Platforms win out because of user familiarity, not because they're necessarily the cheapest option.
Uber had and still has a large lead on Lyft. They get free advertising all of the time through the media. How difficult is it to accept that you're not going to be number one in every market (but you'll likely remain number one in most markets), spend money wisely to shore up your position when necessary, and do everything you can to stay profitable?
My observation is that, yes for the general public there may be only "Uber" or traditional taxis, but those are the people that never use it in the first place.
> Platforms win out because of user familiarity, not because they're necessarily the cheapest option.
Uber is not a platform for the user. It is a service for basic transportation that costs money, and all car hailing apps offer similar enough experiences with different price tags depending on how fast the company is throwing money away.
Unless if I'm looking at the wrong numbers, they're literally killing themselves on sales, marketing, and driver incentives.
It's "stupid" that's killing them, not the dynamics of the ride share market.
They are locked into a classic problem for 2 sided markets with low barriers to entry.