I was visiting Nigeria earlier this year and Taxify now known as Bolt was soooo much easier to use than Uber, cheaper, more cars, drivers said they much preferred to drive for Bolt than Uber. They make more and their rules are not as draconian as Uber.
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There goes the Uber propaganda... there is NO. MOAT. Anyone can start an app, business is at the hand of drivers, not Uber.
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Yes of course, copy a completely unprofitable business model that burns thru millions annually and... charge the customer even less!
Only in 2019...
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Somebody should file an antitrust lawsuit against Uber and they should win
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"Vanquished many rivals", but been booted out of how many markets because of homegrown competitors or stiff regulation?
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I am glad to see that some people have open eyes. It makes me hopeful that the air will be let out gently from the. Unicorn bubble and it will not all implode suddenly like it did in the 2000’s for the dotcoms
SoftBank is the other business that needs the jaundiced eye of the skeptic
It's not like Amazon, Google, Facebook et. al. don't have local competitors that are eating their lunch.
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Tallinn is a wonderful city full of rich history! So exciting to hear they have a thriving technology industry. If Bolt has an English version of the App, I will use it when I return.
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This is why Uber's market value is so absurd. The barrier to entry into this market is just not that high.
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Do these businesses (UBER,LYFT,BOLT...) create descent jobs, with social security protection ?
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Wonderful!
Low barriers to entry is the critical point. Uber outsourced all there physical capital. Their singular product is software. As we know, software is easily replicated, reverse engineered, stolen or flat out hacked. Why does anyone care about Uber specifically? They are merely a homogeneous service that connects passenger demand with driver supply.
"So forgettable, that's what you are..."
The irony of course is Uber is desperately fighting to prevent regulation on things like labor protections for drivers or supply caps like taxi medallions. While at the same time, Uber is trying to construct legal barriers to entry for companies like Bolt for their own financial protection.
You should lament your over priced investments in ride-hailing IPOs. There's no brand loyalty in Uber. That's the lesson yellow cabs learned. A ride is a ride. You're going from point A to point B. Anyone who can do that safely and efficiently is going to win the market. Period.
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Hello Justice Department...
But Uber has also argued that ride-hailing is a battle of attrition and that it can outlast rivals. “Our scale and platform provide us with important advantages,” it said in its public offering prospectus this month.
Classic monopoly-like behavior
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@jb Why would the Justice dept be interested, anti-trust enforcement.
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What happened to market competition? Why are all these tech companies allowed to buy up the competition? Markets work properly only when there is sufficient competition, not monopoly or near monopoly. Where are the government watchdogs that are supposed to disallow this kind of behavior?
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This is what happens to the Ubers of the world when your entire business is basically.... an app.
What I would like to see is a ride service that is employee-owned by the drivers. It's the perfect kind of business for this paradigm, nearly horizontal in its structure.
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Yet another reason not to bail the early Uber investors out by buying stock in their upcoming Ponzi scheme of an IPO.
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What this article implies resonates with The Economist's article on the unicorns: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/04/17/the-wave-of-unicorn-ipos-reveals-silicon-valleys-groupthink. Basically, they all claim to have strong moats while in reality what they do might be easily copied by other startups.
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@Nahua
Agreed, it seems completely nutty to believe in these companies. Economies of scale, network effects and the value of data are part of the "formula", but these factors do not apply very much to a ride-hailing/taxi service. People will call the cheapest and fastest ride, and how many cities one serves is almost entirely irrelevant.
As time goes on, we are likely to see worse and worse ideas pushed as the next big thing (the best ideas were likely to be implemented early in the internet age), and ride-hailing might on the unprofitable region of the curve.
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This is one of the main flaws in Uber/Lyft's business model. There is no barrier to entry to prevent new businesses from entering the market and competing with them. It's happening in almost every international market that Uber enters.
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All uber has is momentum. The technology is almost trivial to reproduce. My fantasy is that a social justice philanthropist will develop and promote a non profit tech platform to allow drivers to make a living wage by letting them keep most of the fares instead of the half and declining share that uber allows.
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Even the momentum has slowed.
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Its an extraordinary time in history when a high school graduate can start a company and scale up to the 'illions'.
It's the leverage of computers and information distribution over conventional business methods.
I can't help but feel like we're all on the outside looking in, and only 15 year olds actually get it.
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@Oh
There have been more millionaires this past decade than any other due to computers and the internet
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Bill Gates never graduated college and look what he accomplished.
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If Car2Go can fix its security issues and prevent people from stealing its vehicles - it will eventually overtake rideshare because it’s less expensive, more convenient and a more efficient use of capital resources.
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Ah, the modern economy: “we’re losing less money than our rivals.”
Hubris.
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Competition is always a good thing, but this is still another thorn in the halo of thorns that is the Gig Economy.
People require fair pay, reliable hours, and some degree of security, not only to survive but to wake up each day and feel optimistic about the future.
There! My small screed for the week. : )
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Uber is quite simply a house of cards. Nothing - but nothing - about it in indicates it will ever make money. And everything about it says it will only last along as people put billions into it every year. But that is over for Uber and the public markets are only there for prior investors to get out, to sell to suckers. Game over.
This article says it better than any I’ve seen - the guy nailed it.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/04/22/ubers-ipo-valuation-makes-no-sense/#2ba382d2540d
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"Some Americans can't find on a map?" Most Americans can't find Europe on a map! Note that the Estonians created Skype and then sold it to Microsoft. A small country but quite a creative one, yes?
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A Dane and a Swede created Skype - and sold it to EBay
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Actually created by a Swede and a Dane in cooperation with Estonian engineers. @Jim Trupin
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I wonder if a local co-op of drivers in small cities could pull together a plan to offer "share-rides" where they live.
If it was small and internet based, they might have almost no expenses and the drivers would make more money and the passengers could save money.
The drivers could research safety of their group and stick together. Savvy techies could surely figure it out to keep everyone safe. Go LOCAL
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I am happy to hear about these Uber competitors. Their approach with respect to drivers fees alone points up a good part of what makes these monolithic market makers out of the US so potentially toxic. Perhaps there should be more local government support to help these small firms gain more traction. Transportation is and should be more regional and not turned over to monopolies. Time we reevaluate a Starbucks on every corner, and everyones' data on Facebook etc etc....
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