I can't escape the feeling that it boils down to the old classic 3 stage business model:
1. collect underpants
2. ?
3. Profit
Uber and Lyft are great examples. They haven't established long-term stickiness with drivers or passengers. So if either of those groups get offered a better deal they will switch. Therefore it's just a relentless race to the bottom with no sustainable business in sight.
> just a relentless race to the bottom with no sustainable business in sight.
Isnt it ironic that the main thing they teach to the general public is benefits of competition in free markets. But the first thing they teahc to MBA types is to avoid competition by any means possible.
There's an interesting article somewhere about a pizza place that iirc arbitraged VC subsidies by ordering pizza from itself through some delivery app that was buying the revenue by selling the pizza below the actual price.
I wonder what the relative scale of that wealth transfer is compared to the transfer of wealth involved with leveraging the motor vehicle equity of drivers into profits for wealthy investors.
It's not profits though. Investors are paying more than the value of the ride to the driver. Now whether that offsets the depreciation of the vehicle over time, I don't know the numbers on that.
1. collect underpants
2. ?
3. Profit
Uber and Lyft are great examples. They haven't established long-term stickiness with drivers or passengers. So if either of those groups get offered a better deal they will switch. Therefore it's just a relentless race to the bottom with no sustainable business in sight.