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Comment by onion2k | Hacker News Reader

Uber don't need to invent self-driving themselves so long as whoever does invent self-driving cars sells them on the free market. Uber has a strong brand and loyal customers, and they could make out like bandits even if they have to buy the tech from someone else.

Their real problem is if some other company perfects self-driving cars and doesn't sell them. Perhaps Uber have decided that's unlikely, either because no one will or because a company that isn't looking at ride-sharing will.

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Uber has a strong network effect, but I don't think there's actually much brand loyalty.

Perhaps negative brand loyalty, to be honest.

I'm not sure how strong a network effect other than in a local area. I'd be pretty sure that (in normal times) their primary market isn't business travelers flitting from SF to NYC to London but residents of $CITY using Uber Pool for commuting or Uber to go out with friends on a night out to a bar.

Contrary to that, local profitable markets like Manhattan have had significant entrants eat away at Uber’s market share with companies like Juno scooping up the best customers and drivers. The same thing happened in many cities in the early 20th century before streetcar operators managed to get jitney cabs (the unlicensed pool taxis of their day) banned because too many teens would borrow the family car after school and drive in front of streetcars on profitable lines and scoop riders for nickels instead of dimes.

Uber and Lyft have a de facto duopoly amongst those hopping off planes because it’s hard to know that there are any other local options available.

And for that matter, I often take a cab from the airport because it's not my money and I can't be bothered to mess around. Uber and Lyft are often more trouble than they're worth.

But if there's a local alternative known to be better for going out with their friends, you can be sure that a person used to going out regularly with their friends will know what it is.

It seems really premature to make any declarations about brand loyalty when Uber is still majorly subsidizing consumer prices with a VC cash bonfire.

The big scare at the time Uber started it's own unit was that "once Waymo or another competitor has self driving cars, it will be easy to offer a ride share network and compete with Uber"

that sounds unlikely. self-driving isn't like a social network, the ones end up building it would've invested tens of billions - so basically Amazon or Google. I find it hard to believe they would want to sell that technology to Uber. If anything, Google has large investment in Lyft, more likely they will acquire Lyft to deploy their own driving fleet all integrated under G Suite.

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