If that was true then how do you explain that there are countries where Uber rides are actually provided by taxi cabs?
In those places they've lost their legal battle and can only provide taxi service. It's better to have some service than none at all, even if it's more expensive. The ubiquity of the app is its own selling point. Over time they will continue their legal battles and eventually the market will open up again, and the app will already be in use. Keeping people on the app also keeps it open for other products, like Uber Eats. It's sort of the opposite of a loss leader.
Uber and Lyft were profitable in many cities pre-covid.
Pre-Uber/Lyft to become a “taxi” all you had to do was take your car down to JJ at weights and measures where he’d make sure your meter was accurate, the rates were posted on the car and you had the proper commercial insurance. Then he’d give you the paperwork to get your “Z”license plate (not entirely sure how the plate thing worked since I never actually asked anyone) and a sticker for the back window. Bingo, now you’re a cab.
There were tons of what we called “gypsie cabs” (which, apparently, was a little racist) running around ripping people off left and right because as long as the rate was posted you could charge whatever you wanted legally.
Then Uber/Lyft came along and didn’t go see JJ, didn’t carry expensive commercial insurance and didn’t post their rates so they could charge whatever they wanted willy-nilly.
Not really sure how it is “ possible for a driver to make more money with lower fares by increasing the percentage of time that passengers are in the car” when the nature of the business is taking people to where they want to go and hoping there’s another fare in the immediate area else you go deadhead to a better area. Oh, and trying not to get burned on a fare and/or raped and murdered or just straight up robbed.
People don't like getting ripped off or having the fare change while en-route. Uber/Lyft at least told you upfront what you would pay and it was generally much less expensive than cabs. This increased ridership in most cities and thereby made it more likely drivers would have a passenger waiting at the destination.
But mostly it was the independent cabs ripping people off because they didn’t know to not get into Disco Cab because they were drunk and the cars (purposely) looked the same as the honest cabs.
So, yeah, Silicon Valley subsided rides were a lot cheaper because their whole plan was to drive out the competition and then raise prices to the actual cost of what it takes to haul people around which, surprisingly, is what the cab companies used to charge before Covid pretty much killed them off for good. Last time I was in Phoenix I couldn’t even get a cab to come pick me up…
Did you miss the part about taxis not picking up minorities or going to poor parts of town? The drivers aren't the ones being exploited...
Sure, let's.
Ride sharing is only profitable if Uber and Lyft don't pay the drivers as much as taxi drivers. The fares are cheaper than taxi fares, so they can't be making as much income as Taxi companies do. So they have to take more of a cut of the fare, and pay the driver less, or the business just doesn't work. Their revenue is going to the overhead of an app, a swarm of lawyers, and some remote workers who set new drivers up. They don't even pay for fleet maintenance. All of this is backed up by the fact that they've never made a profit.
It is an unsustainable public service funded by VC dollars and supported by underpaid drivers. So the attacks are mainly about the exploitation of drivers - both the Uber/Lyft drivers, and the Taxi drivers nobody cares about. (Granted, there are plenty more things to attack them over, like increased traffic congestion and pollution, and reduced public transit)