Lyft started as an offshoot of Zimride[0], a long-distance ridesharing platform.
Re:Waze Carpool
by Brakenshire on Thursday January 25, 2018 @11:47AM
(#16232215)
Similar to BlahBlahCar? Seems to be very popular in Europe.
Funny, just yesterday my Lyft driver pitched an idea exactly like this.
Re:Waze Carpool
by ACow_Adonis on Thursday January 25, 2018 @08:48PM
(#16236438)
Cynically, if this is true, is it possible they switched because of the sheer profitability opportunities of the taxi-industry vs car-pooling.
Looking at this, i would think that if (and I'm certainly not saying it would/will happen) car-pooling became enabled and socially popular, it presumably both has naturally thinner margins than a taxi service, plus take out significant demand for individual trips from the likes of a taxi service.
Re:Waze Carpool
by dwightgunning on Thursday January 25, 2018 @11:03AM
(#16231760)
Any references to stories/articles about their ride sharing efforts? Was it prior to their incorporation as UberCab or an experiment from further along?
It seems (from the pitch deck posted in another comment) that I had conflated "ride sharing" with "unregulated use of your car and free time to work for a cab service". It seems I was biased by all the "sharing economy" BS and jumped to a conclusion I shouldn't have jumped to.
ZimRide preceded UberCar. They largely targeted college campuses. Universities would pay them an annual subscription fee to enable ride sharing on their campus.
No links but I'm pretty sure they started off as actual ride-sharing, as in an app to help people car-pool. I'm assuming there was an "a-ha" moment when they realised the laws protecting state-authorized taxi services could be circumvented if you hailed the taxi via a phone app rather than by flagging them down.
Uber started as a better car service and had little to do with ride sharing. Go read their pitch deck. https://techcrunch.com/gallery/here-is-ubers-first-pitch-dec...
> This is exactly how Uber turned into a taxi service. They tried ridesharing, it turns out that people in cars do sketchy things and piss each other off, or worse.
Citation needed. My understanding is that the margins on actual ride-sharing, compared to being a taxi company, were too low for them.
And that they actually started as a black cab car company.
I would rather see local grassroots organizations take on this project.