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Comment by rauchp | Hacker News Reader

> their bookings are so large that 10 percent change would net them billions more.

Kind of a hot take, but this is why I'm long Uber. They're processing an insane amount of orders, and getting a huge amount of people using their app. If Lyft dies, or if a merger occurs, then we have a large ride share company that is still a lot more than 10% better than taxis. Most customers will still be taking Ubers, regardless of that 10% price hike.

Of course, this is just for the ride share business. I don't see how food delivery will be profitable long-term. Maybe it'll be just a loss leader for them?

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Hm, but to me it seems like Uber is getting more competitors not fewer. Bolt for example has started competing with Uber in more cities and the traditional taxi companies are getting their shit together in some countries.

I think most talk surrounding Uber in HN is just biased/centered around US market.

No way a Lyft merger could be approved in any kind of sane society. It would turn a duopoly into a monopoly.

If both companies are approaching bankruptcy trying to outlast the other, wouldn't the lesser evil be a world with a ride-share monopoly rather than a world without (large scale) ridesharing?

With the amount of people that use these rideshare companies as their primary job or to make their daily commute, it seems hard to imagine going back to the pre-Uber/Lyft days. Not that the government or any regulatory body would see it this way. I just think consumers are better off with a monopoly here. Plus, whatever rideshare service that survives will still have to compete with local taxi companies.

If both Uber and Lyft go bankrupt we’d have a new rideshare service (or 20) before the ink was dry on the court papers. The public value is embodied in the concept, not in the companies.

There is a good chance suburban areas would not have ride sharing for a long time if that happened. All the alternatives popping up would be in cities and dense urban areas for a long time. Or if they get them, they might just be priced worse than the taxis.

Suburban areas already suck for ride shade. Try hailing a lyft in the proper suburbs, should take you over a half hour.

What about Uber? I ordered it in a podunk city in eastern Washington recently and the wait was like 7 minutes.

What is a proper suburb to you? Ride sharing is great for me in suburban areas of Delaware before as one example. Wait can be 15-20 min sometimes. Though it shouldn’t be like that all the time. You can still see where the driver is, etc, via app. The price is cheap (I’d be willing to pay more). The experience is far better than hailing taxis used to be.

Suburban life is also different from city life. A 15-20 min isn’t that bad in suburbs.

Life has become a lot more convenient currently for me in suburbs knowing ride sharing is around. I almost shivered thinking about the last time I used a taxi a decade ago in suburbs.

In fact, there are already lots of competitors worldwide, likely more lean than Uber/Lyft and probably ready to pounce on the US market once those two implode.

Competitors driving each other towards near-zero profits is how capitalism is supposed to work.

The problem is that there is no willingness to enforce laws against predatory pricing, so no one can even break even on this type of transportation.

the market is transportation, not ridesharing. It's not just uber and lyft competing with one another. They also compete with private cars, public transportation, taxis, bicycles, etc.

Together the two of them are just a paltry 1% or so of vehicle miles traveled last I heard. Combined they are still almost two orders of magnitude away from having monopoly power.

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