Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

There would still be pickups for working folks.

No doubt. 

Only point I had is that right now, I capitalize my own transportation, including all risks of maintenance, insurance, etc. If we move to a ride-hailing world, two things change:

• I have to also provide some level of "profit" for the owner of the transportation, or they won't provide it. Note that this has to be in addition to purely the cost of my trip, because no matter how efficient you get there's always some level of inefficiency in getting the car from one departure destination to another rider's pickup destination. So even if it's 5% downtime / down mileage, you have 5% inefficiency.
• I have to provide some level of "profit" to the rideshare company which organizes/schedules/arranges these trips. They're not going to do it for free.

Now, it's entirely possible that for some people, in some locales, the cost of doing all that is lower than the cost of maintaining and capitalizing their own vehicle, because the downside to owning a vehicle is the downtime where it's sitting. There may be additional headaches and costs due to parking/etc. Also, obviously if I have to purchase a car, I lose the opportunity cost of that expenditure (if bought in cash) or add have additional expense (if financed). So that can raise the cost of ownership beyond what a larger entity owning a fleet might see, given they can operate nearly 24/7 and their profit can be small per mile but big per car over a 24/7 work week.

I'm just saying that in dense urban city centers, where you have to pay for parking, where many trips are walkable, etc, the calculation is MUCH less in favor of auto ownership. In sprawl, suburban, or rural areas, it's currently in favor of auto ownership. It will take time for that to change, if ever. 

uber and lyft will obviously find new competition that has found new efficiencies and ways to operate with less profit

it's not hard to imagine a time when owning a vehicle is much more expensive than  renting rides

think aircraft, flying commercial or renting a small plane is more economical than owning a plane and employing a pilot

raising prices almost always drops a considerable percentage of customers

many times it's for the best and can be overcome

Costco is a growth stock, highPE, low dividend.  It is closer to Amazon than Kroger.  My investment has more than doubled in 3 years or so.

uber and lyft will obviously find new competition that has found new efficiencies and ways to operate with less profit

it's not hard to imagine a time when owning a vehicle is much more expensive than  renting rides

think aircraft, flying commercial or renting a small plane is more economical than owning a plane and employing a pilot

I'm not sure aircraft is entirely a fair comparison, because of the insane acquisition cost and the limited usage model. Most people fly once or twice a year, if that. Most people drive almost daily. And the economics of ride-sharing don't scale quite as well, since even if you're doing something like an UberPool, you're not putting 150 people into a single vehicle, it's more like 2-4. 

We are nearing a point when uber and lyft will near to raise fares and I would argue not marginally.  They have much more pricing power and pressure now.

Lyft and Uber will fall in cost once they can fire their drivers with autonomous vehicles. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to destroy the car ownership model, which is their end goal.

The problem with Uber and Lyft is that to be profitable as companies, they need to rely on network effects in combination with exclusion. That exclusion could be a driver network that is either/or, i.e. an Uber driver can't simultaneously be a Lyft driver. Or that exclusion could be in luring *SO* many more drivers to their own service to overwhelm riders with convenience and low pickup times.

But so many drivers are driving for Uber and Lyft simultaneously, and they have no differentiation in their service to create exclusion. If nearly every rideshare car on the road has both the Uber and Lyft app open, there's no advantage to using one or the other regarding convenience. I have both the Uber and Lyft apps on my phone, and generally if I want to hail a ride I'm picking by random [or if one of them has a promotion]. 

So they have to compete with riders on price, and compete with drivers on pay. So Uber and Lyft both get squeezed as the middlemen because a rider will choose the lower-cost option and the driver will choose the option which gives them higher pay.

This gets better with autonomous vehicles, of course, *IF* the services own their own fleets. That gives them exclusion via network effects, because the larger fleet will be more convenient, more efficient [less driving between one rider to another because there are more users], and keeps their cars from being simultaneously used by the competing service.

So that is why they want to move autonomous. Not just to fire their drivers, but to control the usage of their fleets such that the fleet isn't simultaneously driving for their competition. Granted, owning their own fleets will require INSANE capital, but it might just be worth it.

Right. But they can't seem to be profitable with that model. Compete on low fares to riders plus high pay to drivers, and it leaves little room for themselves.

Higher fares is suicide. They have no defensible technology moat. They need a breakthrough. 

like you said, driverless electric vehicles

just gotta pay for the vehicle, perhaps leasing or renting

I don't believe it will be uber or lyft

Correct...introducing the 2027 Tesla Bastage:


This self-driving beauty cannot crash, but instead becomes a ramp for the other vehicle that hits it.  Under the hood, it's powered by 69 AA batteries and can hold approximately one carry on-sized bag. Made for one driver/passenger, it seats 2 anorexic SE Asians comfortably.