If all current taxi, and taxi-like services died overnight, the barrier to entry into the industry would be a guy with a high school degree, a cellphone, a driver's license, a beat-up Prius, and a yellow paintjob for it.

Your cited risk is not realistic.

> The obvious part is, you might get used to it, only for it to be dropped.

> But also, they may run competitors out of business before dropping it, leaving you without any options.

It's a taxi. You call a number, or click a button on an app. A car arrives and drives you somewhere. The value delivered by the guy in the beat-up Prius, to me, is the exact same as Waymo. It's the most homogenized, commoditized industry in the world. Waymo could corner the entire market, and then go out of business, and the very next day, the streets would be full of independent taxis picking up passengers.

Location matters here. Licensed taxis in Santa Clara county are hard to get reliably outside of the airport and train station. Otherwise, you call a number and someone says a car is coming, and 80% of the time a car does come; the other 20% of the time, you don't get to the airport on time. Yes, it doesn't take much to drive someone somewhere, but if hypothetically Waymo drives Uber and Lyft out of business and then drops out themselves, VCs will have learned that the unlicensed taxi business is a waste of money, and we'd be back to licensed taxis, which is a lot lower quality of service.