In a bold contributor post on Recode, the co-founder of Sidecar, Sunil Paul, predicts that Uber will undoubtedly reign victorious in the so-called “scooter wars.”
Hey, what makes him such an expert?
Well, in his words, it’s because, “I was the co-founder and CEO of Sidecar, one of the PIONEERS of ride-sharing.”
And today’s scooter wars stink of the 2011 rideshare wars
Companies like Sidecar, Uber, and Lyft birthed the very battle that revolutionized the industry as a whole, and Paul knows it.
“Sidecar had the first-mover advantage,” Paul writes, “but Uber ended up being the dominant player” by aggressively pushing competitors out of the space.
The early Uber rival ended their ridesharing and delivery services at the end of 2015, just as Kalanick and the gang stormed the castle and took hold of the industry.
But Paul doesn’t think it’s all about the Benjamins
He believes Uber won the scooter wars the moment they bought the bike-sharing startup, Jump, last month.
Now, with Jump (and their most recent investment in Lime), the company has a “dominant source of demand for mobility solutions,” on top of their stronghold on the rideshare market as a whole.
As for the bright-eyed new scooter companies like Bird and Lime? They may be here for a good time, but not a long time. Paul warns: “The Scooter Wars will be a bloodbath.”