These numbers are getting ridiculous. Where is the value added?
EasyTaxi changed everything. There were times when I simply couldn't get a taxi at all, now this is almost never the case. The entire system is far more predictable, so I use taxis a lot more - previously I would arrange to get rides from friends.
Taxi drivers also report to have 30%-50% better occupancy after the app. They no longer need the taxi coops so they are cutting that cost as well.
The value is there, even for an app that is not, like, breaking laws by running an unlicensed service. It's also a bit of a winner-take-all market - everybody wants to be where everybody else is. Whoever wins the fight will be a very big company.
So I see it as a speculative sort of investment in self-driving cars as much as in these companies. To dominate the market when self-driving cars emerge, with their increased capacity and lower overheads, would be pretty sweet.
Apologies to cab drivers for describing you as 'overheads' and 'decreased capacity' within a single clause, I realise this sounds cold but this is how it will be seen within the companies.
Also, I've never personally used Uber - I don't earn enough to use cabs in general. If it's more complicated than I assumed to order a cab through it then my other assumptions are probably wrong too.
There are still issues I take with Uber:
- It could quickly become a monopoly if they are so hyper aggressive with competition (even for similar things like Lyft) which will mean they just become taxi cabs 2.0.
- They should have as or more stringent background checks for drivers, especially as they seem to want to subcontract to people who run their own pools of vehicles.
- It's going to be a tall order to keep consistency and quality high.
- If they become as successful as they want, I think they will have unfair leverage over drivers and based on their ethics I doubt they are pro union.
That said:
- Taxi companies have utterly failed to innovate or improve fucking anything for decades, and so I have zero sympathy for them. - The medallion system is ridiculous.
But if they can fight Uber for legislation, why would they give a fuck?
I think knowing the number is possibly the complication that Uber solves? EDIT: I'm pretty uninformed about this whole world, as I use a dumbphone and never take a taxi so my guesses may be pretty wild here...
Anyway, I suppose that you could have a number that you call that automatically delivers a self-driving car to your location as determined by GPS/voice-recognition technology but I think people would rather use an app.
It's the potential of self-driving cars to make use of this sort of company's services that looks like it'll be profitable to me personally.