Uber makes 25% on paper and about 39% in practice off the rides they book. That's a lot more than I expected.
Both Uber and Lyft are sinking a lot of that into driverless cars, and of course they're both burning through funds like a drunken binge. You can't compete with free, but free can't compete with negative. When the sun comes up from the rager and the market realizes the big 2 are cash pits instead of cash machines, it'd be nice to be in a position to take over for them.
But until then, you have to be heard over the din. That means you can't give the drivers the full difference, or too few passengers will use your service. Maybe splitting the difference, so instead of a $40 fare going $16 to Uber and $24 to the driver, make it a $32 fare going $30 to the driver and $2 to run overhead (servers, financial overhead).
I could see this being a philosophical dealbreaker, as some people would want the drivers to eat the Uberless overhead to bring cheaper fares (defeats the point for the drivers), and others would want the drivers to keep the Uberless overhead (defeats the point for the passengers).
Requiring drivers to send copies of their Uber and/or Lyft certifications would offload that cost of entry to the competition. That'd work great until Uber or Lyft kicks them off for good reason.
As long as the math makes sense, ping me and I'm game for helping out.