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Lyft says its revenue is growing nearly 3x faster than Uber’s

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Re: Lyft says its revenue is growing nearly 3x faster than Uber’s

#91

Post by ccozan »

manigandham wrote: post #74
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen these anecdotes one way or the other (pro/anti Uber/Lyft/whatever) and I think they're all pretty useless when trying to extrapolate to the broader population. One thing that is abundantly clear, at least in the US city where I live, is that Uber and Lyft are pushing hard for the same pool of drivers; many drivers drive for multiple ride share services. I'm extremely skeptical of "one company's drivers are…

Agreed, every driver I’ve asked is on both apps and switches freely to make money. They might stick with one for a bit to get certain bonuses but there’s no long term loyalty for any of them.

So we need a car sharing aggregator app now? How do I know which is cheaper, Lyft or Uber, when I ask for a ride?

Re: Lyft says its revenue is growing nearly 3x faster than Uber’s

#92

Post by sebleon »

meuk wrote: post #88

Nitpicking: Does "3x faster" mean at 300%, or at 400%? I would say 300%, but when you say 50% faster I would interpret it as 150%. It is a expression with no clearly defined meaning, and really shouldn't be used.

> Does "3x faster" mean at 300%, or at 400%?

It's 300%. If company A is growing 10% every month, and company B is growing 30% a month, people would call B's growth 3x faster (30/10=3).

Re: Lyft says its revenue is growing nearly 3x faster than Uber’s

#93

Post by luka-birsa »

John_KZ wrote: post #62
Certhas wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can speak for Europe in general? In my European bubble people are generally aware that Uber is a morally questionable company (without necessary knowing about the details, just a reputation) and some have heard of Lyft, even though it's not available.

This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Uber is banned in Greece, Italy, Finland and a host of other countries. It's also legally banned in London afaik and heavily regulated in a lot of other places. Actually in Greece 4 drivers have been criminally charged for violating the law by driving for Uber and falsifying documents (as per company instructions). In the countries of South Europe (Greece, Italy, Spain,…

I can second this. Uber did have a positive effect on local taxis, forcing them to upgrade. We now have taxi companies that are reinventing themselves - apps are good, you can pay with CC in the app and the drivers need to adhere to some standard of professional ethics.

Imagine that - they are able to do that without the "Uber" model of ignoring regulation and doing the fuck they want regardless.

Re: Lyft says its revenue is growing nearly 3x faster than Uber’s

#94

Post by stunthamsterio »

cududa wrote: post #89
karthikvellanki wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be semantics but technically Lyft was the first to come up with the Uberx model of anyone becoming a driver.

Not really. They head Uber was about to launch it and pre-emoted by a few days. Still to this day haven’t been able to suss out who was really first with the idea.

Interestingly, I used to work for a company that worked with the London Black cab manufacture to developer ride-hailing from a mobile phone. This was back in the early 00's. I always wondered if there was any patent portfolio that is relevant to Lyft/Uber. It was called Zingo, sadly the only reference I could dig out from a cursory Google was a story about it going bust: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2004/nov/25/transportin...

Re: Lyft says its revenue is growing nearly 3x faster than Uber’s

#95

Post by InclinedPlane »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #56
spaceflunky wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google wasn't the first search engine... Apple didn't sell the first smartphone or tablet... Facebook wasn't the first social media site... Amazon wasn't the first to sell shit online... And Lyft wasn't the first ride-sharing app. Maybe being first to market is overrated?

I'll give you the other ones, but I'll challenge the Amazon example. Sure, there may have been other small sites selling stuff online, but Amazon definitely was a first mover in selling lots of stuff at volume. With all your other examples I can name the companies the later movers overtook (e.g. Google -> Yahoo/Alta Vista, Apple -> Blackberry, Facebook -> Myspace), but I think the first time I bought something online…

When Amazon started they were far from dominant. For a long time they only sold books. Then they only sold classical music CDs. Bit by bit they added other things, like other music, DVDs, and eventually basically all retail goods.

But for years they were basically just one among many sites, and not even terribly notable in the overall retail space. There were lots of other companies selling lots of other stuff at the time. Buy.com, for example, and ebay of course. Of all the ways to buy things online amazon was pretty far down the list until the mid 2000s.

What Amazon brought to the table was a unique combination of good web dev / services skills and top notch fulfillment logistics. And highly competitive pricing. Buying things on amazon was just a better overall experience compared to other sites. For example, when you put something in your shopping cart on amazon it stays there, it doesn't magically disappear for some artificial reason. And the overall experience of search/browse, read reviews, add to cart, then checkout, which today is commonplace throughout online retail was really particularly well honed by amazon. They didn't invent the form but they shaved off all the hard edges. This meant that amazon had much better customer retention than other sites and as amazon added new product lines existing amazon customers often decided to just use amazon for those things too. It took years and years for that momentum to snowball into the online retail juggernaut that Amazon is today.

A lot of other companies at the time had more revenue and invested more money into their stores than Amazon did, but they didn't win because ultimately they didn't execute as well. Amazon was helped by being online early, it gave them the experience necessary to build into what they became, but it's a stretch to claim they had first mover advantage.

Re: Lyft says its revenue is growing nearly 3x faster than Uber’s

#96

Post by augbog »

Lukeas14 wrote: post #3

Sounds nice from a PR standpoint but you can't really compare the two companies based on revenue growth. Lyft is still a smaller company so in a global industry it's much easier for it to grow faster on a percentage basis. They're still expanding to cities where Uber already exists. If you started a rideshare company and gave 11 rides this month you'd be growing 10x faster than Lyft.

It's funny you mention this. I know Uber has a lot of bad PR but my friend at Lyft was telling me how it's kind of an awkward situation where yeah sure Uber is a competitor for them but they have done so much for paving the way for ride-sharing being allowed in many different places.

Re: Lyft says its revenue is growing nearly 3x faster than Uber’s

#97

Post by bildung »

heisnotanalien wrote: post #34

Uber could (and eventually will destroy) Lyft in one fell swoop. They're just holding back to appease the government atm.

> They're just holding back to appease the government atm.

Perhaps Uber should first try to get profitable.

Re: Lyft says its revenue is growing nearly 3x faster than Uber’s

#98

Post by sokoloff »

rainbowmverse wrote: post #49
neom wrote: post #42

My gut says Juno is dark horsing and about to make a splash. I have no proof for this outside of my gut, but the way they are laying up reminds me of early day uber. My main point of reference for this feeling is the drivers, if I get a lyft driver with 4.9 or 5.0 rating, they inevitably try to push Juno during the ride, however the value prop to the rider is somewhat compelling: the drivers are compensated to a high…

This is the first I've heard of Juno as something other than a dial-up ISP.

I always thought of Juno as an email provider. Looking up your reference, TIL that it was/is both.

Re: Lyft says its revenue is growing nearly 3x faster than Uber’s

#99

Post by sokoloff »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #5

Who cares ? Is it profitable or not ?

That doesn't matter right now. It eventually matters, but when you're in a new category and fighting for marketshare and brand awareness, it's fine to invest in the form of losing money today. Nearly every company more complicated than "selling hours of labor" goes through such a phase.

(No doubt that some companies take it much too far, but profits are not critical in this stage of any online/mobile ride-hailing company.)

Re: Lyft says its revenue is growing nearly 3x faster than Uber’s

#100

Post by arthurofbabylon »

ccozan wrote: post #91
manigandham wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, every driver I’ve asked is on both apps and switches freely to make money. They might stick with one for a bit to get certain bonuses but there’s no long term loyalty for any of them.

So we need a car sharing aggregator app now? How do I know which is cheaper, Lyft or Uber, when I ask for a ride?

You can try Apple's Maps app. (Does Google Maps have it to?) There is a 'ride-share' choice (or some similar terminology) when choosing route methods, and selecting it presents both Uber and Lyft (if you have the apps installed) and side-by-side price comparisons with the ability to book right there. It should be noted that integration with the Maps app is handled by Lyft and Uber themselves - they can choose what values to present to the user.
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