Yes. Perhaps even moreso. With Uber, at least in the beginning and still a little now, there was a contingent of both professional drivers and customers willing to use a sustainable service.
Uber made total sense in big cities when minimums were $15, the average ride was $40+, and all cars were staffed by professional drivers looking for extra income and hours between clients. It was win-win, complied with the law and really didn’t even have that big of an impact on the taxi industry because it wasn’t a race to the bottom.
None of these services make any sense with $7 rides and random people with a drivers license trying to make a living off of driving all day long.
Can you elaborate? Uber especially engaged in massive expenses on self driving cars, market share grabs, etc. But take those out and what remains seems to be a solid ride hailing business that should be able to generate stable profit.
It needs to be less expensive than a taxi to generate a lot of demand, but this seems to be a pretty low bar.
If they raise the prices, does the market go away?
If they are able to outlast and go to self-driving cars, how profitable is that business when factoring in competition, possible regulation, or it even becoming a public utility?
You’re underestimating the current oligarchy that exists. That’s why net neutrality is dead. You’re right, it’s not intrinsically true, but it’s pretty damn close to it...
Side note: big companies generally die because they don’t take a real threat seriously, and by the time they do, it’s too late.
Uber made total sense in big cities when minimums were $15, the average ride was $40+, and all cars were staffed by professional drivers looking for extra income and hours between clients. It was win-win, complied with the law and really didn’t even have that big of an impact on the taxi industry because it wasn’t a race to the bottom.
None of these services make any sense with $7 rides and random people with a drivers license trying to make a living off of driving all day long.