Sidecar is an excellent illustration of the first mover disadvantage. When Sidecar started, they looked carefully at the existing laws and crafted their product to stay, to their best judgement, on the exact right side of the law. That's why, in early Sidecar, for example, drivers negotiated directly with passengers for the fare and why sidecar cars carried no visible exterior markings.

Lyft and Uber decided to play the much higher risk/higher reward game of antagonizing regulators in exchange for better product. In the early days of the rideshare war, the Lyft pink mustaches were everywhere and everyone was made aware that Lyft existed due to them.

It's an excellent example of how "playing clean" is not always in an entrepreneur's best interest and how luck and a willingness to take risk can alter fortunes on a profound scale.