If Alphabet really wants to mess with Uber, why don't they just buy Lyft and offer lower ride pricing/higher driver pay for as long as it takes to put Uber out of business?
ridesharing companies come with a lot of potential legal issues and and acquiring company would be exposed to a lot of risk, ambiguity in employee/contractor designation being top of mind. I find a large scale acquisition in this space unlikely.
That's going to take a lot of dollars..
It also would send a strong message to everyone they ever partner with in the future.
Partner with and then have steal intellectual property from, you mean? That's a precedent Google would like to have set. It's like a public hanging of bandits.
Bingo, I could have phrased that better, this is exactly what I meant. I was thinking of the message as "partner with us and try to screw us and you're in for a world of hurt, partner with us and treat us well and we'll make sure you're taken care of"
True, but if anyone has a lot of dollars it's Alphabet.