In any case, to answer your original question: Yes, I think halving the cost of taxis will make a significant difference to their viability in many use cases. I think costs may also fall further than that, as regulations have been limiting competition in taxi markets. (And just intuitively, one would expect that sharing a car should be cheaper than owning one.)
Moreover, I think taxi markets were stagnant for a long time, so the lack of such a service in the past doesn't necessarily mean it couldn't have been viable, and the new players may simply not have explored this kind of service yet.
>How do you pay for vehicles and maintenance of your service is not profitable?
The point is that without a driver, your ongoing costs (i.e. fuel and maintenance) are more proportional to usage. A driver sitting doing nothing is costing you money, but a car sitting doing nothing barely does.
Think it is too obvious to miss...
>The point is that without a driver, your ongoing costs (i.e. fuel and maintenance) are more proportional to usage.
isnt it the same with a driver too?
The issue of profitability again is orthogonal to drivers. How do you pay for vehicles and maintenance of your service is not profitable?