[HN Gopher] Lyft Hires New CEO as Founders Step Back
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       Lyft Hires New CEO as Founders Step Back
        
       Author : mfiguiere
       Score  : 22 points
       Date   : 2023-03-27 20:41 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
        
       | jumarm wrote:
       | This past year I interned at Lyft and had a blast. Their
       | engineering, engineering education, and employees are top notch
       | and have produced great open source projects (Clutch, Confidant,
       | and Envoy).
       | 
       | To be beleaguered by not taking the competition seriously in the
       | early stages and not innovating enough... that's business. I hope
       | the great engineering is retained somehow and wish the new CEO
       | best of luck.
        
       | sethbannon wrote:
       | https://archive.is/GGXnP
        
       | mathattack wrote:
       | Seems like they took the foot off the gas over the past year and
       | let Uber push them around. It's hard being number two in a
       | "winner takes all" market with such strong network effects.
        
         | DANmode wrote:
         | https://secondmeasure.com/datapoints/rideshare-industry-over...
        
         | bsder wrote:
         | There is no "winner takes all."
         | 
         | There is "subsidize the market until you drive out all the
         | competition and hope you can raise to monopoly prices
         | afterward." And more money just got expensive.
         | 
         | So, Lyft and Uber are locked in a Catch 22 death embrace until
         | one (or both) collapses.
        
           | toomuchtodo wrote:
           | India's new non profit government sponsored commerce
           | facilitator ONDC is something to follow in this space. Like
           | UPI, but for meatspace logistics vs instant payments and
           | charging substantially less than Uber and Lyft (3% vs 30%,
           | broadly speaking). If successful, I expect the model to
           | spread vs "Big Tech Boom and Capture".
           | 
           | https://finance.yahoo.com/news/zero-commission-ride-
           | hailing-...
           | 
           | https://fortune.com/2022/08/02/why-india-could-single-
           | handed...
           | 
           | https://ondc.org/
        
       | yieldcrv wrote:
       | Where I live, Lyft seems absolutely gutted by Uber's pushes.
       | 
       | The Uber's Tesla rental program has been really popular, and it
       | forces drivers to only drive Uber. In comparison to the past or
       | parallel world where drivers have both apps on at the same time.
       | 
       | So now its all these nice cars, great advertisement for Teslas,
       | less Lyft drivers, and Lyft will therefore surge price to double
       | the cost of an Uber far easier.
       | 
       | This does seem like a death spiral, but Lyft still has some
       | utility because I will still ask for a ride on both platforms and
       | pick whichever one has a driver that comes soonest. Or like today
       | where I will need two cars at the same time, I'm going to call an
       | Uber for myself, and I'm going to call a Lyft for my date from
       | her address to the same location. If only one of the apps let a
       | single user have multiple rides happening in parallel, hint hint.
        
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       (page generated 2023-03-27 23:01 UTC)