You could say the same thing about Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Etsy, TaskRabbit, etc..
When you sit down and think about it you start to realize just how “temporary” all these so-called unicorns are, as they are just middleware services with no real differentiating benefits other than size and brand recognition and maybe some vague “guarantee” to the customer. You’ve got to get big fast, because what you actually do is easily replicated.
Uber and Lyft are middlemen, but because they interface directly with the consumer, they also create demand. I deleted my apps when I realized that I was spending a hundred bucks a month compared with twenty bucks a month if I had used cabs, and getting little real benefit out of it. It just feels so convenient, but the fares add up quickly. I bet if they sent weekly or monthly summaries people would use them less.
>because what you actually do is easily replicated.
Not really for Lyft/Uber, at not now that it's flat fee and ride pooling instead of a traditional per minute/mile fee structure. To achieve those thing efficiently you need data and until you get that data you're burning through a lot of money.
When you sit down and think about it you start to realize just how “temporary” all these so-called unicorns are, as they are just middleware services with no real differentiating benefits other than size and brand recognition and maybe some vague “guarantee” to the customer. You’ve got to get big fast, because what you actually do is easily replicated.