[mseebach]

There's nothing about this that will allow a single, monopolistic entity to emerge. There are probably hundreds of "Uber-ripoff" apps out there by now. Sure, as long as someone is willing to pour VC money into it and give people subsidized rides, sure, Uber can kill off contenders and stay dominant. But the second Uber starts raising prices to extract monopoly profits, someone else steps in and undercuts them. You can probably get started in a city for a few $100k, or even less if you have an existing operation of some sort you can leverage.

The low-barrier-to-entry nature of this market is pretty much perfectly suited for market conditions to prevail and ride prices to stabilize quite near their costs.

[emodendroket]

That's essentially the argument NC has presented for why Uber is not sustainable.

[mseebach]

In that case they make very bad arguments, because such an equilibrium would be expected to be quite stable (although Uber might not be part of it).

[emodendroket]

If Uber "is not part of the equilibrium" then that would suggest it wasn't sustainable.

[mseebach]

So they would have preferred it, possibly come to a different conclusion, if Uber would have been likely to be established as a perpetual monopoly?

[emodendroket]

It's not a normative argument.

[mseebach]

So they did not base any decision on the observation?