"It's almost impossible to stop competitors in ride-sharing because the cost of switching for customers is low, there are no legal or capital ex competitive barriers, and you can be picked apart city by city."
This is so true. I only ever take rideshare to/from airports, and those trips are sufficiently expensive that it makes sense for me to spend the extra minute to launch the four different ridesharing apps I have installed and comparison-shop the cheapest one. It's a no-brainer to spend a minute to potentially save $40 or more, depending on surge conditions.
And four might be a little extreme, but I hardly know anyone who uses rideshare at all who doesn't at least have both Lyft and Uber installed. And even two players in a competitive market can drastically fight prices to the bottom. Ridesharing is not a duopoly situation.
I was the "only has Uber" ride share user for a long time. Then I landed at Orlando and Uber was going to be $60+ for a 15 minute ride. Even though my company was paying for it, that was BS and I added Lyft on the spot. Lyft now gets probably 70% of my rides.
Would a taxi have cost $60? They tend to also have the pro of already being at the airport.
I don't think "anti-taxi" was why most people picked up Uber, rather it was cheaper. So if that isn't the case then going to a taxi rank makes a lot of sense in many cases.
If Lyft was not reasonably priced, I'd have checked on the taxi situation. It turns out Lyft was $21 and change and I gave a $4 tip. If a cab was going to be $60 each way as well, I may have even gone and rented a car.
I am spoiled by the ride hailing apps; a medallioned taxi is a distant last resort for me personally. I may never call for a cab again in my life and that'll be just fine for me. Walking up to an airport cab stand is convenient and certain, so that's still in play.
At least in my area the taxis have rebranded to "zTrip" and similar and they all have apps very similar to Lyft/Uber. There might be room in the market now for a fare aggregator to cut down on the number of apps.
I think the main reason people start using Uber isn’t that it’s cheaper than a taxi, it’s that they want a ride and there are no taxis around. I can’t catch a taxi at my house (which is like two miles from downtown Oakland, not the middle of nowhere) but I can get an Uber there easily.
It's probably a mix. I don't use them a lot but, when I do, it's mostly because taxi dispatch tends to suck, payment can be a pain when the card reader is "broken" (and in any case is usually a less straightforward process). The main time I'll often still use cabs is from the airport because they're right there; I use pre-booked private cars to and from my own airport. So price isn't really a factor.
But, to the degree that some people are using them to replace other forms of transportation, including car ownership at the margins, price does matter. A lot of rides people take today would probably not be taken at 2x pricing.
This is so true. I only ever take rideshare to/from airports, and those trips are sufficiently expensive that it makes sense for me to spend the extra minute to launch the four different ridesharing apps I have installed and comparison-shop the cheapest one. It's a no-brainer to spend a minute to potentially save $40 or more, depending on surge conditions.
And four might be a little extreme, but I hardly know anyone who uses rideshare at all who doesn't at least have both Lyft and Uber installed. And even two players in a competitive market can drastically fight prices to the bottom. Ridesharing is not a duopoly situation.