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Comment by musicale | Hacker News Reader

> Uber/Lyft did outcompete taxis on merit, and to suggest otherwise is revisionist history

> People talk about how Uber/Lyft dodged taxi regulation, which is true

Taxis sucked (and still do), but Uber/Lyft's not-so-secret sauce was regulatory evasion, claiming that their taxi service wasn't a taxi service and that their employees weren't employees.

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Also Uber/Lyft were "dumping" their product, selling rides below cost by partially funding every ride with VC investment money.

This made their product artificially competitive.

I always see people say this but I don't know how they were subsidizing rides. I was an early Uber driver when I was in grad school and I received roughly 2/3rds of what riders paid. Was Uber's third take too low?

I would also receive a lower fare when the rider used a coupon or had a promotion. It always seemed more like I was subsidizing the rides rather than Uber.

Maybe, just maybe, your singular experience is not accurately representative of Uber's business? You can go look up how they were clearly subsidizing fares.

Right—I'm sure they won some business because they were actually a better experience in some ways, but I've ridden in like three taxis ever in my nearly 40 years on this planet, and never in the place where I live, but have taken probably thirty or forty ubers/lyfts, most of them near home. Why? Taxis were too expensive, so I never even considered them an option. Ubers and Lyfts were stupid-cheap for a long time.

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