[justinv]

But is Lyft really the competition for Uber in the long run?

This almost feels like the Blu Ray and HD DVD war - yeah, Blu Ray beat HD DVD, but digital beat out both. At what point do self driving cars mean that Uber no longer has a competitive advantage in transportation? Aka if you remove the need to sign up drivers, then you're just competing on cost of a vehicle + overhead as the cost to a customer to switch from Uber to say 'FordNow!' is so low - I just download another app.

Uber is competing with all forms of transportation and to beat everyone there is a long time to try to wait and stay solvent for.

[peatmoss]

> the cost to a customer to switch...

I think this is the key here. Network effects are powerful, but are highly contingent on switching costs. It costs drivers and passengers next to nothing to switch between providers. A relationship between driver and passenger only exists for a single ride.

By contrast, look at Facebook's network effect. The switching cost to obtain a comparable service is talking all your friends and elderly relatives into Something New. Hence G+ making roughly zero gain against the Book.

[rhino369]

Ubers treatment of their drivers as "contractors" has hurt their network effect. Because they can't make them exclusive to uber. All the uber drivers in DC also use lyft. And they'd use another service if that popped up.

I bounce around between the two based on whoever gave me a discount.

[rnernento]

It's not that easy to get in though, you need a huge investment in a sufficient number of autonomous vehicles for any area you want to enter.