1600's. Basically it's always a race to the bottom and no one wins for long. Four hundred years of history there through all kinds of changes in transportation. Paywall: https://www.economist.com/business/2019/04/27/can-uber-ever-make-money https://www.economist.com/business/2019/04/27/can-uber-ever-... Really excellent post by OP - thank you.