Superb reporting as always. Somewhere buried in all the news and analyses re mobility/delivery "sharing" is a GUT (Grand Unified Theory) waiting to emerge. If I knew what it was I would tell you, but I think some elements of it are these: a service emerges based on regulatory arbitrage and clever app creation, it is funded to ludicrous heights based on the concept of using capital as a weapon to wipe out the competition, competition emerges in the form of rival startups but also retaliating incumbents (e.g. taxi vs. ridehail, hotels vs. AirBnB), regulators begin to stir and close the arbitrage gap, economics of attackers and incumbents converge, and then a new rival appears: ownership. Why rent the scooter when you can just own it?
Sorry for getting a bit Hegelian there, but there is something in there somewhere. I bet a look at the cycles of taxi de- and re-regulation (pre-ridehail) would prove illuminating.
Superb reporting as always. Somewhere buried in all the news and analyses re mobility/delivery "sharing" is a GUT (Grand Unified Theory) waiting to emerge. If I knew what it was I would tell you, but I think some elements of it are these: a service emerges based on regulatory arbitrage and clever app creation, it is funded to ludicrous heights based on the concept of using capital as a weapon to wipe out the competition, competition emerges in the form of rival startups but also retaliating incumbents (e.g. taxi vs. ridehail, hotels vs. AirBnB), regulators begin to stir and close the arbitrage gap, economics of attackers and incumbents converge, and then a new rival appears: ownership. Why rent the scooter when you can just own it?
Sorry for getting a bit Hegelian there, but there is something in there somewhere. I bet a look at the cycles of taxi de- and re-regulation (pre-ridehail) would prove illuminating.