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Will the Uber/Lyft IPOs Finally Change the Public Narrative About Ridesharing?

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Re: Will the Uber/Lyft IPOs Finally Change the Public Narrative About Ridesharing?

#11
post #2

> Uber is the breakthrough case of a company that skipped the difficult process of finding legitimate efficiency advantages, and used tens of billions in predator investor subsidies to fuel its rapid growth. This is just so blatantly false that it's hard to take the rest of the article seriously. Let's take just a cursory glance at Uber and Lyft's efficiency advantages: * Uber and Lyft have massive efficiently advant…

One quibble:

>> * The fact that ride share companies don't hail drivers on the street means that they are not required to be a part of the artificially constrained supply of taxi medallions. This allows for much lower barriers to entry for drivers, and eliminates the need to spend six figures on medallion.

That is not efficiency, that is regulatory circumvention. I think almost everyone agrees it is a circumvention that is good for consumers. But once you drive down the cost of medallions through competition you have no advantage.

You sound so passionate about the advantages of Uber and Lyft I hope you are holding a lot of Uber and Lyft stock.

Re: Will the Uber/Lyft IPOs Finally Change the Public Narrative About Ridesharing?

#12
post #2

> Uber is the breakthrough case of a company that skipped the difficult process of finding legitimate efficiency advantages, and used tens of billions in predator investor subsidies to fuel its rapid growth. This is just so blatantly false that it's hard to take the rest of the article seriously. Let's take just a cursory glance at Uber and Lyft's efficiency advantages: * Uber and Lyft have massive efficiently advant…

One quibble: >> * The fact that ride share companies don't hail drivers on the street means that they are not required to be a part of the artificially constrained supply of taxi medallions. This allows for much lower barriers to entry for drivers, and eliminates the need to spend six figures on medallion. That is not efficiency, that is regulatory circumvention. I think almost everyone agrees it is a circumvention t…

> That is not efficiency, that is regulatory circumvention. I think almost everyone agrees it is a circumvention that is good for consumers. But once you drive down the cost of medallions through competition you have no advantage.

No it is not. A medallion is required to accept rides from people that hail you from the street. Rides, say, scheduled over the phone are not required to have medallions. Services that you call and schedule a car to take you to the airport, for example, do not require medallions. These have been around for decades before Uber or Lyft. Uber any Lyft just found an effective and fast way of scheduling rides over the phone.

> You sound so passionate about the advantages of Uber and Lyft I hope you are holding a lot of Uber and Lyft stock.

Unfortunately none. I'm just point out the blatant falsehood of saying that Uber and Lyft did not develop any market efficiently.

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