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Comment by bhouston | Hacker News Reader

Uber is only greatly cheaper during this initial period of VC-funded expansion in order to gain market share. There should be no expectation that it will remain this way after it has beaten soundly its competition and established itself.

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Its argument of lower fares bringing in more customers thus raising revenues for the drivers might play out in major markets (NY, SF, LA, DC), but doesn't seem to apply to smaller markets http://ridesharedashboard.com/2015/03/19/uber-for-the-first-...

Here in Bangkok UberBlack is about 150% the cost of a local taxi. UberX is about 95% the cost of a local. Besides price, you'd never know the difference between an UberBlack and an UberX - both are hands down much better in every measure of quality over local taxis.

I was in Budapest the other day Ubers there were about 50% the cost of local taxis, but the quality varied wildly. Some days I got a BMW driven by a guy in a suit, other days a beat up Lada with a grumpy old man who smelled. Local taxis were brand new with sharply dressed, English speaking drivers.

Yep, this is an interesting pattern in a libertarian (essentially, they are ignoring laws for now) society. They will provide good service and rates until they have a monopoly and can maintain it. Then, they'll abuse the customer until a viable alternative pops up.

And this is why antitrust law exists.

You assume they can get to 'monopoly'(how do you define monopoly? 80% 90% 100%?). In an actual free market that will rarely, if ever happens. When has that actually occurred? (government backed cartels don't count)

That's a very good point.

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