Love it how Uber is getting Ubered by providing a service they were supposedly providing but it was only a marketing scam to get around Taxi regulation.
This is proper "sharing economy" where the other party isn't doing this to make a living out of it. I wonder who will Airbnb the Airbnb and is that at all possible.
The end will be the same anyways - both companies are competing for a spot on the customers mobile phone so that they could provide a service when autonomous cars are up and running.
i dont think the overlap in users there is actually that big.
most of the people i know who couchsurf do so very regularly and travel a lot whereas myself and my general perception of airbnb users is that it ranges from super casual and not frequent to very hardcore and frequent.
i'd figure the overlap would only be at the high end of frequency of travel.
I do not like the fragmentation though. I want one app to work everywhere. Uber in China is broken already and no way I could use Didi app.
Also, I do not think that there is any significant network or engineering value in the app itself. If Google or Tesla finally starts delivering self-driving car service for 10x less than Uber, users will flee in a jiffy.
Didi is very easy. Just type the location, and a cab will turn up within 1-2 minutes.
Given cab drivers make a pittance after the cost of the LPG and insurance, little disruption in the industry other than to share a ride home with a stranger that possibly works in a similar industry and/or similar locations, and smalltalk happens.
Current China eliminating blue collar jobs after they've already been decimated by modernisation over the past 3 decades is pretty unlikely.
This is proper "sharing economy" where the other party isn't doing this to make a living out of it. I wonder who will Airbnb the Airbnb and is that at all possible.
The end will be the same anyways - both companies are competing for a spot on the customers mobile phone so that they could provide a service when autonomous cars are up and running.