[rndmwlk]

To say competition on pricing and product are orthogonal is to treat this like some sort of study and completely ignore the real world conditions that these businesses live in.

The salient point the author is making is these predatory pricing strategies allow these VC backed firms to capture a market, then the VCs exit and everyone else is holding the bag. It doesn't matter how good your product is if it costs more to run than it brings in it will, eventually, no longer exist. Ultimately, these companies business models absolutely did not outcompete cabs on merits alone; they had a better product that relied on predatory pricing to attract customers.