
“Ridesharing” as we know is it going to crash - jonthepirate
As a former Lyft engineer of 2.5 years, I love dreaming about how my net worth is increasing every time Uber&#x27;s CEO makes another catastrophic gaffe. The Lyft numbers continue skyrocketing and things have never looked better for something I now own tons of stock in.<p>However, if you ask me, the value of today&#x27;s ride sharing networks are in the human driver network only. These companies spend tons of effort corralling humans into their apps in order to have your ass in a seat within just a few minutes.<p>The technology to create a ride dispatching software platform is extremely easy to crank out. I cranked one out from scratch a few months ago for a company in Africa (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;play.google.com&#x2F;store&#x2F;apps&#x2F;details?id=com.safeboda.passenger&amp;hl=en) in just 10 days and chronicled it here (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hackernoon.com&#x2F;how-building-lyft-helped-me-launch-a-new-ride-share-app-in-10-days-4d73b0ee1e3e)<p>If&#x2F;when the tech for driverless comes of age, vehicle manufacturers will be able to quickly produce enough units to satisfy demand, develop an app for very low cost, and crash the value of human powered networks.<p>If Google releases an app &amp; automated car, I&#x27;m going to install it. Same for Tesla. Would I want to use a 3rd party ride aggregator to save $0.50 or have it arrive a minute sooner? Not if I could ride to work in a Tesla for $3.<p>I say &quot;ridesharing&quot; in double quotes because this whole thing is obviously just taxi 2.0. A ride SHARE would be if someone joined you, as the driver, on a ride you were already going on anyway.
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shams93
In a real ride share you could negotiate the cost, say you find someone who is
driving to where you work already you could figure out what they pay for the
car and the ride themselves, then you both get to use the rideshare lane, but
you have a much lower cost for commuting than using uber or lyft to commute
with a negotiated process to rideshare.

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greglindahl
Where this is common, the $$ is usually "free". See Washington DC "slug lines"
for an example. Slug lines have very limited pick-up and drop-off points.

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smileysteve
> If/when the tech for driverless comes of age, vehicle manufacturers will be
> able to quickly produce enough units to satisfy demand, develop an app for
> very low cost, and crash the value of human powered networks.

This is why Uber wants/needs to be first and probably involved with the stake
that GM took in Lyft.

