[sundaeofshock]

Keep in mind that uber was successful early on not because of price, but because it was significantly more reliable then a cab. I was willing to pay a bit more then a cab to get to the airport because I knew I could count on that uber to arrive at my house on time.

Uber and Lyft are not trying to be cost competitive with cabs; they are trying to be cost competitive with public transit.

[taormina]

I'm still convinced that the only innovation that ever happened in this space by Uber was the guaranteed ride. They chose to fight (ok, ignore) the taxi regulations, but from a features perspective the taxi apps already did all this. The difference was that any random person off the street could still flag your cab so in practice you rarely got a taxi if you weren't in a "hot spot". Reliability matters.