You are 100% correct. The moment Uber and Lyft left Austin, competitors sprang up. The moment Uber and Lyft came back, the competitors are getting crunched.
Once the VC subsidies dry up, however, Uber and Lyft have no barrier to entry.
[ADDED: Of course, I don't get the VC subsidies that way. But, in general, cab into city from airport hasn't been a particularly broken system relative to getting cabs in other places.]
And many people don't have the same attitude as you. Some with avoid uber because of ethical concerns, some will install every rideshare app and carefully consider prices before getting a ride and others will just install whatever and do whatever else.
At that point there really is no moat to protect Uber's business from competitors of all sizes.
And until then, I think most of us will gladly take 30s to install a new app for a better fare.
And then spend 20 minutes signing up with a username/password, storing it to your password manager, adding credit card details, adding customer information to the app, setting privacy settings, etc. etc. No thanks.
I'm with OP here. It is a huge barrier of entry for me to install an app. Mostly because exceedingly few apps should actually be apps (this is why we invented web browsers, but it seems everyone lost their collective minds lately) and I don't need a 50MB thing to invade my privacy to display what effectively is a web application written in html5 and javascript.
Uber is one of those apps that makes it onto my phone solely because it's universal. I have less than zero interest in installing a few dozen apps on my phone for my travels - how the hell would you even know which to use where? Yet another "30s" google?
Amen!
How did people live before flushing toilets? I guess we will never know because life is uber. If uber doesnt provide it it must be impossible.