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Comment by andrepd | Hacker News Reader

> They provided a better and more cash efficient solution for passengers. That is enough.

They burned half a billion dollars a month of VC money at their peak to undercut taxis across the world; in quainter times this used to be called "dumping", now it's just the standard way of doing business. All the while basically flaunting the law with their whole "we're just a platform connecting people who happen to drive a car with people who happen to want to go some place, it's totally not a taxi guys". No regulations, no expensive licenses or professional certifications, no need even for a minimum wage or basic social security or insurance or any kind of protection. Amazing!

Essentially the same in spirit as Airbnb, only this latter had far more destructive consequences than screwing over taxi drivers.

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Most businesses require sunk costs or debts, and it's also often what is required for new ideas take place in an established market. Whether they burn VC money or the bank's money to gain a foothold, is immaterial.

Uber did a great thing here and made a product that people like more, for less money. More drivers, way more global availability, more customers, and better cars, all while being cheaper. That is a quintessential success story.

If people liked taxis more, they'd use them. But taxis are still shit and the only reason we use them is because of the taxi cartel bullying weak city governments into restricting Ubers.

Uber sold dollars for $0.75 until their competition was destroyed, and then they raised their prices.

I see this line of thinking a lot but lets look at it a different way.

Changing peoples behaviors >cost money<. Using your number here, taxis had a 25% value prop. That was just the cost of getting people to change.

I don’t care for Uber, but many many many businesses give people initial discounts and then full price later

The whole argument is moot though given self driving cars are going to wipe out the industry.

And yet somehow Uber and Lyft (and Waymo) in San Francisco are still usually cheaper (inflation-adjusted) than what taxis used to cost 15 years ago here.

I agree that dumping is generally bad, and perhaps laws against it should have been enforced against Uber. But the taxi system deserved to be destroyed. They sucked, and there was really no political/business way out of that system other than someone violating regulations on "what is a taxi" until it stuck. I'm not a "means justify the ends" guy in general, but in this case I think it worked out how it should have.

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