6 ms·

The search for an ongoing revenue stream is one of the most destructive forces in the tech industry. It leads to some very customer-hostile experiences.

Semiapies 7y ago
The problem is that not having a revenue stream is one of the most destructive forces to tech (or other) companies, and people like to keep their jobs.
- cletus 7y ago
  You make a thing. You sell your thing. You sell it for more than it cost to make it. That's your revenue stream. But that's not enough (apparently) hence locking down repairs and other anti-end user behaviour.
  - OldManAndTheCpp 7y ago
    Now you've shipped your thing that lasts forever. If it's a mechanical object, maybe you can get continuing revenue from spare parts, but those will bring in less than the original purchase. Worst case, someone brings up a factory copying your part design (without doing any engineering work on them, just copies them exactly), and undercuts you. If you sell software, do you let the old stuff atrophy and become insecure? If not, you are spending salaries on maintenance without any associated revenue. As time goes on, the maintenance costs increase without bringing in another cent.
    - cletus 7y ago
      On the software front, this is why I, personally, am a fan of the subscription model... if done right. And almost no one does it right. The shining example for actually doing it right is Jetbrains. There is a schedule for new releases they keep to. You get loyalty discounts for long term subscriptions and ending a subscription entitles you to a version that is ~1 year old in perpetuity. Plus the prices are (IMHO) entirely reasonable. Almost no one else does this. Other companies will, say, take the MSRP of the software package, divide it by 12 and give you that as the monthly price with a minimum contract period of 12 months. They'll also restrict you to choose platform when you purchase and may limit the number of installs rather than concurrent users.
      - pixelface 7y ago
        Another company using this model very effectively is Derivative, makers of Touchdesigner. Licenses are sold at an initial price that includes a year of updates. Once that year expires, the newest version (old versions are kept available on the site) within your update period will continue to be usable with your license - which is freely transferable between machines. They offer a couple license tiers, custom work, and paid support hours. They even provide a free non-commercial license that is minimally limited and great for learning. The other great thing is that they are highly responsive to user feedback and bug reports. I've had a situation before where we found a bug in the course of a project and they fixed it in a matter of days, had a build sent over in time for my deadline, and then the fix was pushed for everyone in the following update. I frequently point them out as a model for the best way to offer a software product to both a professional and amateur market. It's essentially all the benefits of perpetual licensing while still providing a revenue stream for the company and ongoing support for professional users. No direct affiliation, but I've shared drinks with the devs and am a very pleased user.
    - crc32 7y ago
      > Now you've shipped your thing that lasts forever. If it's a mechanical object, maybe you can get continuing revenue from spare parts, but those will bring in less than the original purchase. This might be bad for a tractor manufacturer; but an everlasting tractor would be great for society, right? The incentive now is to innovate in order to create a better more efficient product. E.g.; a more fuel efficient tractor which increases productivity - then you'll get another sale. Deliberately hobbling your product so that it needs repair or replacement disincentives innovation and is a form of rent-seeking https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rentseeking.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rentseeking.asp and as such should be treated as a market failure. (I.e., legislated against)
      - closetohome 7y ago
        Exactly - it's a perverse incentive against the interests of society.
- suzzer99 7y ago
  As I type this I'm looking at the Onkyo stereo and Polk speakers I bought in college. I'm 50 years old. I can't help but think they regret making these things that durable.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y ago
  UBI, more research spending, a flatter wealth distribution, and separating necessities from investment portfolios would help to allow developers to develop without living like stereotypical artists.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Hardly. There are countless firms who built their reputation on and survived quite happily making durable products. You might find pages of their early products filling eBay and the like, still going strong. A few are still adhering to those built to last attributes, most have transitioned into "as cheap as we can get away with, but with our valuable brand and logo" as has most of the whole world, including those offering coffee pod and headphone (ffs!) subscriptions. The steady progression of new people - some created every day, new homeowners and what have you was enough to give a vibrant business, and ongoing sales. What changed was the deal. Pre 1980s most companies tried to balance the needs of all - staff, customers, local area, and shareholders. Post 1980s only the shareholders count, all else is secondary. Products and offerings are made and subscribed accordingly. The few folk still making stuff to last seem to have an anachronistic worldview to go with it. Perhaps still care about craftsmanship, repairability, and reputation, rather than built in obsolescence, subscriptions and DRM'd parts. Now they can sell you the thing 15 times, perhaps 12 of those without good cause apart from greed.
  - andrey-g 7y ago
    Could you give some examples of such products?
    - criddell 7y ago
      High end mechanical watches like Rolex and Omega. They keep parts going back decades. If a part isn't in inventory, there are watchmakers that can create just about any part from scratch.
      - Semiapies 7y ago
        Note that these are products that conspicuous consumers may in fact buy several of, including new models as they come out. Not exactly "farm tractors that last forever".
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      Kenwood and Dualit kitchen equipment and Linn hi-fi. Still support products they made in the sixties and seventies, and have provided upgrade routes and repairs for later improvements. In each case those flagship products still exist, are still being made, perhaps with vastly better materials and technology almost incomparable with the original, and spare and repairs are still readily available. Not too different with Hoover vacuums in the era of the Hoover Senior and Junior -- they stuck around, being repaired and reconditioned easily for decades. Had Hoover or Dyson not gone with cheap throwaway plastic for everything when cyclones meant capability improved in post 1980/1990 models we might have those lasting 30+ years easily too. As is they self destruct in a decade or less as more and more bits break. The (cheap plastic) spares that are available are priced such that you're heavily incentivised to replace. One or two commercial brands still make products that might last a while... Most of the current kitchen appliance brands are mainly now just worthless logos, usually owned en masse in a larger group, probably after a leveraged hostile buyout. Now made in the same single factory and generate churn with new models every year - for the sake of difference not because there is any improvement, just deliberately changed from the previous. Spare parts might be just filter, lamp or element, often deliberately unique to model, and will be available at vastly inflated price for limited time only. No end of other examples from hand tools, garage equipment, and home goods through to the most complex products.
m463 7y ago
That and control of how the product is "mis"-used and data gathering.
suzzer99 7y ago
You mean you don't want a mattress subscription?
lbotos 7y ago
My fave is "subscription headphones": https://www.nuraphone.com/products/nuranow https://www.nuraphone.com/products/nuranow
- Izkata 7y ago
  > Please note: NuraNow is not a rent-to-own program — as long as your subscription stays active, the Nuraphone stays active too. ...isn't that straight worse than rent-to-own...?
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    Rent-to-Never-Own
- spectramax 7y ago
  I had to double take on this to make sure it wasn't on the Onion. Wow, just wow.
- efreak 7y ago
  At least you get a free cable with it. With $20 RRP, I sure hope the entire cable is gold plated, not just the connectors.
- cosmodisk 7y ago
  Well,now I've seen everything.
- coupdejarnac 7y ago
  Interesting, I've been looking for case studies like this. I'm curious if there has been anything similar that managed to turn a long term profit.
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  Completely unsellable to anyone with a time preference extending beyond next month. But the remaining market is probably big enough.
- closetohome 7y ago
asdff 7y ago
That along with buying an entire new product for a minor gain. So what if the new car is super green? You are replacing one multiton hunk of metal and hazardous waste with a brand new multiton hunk of metal and hazardous waste, doubling your footprint of extraction of resources from the earth but netting the same utility. Or people who replace their perfectly functioning phone with a completely brand new phone to continuing to use the same exact trio of apps on a screen with darker blacks. The most frustrating part of tech is how disposable it is by design. It's degenerate and seemingly inescapable.
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  As annoying as replacing a phone is, I don't think the argument works for ecological dimension. The car produces many times larger carbon footprint in the course of being used, than comes from its manufacturing. Plus you are not destroying your old car, they are sold onwards and used for decades by someone anyways. You are probably enabling someone to replace a rusbucket two or three steps down the line, possibly in a condition so bad, it does not pass road worthiness tests.
  - AngryData 7y ago
    Well, unless you implement the Cash for Clunkers program that just smashes up a bunch of cars for a quick buck, then they don't get used. So many good and valuable cars, and especially car parts, that were all lost. People think "But it was a $500 car! They can't be good!" Except ive fixed and driven many $500 cars for the same amount in parts and put another 100K+ miles on them. $1000 for 28 MPG and 100K miles is a pretty damn good deal if you are poor as shit. But now those cars mostly don't exist because we smashed them all up and weren't allowed to part them out either. Instead of spending $20 for $150 worth of parts, now I gotta buy all new Chinese manufacturer replacements for 10X as much.
raxxorrax 7y ago
Especially in agriculture custom firmware is getting more and more prevalent. I think for many people wanting to be productive products like iCrap and consorts are generally not worth it. I think John Deere tractors were especially restrictive for any form of unauthorized rapairs. Restricting access for selected partners is a very customer hostile behavior. It is like printer ink all over again. Still there are high technically hurdles that can indeed be compared with the smartphone market that still supplies crappy software on otherwise decent phones.
daemin 7y ago
I think software broke economics in a way, since that was one of the only products which you could produce once and sell infinitely. No other thing on the planet you could do that with. All other things you need to transform something physical or spend time doing which results in a linear mapping between input and output. Digital goods (such as music, games, etc) do not count as independent things since they are implemented as software. Also previously things like music you had to perform or distribute physically.
- bregma 7y ago
  I'd like to introduce you to some songwriter friends of mine.
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    Before computing divorced the idea of the file from the physicality of the storage medium, music was sold as live performance, printed paper, plastic discs, or magnetic tape. Those all have a non-trivial cost of reproduction. Now that music is just files, the marginal cost of sending a file down the network wire is proportional to its compressed file size, which is insignificant in relation to the cost of the human labor of creating a master recording. Also, now that music is encoded digitally, all copies are (usually) perfect reproductions of the original.
    - bregma 7y ago
      Long before the invention of paper, plastic, magnetic tape, piano rolls, or metal drums with pins, songs and stories and other kinds of "intellectual property" could be conveyed from mind to mind verbally. Such ideas were expensive and difficult to create the original copy (ever write a song or derive Pythagoras' theorem from first principles?), but the marginal cost of each reproduction was minimal and close enough to zero. It it weren't, whoever wrote those earworms I get would be fabulously rich by now. Centuries, nay millennia, ago there were starving artists who created great works, only to have the economics of zero marginal cost of production take the food from their mouths. The appearance of and democratization of high-bandwidth telecommunication (enabled by computers, but not a property of computers) did not create that situation, it's only multiplied the zero marginal cost by a large constant. An if you've been paying attention, zero multiplied by anything is still zero.
W__S 7y ago
I may get tarred and feathered (well, more likely simply digitally snuffed out or whisked away to the digital concentration camp of shadow banning and/or digital gassing) for saying this here, but I think you are talking about two different motivations. One is the VC/investor trap, where the primary unrealized motivation is actually just finding VCs that will fund some scheme to be the "next {insert hopes and dreams of boundless riches}", where far more often than not the winners are the cunning founders (Adam Neumann anyone?) and the VCs, with everyone else left holding the bag (Hello, WeWork starry eyed people that believed the predictions of alien visitation) if the effort can't be pawned off on someone else, or some "exit" to a corp in a kind of reverse defensive blackmail auction to snuff out or keep a competitive advantage from a competitor. The other thing goin on here is that very predatory and pernicious and rent seeking nature you are directly referring to that seeks to constantly corral and rope in as many consumers as possible as the whole tech industry is rapacious in its lust to generate "ongoing revenue streams" through dependency or even (what used to be illegal) what amounts to predatory pricing and snuffing out alternatives by reaping havoc on the target industry and society. None of these tech companies should have been allowed to use this predatory pricing model to utterly decimate our economy as they have … Amazon, Uber, WeWork, etc. are just a few examples. At the very least it should not be allowed for public money (pensions, etc.) to be invested in companies that are unprofitable at certain ratios, e.g., over 1/4 of their existence. One clear example comes to mind in Uber/Lyft and their wake of both immoral and illegal actions that have led to the utter collapse of the taxi industry through unfair competition, predatory pricing, and illegality. What we are now left with is a for-hire transportation sector that is now a far less competitive environment (Uber/Lyft compared to roughly 5-20+ taxi companies per city (Ignore the flaws of the industry that are irrelevant to the anti-competitive issue), but we are now also facing a collapse of competition on a far larger scale, essentially Uber/Lyft instead of literally tens of thousands of taxi companies just alone in the USA. So what happens when the Taxis cannot keep up under the Uber/Lyft onslaught? Well, we know what happens, they use regulatory capture to limit and prevent competition and they start raising rates as they have and are doing.

Semiapies 7y ago

The problem is that not having a revenue stream is one of the most destructive forces to tech (or other) companies, and people like to keep their jobs.

cletus 7y ago
You make a thing. You sell your thing. You sell it for more than it cost to make it. That's your revenue stream. But that's not enough (apparently) hence locking down repairs and other anti-end user behaviour.
- OldManAndTheCpp 7y ago
  Now you've shipped your thing that lasts forever. If it's a mechanical object, maybe you can get continuing revenue from spare parts, but those will bring in less than the original purchase. Worst case, someone brings up a factory copying your part design (without doing any engineering work on them, just copies them exactly), and undercuts you. If you sell software, do you let the old stuff atrophy and become insecure? If not, you are spending salaries on maintenance without any associated revenue. As time goes on, the maintenance costs increase without bringing in another cent.
  - cletus 7y ago
    On the software front, this is why I, personally, am a fan of the subscription model... if done right. And almost no one does it right. The shining example for actually doing it right is Jetbrains. There is a schedule for new releases they keep to. You get loyalty discounts for long term subscriptions and ending a subscription entitles you to a version that is ~1 year old in perpetuity. Plus the prices are (IMHO) entirely reasonable. Almost no one else does this. Other companies will, say, take the MSRP of the software package, divide it by 12 and give you that as the monthly price with a minimum contract period of 12 months. They'll also restrict you to choose platform when you purchase and may limit the number of installs rather than concurrent users.
    - pixelface 7y ago
      Another company using this model very effectively is Derivative, makers of Touchdesigner. Licenses are sold at an initial price that includes a year of updates. Once that year expires, the newest version (old versions are kept available on the site) within your update period will continue to be usable with your license - which is freely transferable between machines. They offer a couple license tiers, custom work, and paid support hours. They even provide a free non-commercial license that is minimally limited and great for learning. The other great thing is that they are highly responsive to user feedback and bug reports. I've had a situation before where we found a bug in the course of a project and they fixed it in a matter of days, had a build sent over in time for my deadline, and then the fix was pushed for everyone in the following update. I frequently point them out as a model for the best way to offer a software product to both a professional and amateur market. It's essentially all the benefits of perpetual licensing while still providing a revenue stream for the company and ongoing support for professional users. No direct affiliation, but I've shared drinks with the devs and am a very pleased user.
  - crc32 7y ago
    > Now you've shipped your thing that lasts forever. If it's a mechanical object, maybe you can get continuing revenue from spare parts, but those will bring in less than the original purchase. This might be bad for a tractor manufacturer; but an everlasting tractor would be great for society, right? The incentive now is to innovate in order to create a better more efficient product. E.g.; a more fuel efficient tractor which increases productivity - then you'll get another sale. Deliberately hobbling your product so that it needs repair or replacement disincentives innovation and is a form of rent-seeking https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rentseeking.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rentseeking.asp and as such should be treated as a market failure. (I.e., legislated against)
    - closetohome 7y ago
      Exactly - it's a perverse incentive against the interests of society.
suzzer99 7y ago
As I type this I'm looking at the Onkyo stereo and Polk speakers I bought in college. I'm 50 years old. I can't help but think they regret making these things that durable.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y ago
UBI, more research spending, a flatter wealth distribution, and separating necessities from investment portfolios would help to allow developers to develop without living like stereotypical artists.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Hardly. There are countless firms who built their reputation on and survived quite happily making durable products. You might find pages of their early products filling eBay and the like, still going strong. A few are still adhering to those built to last attributes, most have transitioned into "as cheap as we can get away with, but with our valuable brand and logo" as has most of the whole world, including those offering coffee pod and headphone (ffs!) subscriptions. The steady progression of new people - some created every day, new homeowners and what have you was enough to give a vibrant business, and ongoing sales. What changed was the deal. Pre 1980s most companies tried to balance the needs of all - staff, customers, local area, and shareholders. Post 1980s only the shareholders count, all else is secondary. Products and offerings are made and subscribed accordingly. The few folk still making stuff to last seem to have an anachronistic worldview to go with it. Perhaps still care about craftsmanship, repairability, and reputation, rather than built in obsolescence, subscriptions and DRM'd parts. Now they can sell you the thing 15 times, perhaps 12 of those without good cause apart from greed.
- andrey-g 7y ago
  Could you give some examples of such products?
  - criddell 7y ago
    High end mechanical watches like Rolex and Omega. They keep parts going back decades. If a part isn't in inventory, there are watchmakers that can create just about any part from scratch.
    - Semiapies 7y ago
      Note that these are products that conspicuous consumers may in fact buy several of, including new models as they come out. Not exactly "farm tractors that last forever".
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Kenwood and Dualit kitchen equipment and Linn hi-fi. Still support products they made in the sixties and seventies, and have provided upgrade routes and repairs for later improvements. In each case those flagship products still exist, are still being made, perhaps with vastly better materials and technology almost incomparable with the original, and spare and repairs are still readily available. Not too different with Hoover vacuums in the era of the Hoover Senior and Junior -- they stuck around, being repaired and reconditioned easily for decades. Had Hoover or Dyson not gone with cheap throwaway plastic for everything when cyclones meant capability improved in post 1980/1990 models we might have those lasting 30+ years easily too. As is they self destruct in a decade or less as more and more bits break. The (cheap plastic) spares that are available are priced such that you're heavily incentivised to replace. One or two commercial brands still make products that might last a while... Most of the current kitchen appliance brands are mainly now just worthless logos, usually owned en masse in a larger group, probably after a leveraged hostile buyout. Now made in the same single factory and generate churn with new models every year - for the sake of difference not because there is any improvement, just deliberately changed from the previous. Spare parts might be just filter, lamp or element, often deliberately unique to model, and will be available at vastly inflated price for limited time only. No end of other examples from hand tools, garage equipment, and home goods through to the most complex products.

m463 7y ago

That and control of how the product is "mis"-used and data gathering.

suzzer99 7y ago

You mean you don't want a mattress subscription?

lbotos 7y ago

My fave is "subscription headphones": https://www.nuraphone.com/products/nuranow https://www.nuraphone.com/products/nuranow

Izkata 7y ago
> Please note: NuraNow is not a rent-to-own program — as long as your subscription stays active, the Nuraphone stays active too. ...isn't that straight worse than rent-to-own...?
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  Rent-to-Never-Own
spectramax 7y ago
I had to double take on this to make sure it wasn't on the Onion. Wow, just wow.
efreak 7y ago
At least you get a free cable with it. With $20 RRP, I sure hope the entire cable is gold plated, not just the connectors.
cosmodisk 7y ago
Well,now I've seen everything.
coupdejarnac 7y ago
Interesting, I've been looking for case studies like this. I'm curious if there has been anything similar that managed to turn a long term profit.
logfromblammo 7y ago
Completely unsellable to anyone with a time preference extending beyond next month. But the remaining market is probably big enough.
closetohome 7y ago

asdff 7y ago

That along with buying an entire new product for a minor gain. So what if the new car is super green? You are replacing one multiton hunk of metal and hazardous waste with a brand new multiton hunk of metal and hazardous waste, doubling your footprint of extraction of resources from the earth but netting the same utility. Or people who replace their perfectly functioning phone with a completely brand new phone to continuing to use the same exact trio of apps on a screen with darker blacks. The most frustrating part of tech is how disposable it is by design. It's degenerate and seemingly inescapable.

ClumsyPilot 7y ago
As annoying as replacing a phone is, I don't think the argument works for ecological dimension. The car produces many times larger carbon footprint in the course of being used, than comes from its manufacturing. Plus you are not destroying your old car, they are sold onwards and used for decades by someone anyways. You are probably enabling someone to replace a rusbucket two or three steps down the line, possibly in a condition so bad, it does not pass road worthiness tests.
- AngryData 7y ago
  Well, unless you implement the Cash for Clunkers program that just smashes up a bunch of cars for a quick buck, then they don't get used. So many good and valuable cars, and especially car parts, that were all lost. People think "But it was a $500 car! They can't be good!" Except ive fixed and driven many $500 cars for the same amount in parts and put another 100K+ miles on them. $1000 for 28 MPG and 100K miles is a pretty damn good deal if you are poor as shit. But now those cars mostly don't exist because we smashed them all up and weren't allowed to part them out either. Instead of spending $20 for $150 worth of parts, now I gotta buy all new Chinese manufacturer replacements for 10X as much.

raxxorrax 7y ago

Especially in agriculture custom firmware is getting more and more prevalent. I think for many people wanting to be productive products like iCrap and consorts are generally not worth it. I think John Deere tractors were especially restrictive for any form of unauthorized rapairs. Restricting access for selected partners is a very customer hostile behavior. It is like printer ink all over again. Still there are high technically hurdles that can indeed be compared with the smartphone market that still supplies crappy software on otherwise decent phones.

daemin 7y ago

I think software broke economics in a way, since that was one of the only products which you could produce once and sell infinitely. No other thing on the planet you could do that with. All other things you need to transform something physical or spend time doing which results in a linear mapping between input and output. Digital goods (such as music, games, etc) do not count as independent things since they are implemented as software. Also previously things like music you had to perform or distribute physically.

bregma 7y ago
I'd like to introduce you to some songwriter friends of mine.
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  Before computing divorced the idea of the file from the physicality of the storage medium, music was sold as live performance, printed paper, plastic discs, or magnetic tape. Those all have a non-trivial cost of reproduction. Now that music is just files, the marginal cost of sending a file down the network wire is proportional to its compressed file size, which is insignificant in relation to the cost of the human labor of creating a master recording. Also, now that music is encoded digitally, all copies are (usually) perfect reproductions of the original.
  - bregma 7y ago
    Long before the invention of paper, plastic, magnetic tape, piano rolls, or metal drums with pins, songs and stories and other kinds of "intellectual property" could be conveyed from mind to mind verbally. Such ideas were expensive and difficult to create the original copy (ever write a song or derive Pythagoras' theorem from first principles?), but the marginal cost of each reproduction was minimal and close enough to zero. It it weren't, whoever wrote those earworms I get would be fabulously rich by now. Centuries, nay millennia, ago there were starving artists who created great works, only to have the economics of zero marginal cost of production take the food from their mouths. The appearance of and democratization of high-bandwidth telecommunication (enabled by computers, but not a property of computers) did not create that situation, it's only multiplied the zero marginal cost by a large constant. An if you've been paying attention, zero multiplied by anything is still zero.

W__S 7y ago

I may get tarred and feathered (well, more likely simply digitally snuffed out or whisked away to the digital concentration camp of shadow banning and/or digital gassing) for saying this here, but I think you are talking about two different motivations. One is the VC/investor trap, where the primary unrealized motivation is actually just finding VCs that will fund some scheme to be the "next {insert hopes and dreams of boundless riches}", where far more often than not the winners are the cunning founders (Adam Neumann anyone?) and the VCs, with everyone else left holding the bag (Hello, WeWork starry eyed people that believed the predictions of alien visitation) if the effort can't be pawned off on someone else, or some "exit" to a corp in a kind of reverse defensive blackmail auction to snuff out or keep a competitive advantage from a competitor. The other thing goin on here is that very predatory and pernicious and rent seeking nature you are directly referring to that seeks to constantly corral and rope in as many consumers as possible as the whole tech industry is rapacious in its lust to generate "ongoing revenue streams" through dependency or even (what used to be illegal) what amounts to predatory pricing and snuffing out alternatives by reaping havoc on the target industry and society. None of these tech companies should have been allowed to use this predatory pricing model to utterly decimate our economy as they have … Amazon, Uber, WeWork, etc. are just a few examples. At the very least it should not be allowed for public money (pensions, etc.) to be invested in companies that are unprofitable at certain ratios, e.g., over 1/4 of their existence. One clear example comes to mind in Uber/Lyft and their wake of both immoral and illegal actions that have led to the utter collapse of the taxi industry through unfair competition, predatory pricing, and illegality. What we are now left with is a for-hire transportation sector that is now a far less competitive environment (Uber/Lyft compared to roughly 5-20+ taxi companies per city (Ignore the flaws of the industry that are irrelevant to the anti-competitive issue), but we are now also facing a collapse of competition on a far larger scale, essentially Uber/Lyft instead of literally tens of thousands of taxi companies just alone in the USA. So what happens when the Taxis cannot keep up under the Uber/Lyft onslaught? Well, we know what happens, they use regulatory capture to limit and prevent competition and they start raising rates as they have and are doing.