Will the Uber/Lyft IPOs Finally Change the Public Narrative About Ridesharing?
&gt; Uber is the breakthrough case of a company that skipped the difficult process of finding legitimate efficiency advantages, and used tens of billions in predator investor subsidies to fuel its rapid growth.<p>This is just so blatantly false that it&#x27;s hard to take the rest of the article seriously. Let&#x27;s take just a cursory glance at Uber and Lyft&#x27;s efficiency advantages:<p>* Uber and Lyft have massive efficiently advantages over traditional taxi cabs and ride services. Taxis drive around the city burning fuel while they look for someone to wave them down. This results in considerable wasted time and gas between rides. Uber any Lyft drivers connect to the internet to get hailed by drivers, thus getting rides at a much higher rate and without burning gas driving around waiting to get hailed.<p>* Uber and Lyft handle payment, thus avoiding the issue of cabs with credit card machines that don&#x27;t work - and more often than not, mysteriously start working again when the passenger explains that cabs (at least in my city) are required to have operating credit card machines and if the machine is inoperable the ride is free.<p>* The fact that ride share companies don&#x27;t hail drivers on the street means that they are not required to be a part of the artificially constrained supply of taxi medallions. This allows for much lower barriers to entry for drivers, and eliminates the need to spend six figures on medallion.<p>* GPS tracking of riders and drivers is a safety benefit.<p>Saying that Uber and Lyft did not develop efficiency advantages is just willfully ignorant. There&#x27;s valid complaints to be raised about these companies, but saying that they have not developed any efficiently advantage is just plain wrong.