[gjreda]

Does this change when the two options are perfect substitutes?

As a rider, there's no "cost" to having both apps, so I'll just check both.

Similarly, as a driver, I'll just sit with both apps open and see which one I get a rider on.

[dzhiurgis]

> As a rider, there's no "cost" to having both apps, so I'll just check both

Sure, if you never left your country. I certainly didn’t want to register to Italy’s official taxi app - don’t wanna trust them my CC nor my life to horrible service I’ve received (same price as Uber, horrible car)

[paulddraper]

Sure. If a competitor has managed to get good consumer market share, then switching is easy. The marketplaces are not exclusive.

If, for example, HomeAway got a similar number of rentals to Airbnb (though in this particular case, it hasn't), then both markets could easily co-exist.

Creating C2C marketplaces, however, is not an easy task.

[TylerE]

Makes you wonder why no one has built an app that interfaces with all of them, and finds you the cheapest rate, while taking a kickback.

[dragonwriter]

> Makes you wonder why no one has built an app that interfaces with all of them, and finds you the cheapest rate, while taking a kickback.

They did (well, it at least has multiple Uber and Lyft services, and I don't know that they get a kickback); the app is called “Google Maps”.

[majani]

Uber forbids price comparison in their TOS and actively threaten to shut down price comparison sites that use their API: https://www.wired.com/story/uber-and-lyfts-never-ending-ques...

I guess the plan for Uber was always to use low prices to win the market and jack them back up later. Price comparison would interfere with this plan.

[paulddraper]

Did they make a buddy deal for Google Maps then?

[dzhiurgis]

Such API’s should be mandated by government - after all road surface is limited resource hence its a natural monopoly.

[gregoryrueda]

Saw a web app that did this a few years ago. Likely the companies made changes to their API’s. Would love to see it again though.