At this point, with over $1 billion invested, the most viable opportunity left for Lyft investors is to pressure Uber or someone else into acquiring Lyft.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/12/accusations-fly-bet...
Natural barriers to entry? Nope, all you need is a half-way decent mobile app and some people with cars. Yes, the bigger your fleet the larger an area you can cover, but there's no need to serve an entire metropolitan area if covering just some of it is enough to turn a profit. (For example, if I were going to enter the ride-for-hire market in NYC today, I'd put all my drivers at JFK, Laguardia, and Times Square.)
Artificial barriers to entry? There used to be, in the form of TLC monopolies and regulations around medallions. The nice thing about Uber's success, though, is that they're bearing the brunt of breaking down these barriers, leaving the path open for those that will follow.
Network effects? Mmm...some, but only for those that travel frequently. That is, if you often find yourself in a new city, your first act might be to open the Uber app because you can count on them providing service in a new, unfamiliar local. I'd wager that's the minority of ride-for-hire customers, though. Each city has its own local mass transit, and there hasn't been a push to standardize across regions. (Though wouldn't it be nice if your Metro Card worked on BART?)
On the flip-side, I see a lot of opportunity for new competitors to differentiate themselves. For example, let's say you decide to focus on the "regular customer": someone who travels roughly the same route most days of the week, a commuter or someone with a daily or semi-weekly appointment to keep. Imagine you could tune your service to get the same driver for these customers most days. Now you have a familiar face picking you up, who knows where you're going, what route you prefer, what station you like on the radio, etc. If I was that customer, I'd take that service over Uber in a heart-beat.
So, again, why should it be winner-takes-all?
If a competitor enters the market and offers a better deal for drivers and/or customers, it would be trivial for them to switch, no? There's no lock in beyond a free mobile app download, a username/password combo, and a CC on file.
I think the only way that supply could present a barrier to entry is if you assume that for-hire rides are a commodity and price is the only consideration. It seems obvious to me that this is not the case.
...but seriously, on what are you basing the power-law distribution claim? And what exactly does "success" mean anyway? Market share? Revenue? Profitability? I know a number of small, yet very profitable software companies.
How does the context add to the GP's point? I don't think they were saying the dynamics here are the same as in GGR.
That does not seem to work out worldwide. GetTaxi and Yandex.Taxi are still leading apps in Moscow, Cabify and Hailo dominate Madrid and Didi Kuaidi enjoys its first-mover advantage in China despite Uber expanding in all those markets.