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> First, you heavily subsidize the price to maximize your user base, only then do you start charging what the product was worth all along. More and more I feel

> First, you heavily subsidize the price to maximize your user base, only then do you start charging what the product was worth all along. More and more I feel this should run afoul of anti-trust laws. It's one thing to subsidize a product short term. It's another to subsidize a product for years upon years so you can squeeze out any competition in the market. In the example of Uber and Lyft, how many start-ups that weren't flush with hundreds of millions of VC cash completely failed or never even got off the launchpad because there was no way for them to compete against a company selling it's services at a loss for years at at time?

lasean 3y ago
I'm not an attorney, but have sat through many sessions with our legal team in the past on this topic (pricing models). Agree the practice may fee icky, but I'm not sure this case would qualify as anticompetitive (in the US). First, lawyers would have a field day at defining and redefining the market. Related, it is unclear what other services we as consumers no longer have access to due to them executing this strategy. So across consumer harm, market power/monopoly, and predatory pricing the legal case might be challenging to construct. Back to your point, maybe this practice SHOULD run afoul with anti-trust laws, but the laws may need to change to apply to this situation.