"Imagine a major city where 80%+ of the vehicles are run by a single company and the rest are paying a toll to be on the road."
Wait, what? Is that really the goal? Is that even legal? I guess the closest approximation of that is legal monopolies for companies like the telecoms and maybe utilities like electricity & gas, but I doubt if Uber et al. want to be treated like that?
But they're not your standard monopoly in the sense that they can charge anything they want. The city retains at least nominal oversight on what they charge. If it's a utility, they're subject to more scrutiny than is probably worth it. And even if we get to a point where such a monopoly exists, Uber isn't really in a position to bring much to the table that Ford/GM/Honda/whoever can't also do easily.
Uber wants to become public transportation. To become infrastructure. They want to get their hooks in before anyone esle has a chance. Their labour will organize. They'll be regulated as a utility. They'll be too big to fail. The government(s) will subsidize them.
In theory, with autonomous vehicles, public transportation will be 10x what it is today. Maybe even 100x if private vehicle ownership goes the way of the dodo.
Their Otto aquisition signals an interest in shipping. With the right kind of network effect, they could be in charge of everything that moves. You can't get to that kind of scale unless you merge with the state.
That's the plan, anyhow. We'll see how it plays out.
One needs a core advantage that's exclusive to them to become such a monopoly. In other words, not only they must win, everybody else must lose. What's the core advantage that other players won't be able to replicate?
Scale and mindshare, more data, and the ability to operate with slimmer margins, or to operate at a loss in any local market long enough to muscle out competition- which they already do.
Uber has the same kinds of advantages that Google, Amazon, Facebook and Starbucks have in their respective domains.
Existing taxi industry got upended by Lyft, which then got upended by UberX. I think the value of mindshare is overestimated, and most consumers will happily jump the ship for whatever is more convenient.
Scale is a competitive advantage in homogeneous markets. But even if you're the most efficient ride facilitator on the streets of New York, this does very little to someone looking for a ride in Des Moines or San Sebastian.
Wait, what? Is that really the goal? Is that even legal? I guess the closest approximation of that is legal monopolies for companies like the telecoms and maybe utilities like electricity & gas, but I doubt if Uber et al. want to be treated like that?