I’ve felt that way about Twitter since the beginning. The core idea is like 1000 lines of RoR. Yet year after year, nothing displaces Twitter. Network effects are real and powerful.
> [Uber etc.] also have none of the Facebook-type network effects (following what is known as “Metcalfe’s Law”), by which each new user makes the network more valuable to all other users, which makes it nearly impossible for smaller competitors to survive.
However, I think that's wrong. If I'm in a city with two "ride sharing" companies, but one has twice as many cars on the road, I'd expect to wait longer for a taxi from the company with fewer cars, right (or, if I check both, most of the time the one with more cars will show a shorter waiting time). Thus, as a customer I'd be inclined to choose the one with more cars.
I mean it was recently decided that uber drivers are contractors (not employees), so they should be free to do that.
For another perspective, you can look at things empirically. Has Uber used network effect to dominate the market and force out competitors? No; Lyft, traditional taxis, and foreign ride-sharing companies are still around. To the extent that Uber is winning, it's because it has a better product (for a definition of better that includes burning VC money to lower prices).
Contrast this with Facebook: the only major similar product in recent history is Google+, which died pretty quickly. All other successful social networks differentiate themselves in some way, because they have to.
Uber, on the other hand, delivers physical services to consumers that cost money and they do not have economies of scale or other innovations (e.g. self-driving vehicles) which would help them lower price.
Not yet. They're on it, having invested about $1B so far. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-11/uber-has-...