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