They could have viewed this as a distraction to expanding its existing dedicated-driver model, in order to better compete against Uber. (Lyft Line is just multiple passengers; Sidecar already does "driver destination" aka real carpooling, but they're also playing a different game focusing on drivers in general, and don't have the scale Lyft does)
If they can get traction, they'll have cracked a problem that many people have tried to solve and failed at: how do you get Americans to carpool?
Context: Lyft's founders pivoted into Lyft from Zimride after five years of building white-labeled carpool sites for colleges/companies + a public long-distance carpool/rideshare board, and discovering that a) that's not a VC-scale business, and b) 90% of Americans don't "do" traditional carpooling and they're not about to start
Anyway, I use Lyft over Uber when possible for many reasons, but this is one-- they started out trying to improve society in a particular way, and still are, even as they've changed their approach. And I think they should be commended for setting an example for how to achieve an activist-y goal through a startup/company. Or since it's not achieved yet, at least trying.
(I have no affiliation with Lyft, see my profile.)
90% of Americans didn't pay non-professional strangers for a ride before Uber came along. 90% of Americans didn't share what they were having for lunch before Instagram. 90% of Americans didn't share the hilarious list of "cats who forgot how to cat" before Buzzfeed.
The point being it's pretty much impossible to predict what product will be a success based on past market behaviour. Saying something won't work is very often right, but it's a sucky reason not to try.
There are deep cultural reasons for why carpooling hasn't become popular in America. From what I have observed as a foreigner, people in this country love their big personal spaces, and their cars are a part of that. It's related to why public transportation isn't popular: most people don't want to sit within such close proximity to strangers.
It's depressing that "VC-scale" (i.e. convincing some rich dude he can flip his investment soon for a 1000% return, possibly by unloading shares on unsuspecting rubes) is what matters. What ever happened to making something people want, then selling it at a profit?
I agree very much with your sentiment, but I think the solution isn't changing VC, it's finding other kinds of capital.
This might be a small detail that matters big if you start driving for Lyft. What does your personal auto insurance policy cover if a paying passenger gets hurt in an accident in your car?
If a tree falls in the woods...
http://farm9.static.flickr.com/8098/8585051792_3f22025467_m....
I used to work in Crystal City, and on my commute home I would see dozens of people -- probably more than 30 most days -- lined up at the designated slug line stop.
For instance, 2,425 parking spaces just for people slugging into the city[1].
395 and 66 are two interstates that connect DC to the Virginia suburbs. The HOV lanes on 395 are usually more open and faster than the main highway. 66 is entirely HOV inside the Beltway during rush hour, so if you want to go that way at all, you need passengers.
Virginia just added HOT (passengers or pay) lanes on the Beltway itself; these are usually very clear because you need a transponder to even travel within them legally, and most people haven't bothered to get one. Maybe because the Beltway doesn't actually go into the city, so the utility is low for rush hour.
There are many reasons for these kind of underground economies to exist, but one of the most striking ones to me is race. Try asking a black friend in DC whether they get picked up by cabs as easily as their white counterparts. Then there's both the drivers and riders, who have so little cash they can't afford the extras imposed by a traditional transportation company. That's when there's even a form of transportation at all; VANS exist solely to fill the empty void left by the largely nonexistent public transit of Brazilian favelas.
Other concerns (seriously, you should read the first article) include price and time: "Hale has practical reasons for putting his own safety at risk. "Cabs are too high nowadays," he says. "Most of the time, if you're not going too far, a hack is only $5. With cabs it's a $10 trip to go nowhere." As for public transportation: "If I'm going to take the bus to work, I leave at noon. If I catch a hack, I leave at 1:30."
[1] http://www2.citypaper.com/story.asp?id=6264 [2] http://www2.citypaper.com/film/story.asp?id=15396 [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20100108192651/http://www.gsd.ha...
I highly prefer this model over the classic Uber/Lyft service, because it actually delivers on the promises of the sharing economy. Resources are shared, from which both parties and the general public benefit. Its not just taxis with lower wages.
Of course, critical mass is a bigger problem with this model, but there is the obvious entry point of white-label ride sharing platforms for companies, which flinc does, too.
I think, it is about as cool as it gets, until I get my self-driving car, which transports passengers on-demand the whole day after it drove me to work, from time to time being recharged on inductive parking spots, powered by green energy.
[0]: https://flinc.org/
(claiming the product name 'Commute' also stops Uber from using it)
Drop someone off at airport, pick someone up who's going near your house or anywhere along your route.
Same for big game, weekend rush to the beach communities, other events.
It's a good natural counterbalance for 'surge pricing', since whenever there is big demand there are probably people on overlapping routes.
This may work out for others though.
Funnily enough, my first Lyft driver I had a week or so ago was telling me he leaves home a couple of hours earlier, does a couple of trips close by to his work and then on the way home from work he turns the app on and most of the time he is fortunate to get a ride that is going the same direction, so it pays his way home.
Not an entirely new premise, car-pooling has always been a thing, but for my driver (his name was Brett) this is going to be an awesome feature and I imagined many other Lyft drivers. I like the feature of the app that allows you to tip drivers a little something extra when a driver has gone beyond what you are paying them for. In my first experience, Brett offered me and my pregnant wife a muesli bar, bottled water and even held an umbrella for us while we got in and out of the car.
Seriously good job Lyft, you have a superior app/service and great drivers, you just need to get the numbers up and get some more brand awareness.
Since it was city property, I don't believe my parents got anything out of it, and we couldn't park in front of our house Mon - Fri mornings, my brother did have the enterprising idea of selling coffee in the mornings, much like a lemonade stand with a forced audience.
Seems like there was a demand for this type of service 20 years back though, interesting to see it is still an issue that companies are looking to solve today.
Paying is optional, usually the passengers throw the driver a dollar or two, but it's pretty widespread:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?vpsrc=6&ll=37.84829...
This is not in any way improving humanity. It's a step backwards.
You probably know fewer than 200 people. Sometimes you can't ask any of them for a favor. Sometimes you don't want to impose on your friends. Sometimes someone would happily do something for you in exchange for some amount of money, and you'll both be better off.
The sharing economy expands the pool of people you can ask to do things for you; is also expands the pool of people who are willing to give you money for doing things. It does not replace friendship and socialability.
I don't have stats, but my guess is that most people don't carpool. So traditionally we haven't done it at all.
After seeing the same cars every morning drive the same stretches of highway for a while, I thought I'd have a brilliant idea. Create a website where people can post their commutes to possibly look for people to share with. The site would have been free to use (it would be a portfolio piece but I wouldn't turn down a donation here or there) and wouldn't encourage or prohibit any financial exchange between users.
Turns out NYS already has a site for that:
http://www.511ny.org/rideshare/
So I guess if the site exists and no one is using it (and I didn't know about it until I started thinking about attempting to make my own) the issue is publicity. So I posted flyers around town, at the commuter rail station, at the farmers' market.
I'm not sure if there was an uptick in rideshares, but you're right, Michael (of Portland?). Here's something that's been done for a while, for free, with the state even trying to encourage it. Most cars are still empty.
If Lyft can, but offering a financial incentive, get this to take off, maybe it is an improvement. I think it's possible that:
free ride sharing > monetized ride sharing > no ride sharing
Maybe there's some pitfalls I haven't thought of though ...
Anecdotally in Chicago: Look at the Kennedy any day during morning or evening rush hour. Easily 8/10 cars have a driver and nobody else in the car.
I see this effort as more bringing the idea to the masses. Yes, carpooling has always been an option, but clearly nobody chooses to do so (for a myriad of reasons I'm sure, like logistics, coordinating, communicating with strangers, etc). Maybe things like this will help those solo commuters reduce the number of cars on the road.
Certainly can't hurt.
This opens up doors to higher number of carpools which would be a big boon for big metros like Los Angeles where rush hour traffic is a nightmare. Reducing traffic will be a big win for humanity.
Seems to me like it usually gets better when it makes economic sense for it to get better. It's on people to set up those economic situations.
Think of this as paying for the discovery of carpool companions.
This is because traffic, in general, is really caused by a small number of cars. It seems like it's everywhere but the root cause (there was a paper even on HN that talked about it) is that people can't follow each other at an even speed. This uneven speed then results in more braking, more backup, etc. A few cars in the lead who don't accelerate properly can have a disproportionately negative impact on traffic flow and average speed.
I would certainly join if the network effects were similar to that of Facebook and hitching a ride was a simple affair.
I was in SF a few weeks ago and was shocked by how cheap and effective Lyft Line is - it ended up being comparably priced to public transportation in terms of getting around the city. (A tad more expensive, yes, but not an order of magnitude more, as I would have expected).
I've already heard of people using Lyft Line in this way (making money on the way to work), and I imagine that many more people now will, since it's officially supported.
Think about how many people already carpool. Now think about how many people don't carpool, simply because of the hassles of coordinating transportation with another person. Lyft Line addresses that burden.
I used to carpool on my morning commute with about four people, and it was awful trying to coordinate times, or remember who wasn't going to be joining us today because they had to go in early, or who was running late... all sorts of headaches. Because Lyft Line is on-demand, drivers don't have to worry about most of that. The downside is that you don't get the benefit of carpooling with the same people every day, but not everyone would mind that - and in any case, this feature seems aimed at ad-hoc trips (like running errands), not just regular commutes.
Seems Americans sometimes forget that the internet is a global network.
while I am at work, my car sits in the parking lot of the building for 8-10hours, unused.
i don't want to be a lyft/uber driver. i want MY CAR to work for uber/lyft in its off hours. have a driver pick it up in the morning at the office, then return it when i want to get home (full gas tank and cleaned car for an extra fee).
someone takes this and get rich.
Though I don't know how profitable it would be once you factor in the reduction in battery life, and the energy lost between charging and discharging the battery.
Also, places with a lot of vacation or second homes would be a candidate if they keep a second car/suv etc there.
I'd worry that there is not enough of the right kind of demand tho. Most people are not getting taxis during mid-day. And the people who work professionally have different needs for layout and might be too harsh on your gear.
There is a reason you cannot lease a pickup at any reasonable rate (unlike, say a BMW or Mercedes). The lack of use during the day is priced into the latter, and priced out of the former (would be used/abused with low and unpredictable residual).
