Amusingly, Google already is the Orbitz for Lyft/Uber. Google Maps shows the prices of both services when you get directions to a destination and click the dedicated Rideshare route button (up there with the Driving, Public Transit, Walking, and Bicycling buttons). Any competitor wanting to get its foot in the door would only need to pay Google enough money to get itself listed there (which is to say, Google can enter this market for free whenever it wants to). Not to mention the sort of squeeze Google could put on Lyft/Uber via their Maps API costs if it wanted to slyly push those two into unprofitablity.

> Any competitor wanting to get its foot in the door would only need to pay Google enough money

Or indeed Google develops a competitor themselves if Uber and Lyft gain 9-digit valuations. It could do that in less than a year and for a few hundred millions at most. Taking a page out of Apple's book of vertical integration and squashing popular services with in-house offerings.

> Any competitor wanting to get its foot in the door would only need to pay Google enough money to get itself listed there (which is to say, Google can enter this market for free whenever it wants to). N

That assumes that the feature in Maps not only exists but is widely used by consumers in preference to individual service apps; my impression is that that is not really the case.

My impression is the opposite, so in the absence of harder evidence we're at an impasse. But even if Google Maps isn't widely used, Google could trivially spend the cash to market the feature if it wished to, or hell, just pop up an alert upon opening the Lyft or Uber app on Android that says "Did you know that you can compare ride-sharing prices across all services in your area via Google Maps? Click here to try it!" (in the same way that visiting any Google property on a non-Google browser pesters the user into downloading Chrome). Google already owns the platform, Google already owns the maps data, Google already owns the users.

That’s a compelling reason to use non-Google apps. Don’t they have enough hooks in my data already? I still think you might be right ultimately since most people prioritize price and convenience over their long term best interests.

Having a significant leader advantage and on a market that takes time & a lot of money to develop is one of the more classic “moats” in the infrastructure game. Anyone can lay tons of fiber cable, anyone can build railroads, how are those moats? For the same reason, including the legislation you can nudge along the way to even more establish an unmovable position

Yes, let's talk about the unassailable infrastructure that Lyft and Uber have built. It would help for you to name such things that they have built, since they have not built fiber or railroads. Is it the software? Because it seems there are dozens of locale-specific services that work the same way. As near as I can tell, the only thing they have right now is brand recognition. That is a moat, but hardly unassailable if someone brings more pricing transparency to the entire market.

>Yes, let's talk about the unassailable infrastructure that Lyft and Uber have built

It's a two sided market that takes a significant investment to create. Yes, Google can add G-Car to maps, but where are the drivers coming from? They're not going to switch unless they can expect more income than from Lyft/Uber. Google can't provide that without investing a lot of money in incentives.

The best analog to Lyft/Uber is Mastercard/Visa. It's theoretically easy to enter the market, but in practice it's going to be very difficult to develop your own two sided marketplace going against the incumbent competitors.

Mastercard/Visa is a veritable fortress compared to Lyft/Uber. The plethora of locale-specific competitors proves that. When you go to Austin, you won't find some local credit card network that no one has ever heard of.

Are you being sarcastic? No one can just throw down Rail or cable, that's what doomed Google fiber and Cali HSR and many other projects. There is no moat with Lyft because any user could easily switch to another ride hailing app.

Yeah I was being sarcastic. My point is that theres a limited technical challenges on the scale of feasibility ("anyone _can_ build...). The big challenges are on the cost/return side of things. Google Fiber faced tremendous pressure for if it was responsible spending or not, which they ultimately decided it was not. So there's good skepticism here about why the valuation would be that high, but I think its a stretch to say they don't have a moat and they're doomed / you cant build a successful company that way. AT&T / Verizon seem very comparable (they don't have a technology moat, they have a first-mover advantage which has been stable for a long time).