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Comment by kinkdr | Hacker News Reader

In my simplistic mind, their business model is to spend a lot of money today in order to create a monopoly tomorrow.

If you look at the Uber blogs and public statements, the company is far more ambitious than simply being the ride sharer with the largest market share.

The company's vision is to make transportation as seamless and reliable as running water. They have other projects going on right now, such as delivery truck automation and self-driving cars. I would consider them to be competing not only with Lyft but also with Hertz, Budget, and Enterprise.

Please, this is all hype to capture investors. What does Uber have other than money that gives them an advantage in self driving cars? Having users doesn't matter either. Google could add self driving taxi summoning to Google Maps overnight and we'd all be using it.

On my Android phone, when I look up directions for something, it shows something like this in Google Maps:

    Drive | 10 minutes
    Bus   | 35 minutes
    Walk  | 75 minutes
    Bike  | 25 minutes
    UberX | 13 minutes

This could be some add-in from having the Uber app installed; I have Lyft installed as well and it doesn't appear.

I agree that this "like running water" tag line is a bit over the top.

Its a standard feature on mobile, it does require the providers app installed, and there are a limited number of supported providers:

https://maps.googleblog.com/2016/03/your-car-has-arrived-mor...

To me it seems like they're realising that there aren't actually that much money to be made by taxiing people around. Now they need another infusion of cash to transition or expand the business, hoping to find some other source of profit.

In what way is the ride-share market any sort of monopoly when there's little barrier to entry. In fact, I see new entrants in this market all the time. Hardly any chance to be a real monopoly unless they can somehow carve their way to exclusivity in a market, which is never going to happen.

The ride-sharing market stops being a free-for-all once many people start to share a car and it's critical to find the most optimal route for them. Than having large masses of users become critical.

The only thing i find curious - why is UBER/LYFT so slow in attacking the true sharing market ?

Because people don't actually want to share a cab with a stranger, and wait while that stranger is dropped off.

At least, that's my bet.

Yep. I've been creeped on by drivers before. Not many, but it's enough that I've taken to cancelling more rides than I would have in the past (generally: male driver I don't know + low rating + nighttime = cancel). Having to deal with sharing a car with not just one stranger, but two or more strangers? Nuh-uh. At least most drivers won't creep on me because they want to keep their jobs; fellow passengers, on the other hand, don't have that incentive.

Their long-term play is driverless cards--buy or lease fleet cars, then charge people a subscription to commute or use the cars a certain amount per month. The current business is building brand awareness and inertia.

I've seen this idea but can't understand it. By owning or leasing a fleet of driverless cars Uber only increases its operating costs

Well, for Uber it's do or die.

But for the manufacturers of autonomous vehicles- why would they sell cars Uber at a ~5% margin per car when they can offer the robotaxi service themselves and command a ~25% margin per trip?

That's easy. Because don't have to worry about finding customers, fighting off competition, and competing with their customers (like Uber). They just have to worry about building cars.

Further, they're also collecting massive amounts of data about commuting patterns that will give them an edge over new entrants once driverless cars are a thing.

Ahem. "cards" = "cars", "inertia" = "momentum"

Sorry if I was not clear. I meant that it sounds to me that this is their plan. I didn't say they will succeed.

I wouldn't be surprised if Uber and Lyft start lobbying for legislation that will make it difficult for new entrants in the market.

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