Yes, they are. I don't care whether a ride service is available in one, a dozen or three hundred locations. I care about the best option in my city, and I would bet dollars to donuts that this aligns with the market majority.
A thousand local or regional competitors are just as much an existential threat to Uber as one or two big ones.
Agree, it’s definitely possible (and rather easy) for regional competitors to enter the market. I also live in Austin and when Uber and Lyft left I switched to Fasten and Ride Austin with absolutely no difference to the end user experience. If someone else came along at a significant discount to Uber and Lyft I would switch in a heartbeat. I often converse with drivers about it and they have the exact same approach. Whoever pays the most for them gets their business, whoever charges the least gets the rider business. Ride sharing is basically a commodity right now and anyone who thinks otherwise and invests accordingly is going to get burned. The only thing that is going to change that IMO is autonomous vehicles.
> Ride sharing is basically a commodity right now and anyone who thinks otherwise and invests accordingly is going to get burned. The only thing that is going to change that IMO is autonomous vehicles.
TBH, I think that the autonomous vehicles is just a further illustration of the extent to which it's a commodity. To an approximation, the product is that you got from point A to point B for $dollars in #time. If you can get that sorted out, people will barely even care if the service is provided by JohnnyCab from Total Recall.
It's exactly the same economics as govern airlines, which are famously the last place you put your money if you're trying to turn it into more money. There's some room for differentiation based on quality of service, but it's proportional to the product of the percentage of people who aren't spending their own money and the percentage of companies whose operations departments are on the ball.
You speak truth, but the weird reality that we live in seems to dictate that the first mover advantage in autonomous vehicle world suggests that the people who are able to bring this reality forward will own the space for at least a year or two. It’s an exciting time to be alive and witness this at least.
A thousand local or regional competitors are just as much an existential threat to Uber as one or two big ones.