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Why is it difficult for Web3 online car-hailing to succeed?

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New concept on the old track, competing in the 100-billion-level travel market.

Written by: 0xLaughing, Rhythm BlockBeats

A passenger is online The itinerary was published on the car-hailing app, and the driver was booked to take her to Bangalore Airport. The estimated cost displayed in the app was 1,200 rubles. However, the driver did not accept the order directly, but called her and told her that if she agreed to pay only 1,000 rubles in private For the fare, he is willing to accept this itinerary.

Why are the drivers willing to offer to reduce the fare?

Out of curiosity, she asked why, only to find out that the driver needs to pay commission to the taxi platform , out of the total fare of 1,200 rubles paid by passengers, only more than 700 rubles will end up in the driver's pocket.

After that, she learned more about the problems faced by drivers and found that they have been paying high commissions to ride-hailing companies, such as Uber charges drivers more than 25% of the order value. In addition, she also found that the online car-hailing platform still has problems such as opaque information on the allocated vehicles, and the inability of both drivers and passengers to have the right to choose independently. So she decided to change the industry. After three years of development, she and her team launched Drife, a Web3 online car-hailing platform in Bangalore. The female passenger was its founder, Firdosh Sheikh, and this was the beginning of Drife.

The online car-hailing market has never been calm. The Subsidy War” and the “DiDi Uber Money War” are still vivid in my mind, and eventually ended in acquisitions and mergers. Abroad, Uber is also adopting this strategy of “exchanging losses for markets” with difficulty to expand the markets in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. It can be said that the market shares of these giants are “burned” out of money.

Then, if "Web3 online car-hailing" wants to enter this market, they will still go The old way of "burning money and fighting" or find another way? This article will discuss the current situation and characteristics of the online car-hailing market, the profit model of the online car-hailing platform, the entry point of "Web3 online car-hailing" and the possible problems.

Online car-hailing market scale< /h3>

Founded in 2009 by Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick, computer programmers and co-founders of StumbleUpon, Uber is easy to operate from your phone. Passengers can call a car, and the driver and passenger will recognize each other's location through GPS, and the fare will be automatically settled after the trip. It was a novelty in an era of taxi-hailing, and it quickly turned the San Francisco-based startup into one of the world's most valuable startups, spreading the concept of shared mobility around the world.

Shared travel market size and number of users

In addition to Uber, there are Didi in China, Yandex.Taxi in Russia, Ola in India, Grab in Southeast Asia, etc., as these online car-hailing companies grow into one Today, the shared travel market has grown to a volume that was difficult to estimate more than ten years ago.

On Fortune Business Insights' 2021 - 2028 Shared Travel Market Report" shows that the global shared travel market is expected to grow from 84.30 billion in 2021 to USD grows to USD 242.73 billion in 2028.

According to statista data shows that the number of online car-hailing and taxi users will reach 1.28 billion in 2022, and the user penetration rate will be 16.8%. The number of annual users will reach 1.43 billion, and the user penetration rate will rise to 18.2%.

It is already a market size of 100 billion US dollars, and the number of users is in billions. It's just a need again, so the online car-hailing companies should have already made a lot of money, right? not at all. This is closely related to the characteristics of the online car-hailing market.

Characteristics of the online car-hailing market

In China, Didi is the only one. According to Analysys analysis data, in September 2022, Didi received 404 million of the 554 million ride-hailing orders received by the entire network. Single, the market share is as high as 73%. Even though the app has been off the shelves for a year, Didi still dominates the domestic online car-hailing industry. Its market position is inseparable from the war of burning money that has lasted for several years.

Guosheng Securities in a The data disclosed in the research report shows that from December 2013 to August 2014, Didi and Kuaidi launched a fierce subsidy war, and the total subsidy amount of both parties reached billions of yuan ; Then Didi fought Uber in 2015. Didi averaged 1 billion yuan in subsidies per month. Uber also burned a total of about 2.5 billion US dollars after entering the Chinese market; Didi started the third round of money-burning war with it, but soon the Ministry of Transport issued three commentary articles, pointing out that the "money-burning war" was unsustainable, calling for the development of online car-hailing to "get rid of the virtual and turn to the real", and the subsidies of both parties were rejected. stop.

The money-burning subsidy is not charity, it is to seize the opportunity and build barriers .

The online car-hailing market has a strong scale Passengers need drivers who are on call, drivers need a steady stream of orders, and the stickiness of the demand side and the supply side complement each other. Double-end stickiness mainly depends on the platform capacity. The shorter the waiting time, the higher the stickiness of consumers, and the number of users in turn affects the stickiness of drivers. If the traffic on the platform is not large enough and drivers receive few orders, it will not be able to attract more car owners to settle in; if there are not enough cars available and passengers take taxis slowly, it will not be able to attract passengers to use it. Therefore, the online car-hailing market pays attention to "the strong eat the weak", you either win or go, only the winner is king, and "small and beautiful" players cannot survive.

In the early stage, through financing and burning money to expand, the scale effect has become a The biggest barrier of the online car-hailing platform has brought about a reduction in operating costs, and it is hoped that it will eventually obtain a certain degree of monopoly and then achieve profitability. Relying on this strategy, Didi and Uber have become the leaders in the domestic and international online car-hailing markets respectively.

However, even if they become a leader, it is difficult for them to make a profit. Taking Uber as an example, according to Report On November 5, 2021, Uber released its financial report for the third quarter of the year. Uber's adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) for the quarter was $8 million, Uber's first positive adjusted profit in history, after Uber's cumulative losses since 2009 have exceeded $20 billion.

It is difficult to make a profit, what is the problem?

The "network effect" is poor, even a leader cannot form an absolute monopoly

2 nodes have 1 possible connection. 10 nodes have 45 possible connections. 1,000 nodes have 499,500 possible connections. As the number of nodes in the network increases, the value of the network increases exponentially, which is the famous "Metcalfe's Law".

"Network effect" is the embodiment of this law: the more users of a product, the The more valuable the product is to users, the more users will be attracted to the product. A good example here is Michat, a social product that was launched earlier than WeChat. However, the instant messaging platform has a strong network effect. After WeChat introduced QQ traffic in 2011, Michat was quickly squeezed out of the mainstream. vision. WeChat can win because of the network effect, so social products have the characteristics of "natural monopoly". It can be seen that the network effect usually leads to the strong getting stronger, and finally leads to oligopoly or winner-take-all.

Talking back to the online car-hailing market, the above also mentionedeach online car-hailing market The platform hopes that the number of passengers and drivers will increase to form a scale effect, which will improve the efficiency of supply and demand matching, but there is an upper limit.

In Analysis of Investment Value of Online Ride-hailing Industry"Report It is pointed out that marginal supply increases and the contribution value decreases, it is difficult to further optimize the passenger experience when the waiting time is shortened to 4 minutes, and the value of increasing supply will decrease sharply after less than 4 minutes. In other words, compared with waiting for 1 minute for a taxi, compared with waiting for 4 minutes, the user experience is not overwhelming.

In addition, the switching cost of the online car-hailing platform is very low on both the driver side and the passenger side: for passengers, It may be difficult for a single online car-hailing platform to provide a good enough experience during peak hours. For the certainty of taxi-hailing, it is a reasonable choice to download an additional app; for drivers, in order to maximize income, they often use multiple online car-hailing platforms to reduce Empty ride rate.

Therefore, the network effect of the online car-hailing market is poor, and the scale effect This biggest barrier is actually not high. The platform cannot form an absolute monopoly and generate excess returns. The long-term tug-of-war of money-burning subsidies makes it difficult for them to make profits, and even fall into a state of loss.

The capacity unit is reduced to the seat, and the network effect is strengthened by carpooling service

As mentioned above, the increase in transport capacity and the increase in the number of passengers have promoted the improvement of supply-demand matching efficiency. There is an upper limit. Passengers' user experience is less affected. At this time, increasing the capacity cannot effectively increase the value of this bilateral network. So is there any way to strengthen the network effect? The capacity unit is reduced to the seat, and the carpooling service is a coup.

The so-called carpooling is to put multiple passengers together and be picked up by the same driver. In a perfect scenario, carpooling passengers have the same starting point and destination, which is the same as taking an express bus, but the price is cheaper; in an imperfect scenario, the carpooling passengers have different starting points, and the driver needs to detour to pick them up separately, which is cheap but takes a long time. To abstract the problem and improve the user experience, it is necessary to approach the perfect scene above as much as possible, and find multiple passengers in the same direction without detours.

Then under the same transport capacity, the more carpool passengers The higher the probability of matching a companion with a shorter detour on the route. The more nodes in the network, each node in the network can get more benefits from it, and the value of the entire network is also increasing. In this way, carpooling strengthens the network effect of online car-hailing platforms.

In the patent, UberPool adds a new page for adding social account binding

As mentioned above, social products like WeChat have the characteristics of a "natural monopoly" and rely on a strong network effect. If social attributes are added to the online car-hailing platform, it will be icing on the cake ? Uber actually tried.

According to Report, as early as 2017, Uber Filed a new patent on adding social functionality to the ride-sharing module, which shows that Uber will When users use the UberPool carpooling function, a request to connect their Facebook account pops up. When two people on the same order are bound to their social accounts, Uber will pop up a reminder on the page asking if they need to pay attention to another stranger who is riding with them.

In the final analysis, it depends on technical support

In the minds of many people, online car-hailing software seems to be an app with no technical barriers. But in fact, to achieve a good taxi experience, the technical challenges are great.

N passengers, N drivers, how to match one by one and the overall pick-up time is the shortest?

DiDi Chuxing’s global daily orders exceeded 50 million for the first time on August 25, 2020 Even now, Didi’s average daily order volume is more than 20 million. As the size of the travel platform becomes larger and larger, data such as the number of orders, the number of users, the number of drivers, and the routes generated every day make the scheduling of vehicles and the matching of users more complicated than imagined. The dimensions, complexity, and real-time nature of consideration beyond other industries. For example, how to allocate orders: what to do when there are many people and few people, how to do during peak and off-peak periods, consider passengers and passengers who are on the way when carpooling, driver preferences, etc. There are too many variables and factors.

Hyundai Ioniq 5 will be Uber and Motional's Robot taxis are preferred

Not to mention, ride-hailing platforms such as Didi and Uber are accelerating Seize a new track - Robotaxi (self-driving taxi), as an important part of smart travel, Robotaxi has gathered car companies, travel platforms and the "iron triangle" of autonomous driving, and is trying to outline a new travel future. Perhaps It is the most imaginative business sector in the travel industry.

Among them, car company resources, autonomous driving algorithms and cloud computing development, high-precision maps Development and so on are indispensable. Enterprises such as AutoNavi and Baidu have different advantages in high-end maps and algorithms. The "aggregate taxi" model is also constantly eroding the market of giants.

In short, after the travel industry has entered the era of online car-hailing from taxis, many technical challenges have emerged: order dispatching algorithms, high-concurrency computing and optimization at peak times of 100 million, AR real-world navigation, supply and demand forecasting , route planning optimization, service points, and intelligent judgment of drivers and passengers, etc., which place extremely high requirements on the big data and artificial intelligence algorithms of the travel platform technical team.

Profit model of online car-hailing platform

The main source of income is commission

Businesses such as travel, food delivery, and finance are included in the business landscape of giants such as Didi and Uber. Only talking about travel, its main profit The model is commission, that is, a part of the driver's income is drawn as a commission paid to the platform.

According to the information disclosed by Didi, Didi takes an average of 20.1% from drivers %, after deducting passenger subsidies of 10.9% and operating costs of 6.9%, the profit margin is 3.1%. According to statistics, domestic car-hailing platforms such as Meituan and AutoNavi have a commission rate upper limit of 18%-30%, while foreign Uber’s commission rate is above 25%.

Regarding commission, it has always been a sensitive topic for online car-hailing platforms and drivers. Drivers are far more sensitive to prices than passengers. Users compare prices by a few yuan per order, but in the eyes of drivers, they can earn a few cents more per kilometer, which is not a small sum of money accumulated in a month. number. However, commission is the main source of profit for the platform, and reducing the commission rate will only sink deeper and deeper into the quagmire of losses.

Passengers want high-quality service and low prices, drivers want to make more money, the Internet The car-hailing platform must expand its scale on the basis of safe, efficient, and high-quality services, and at the same time balance the different interests and needs of drivers and passengers. This requires the platform to strive for excellence in operation and spend every penny wisely .

Looking for Second Curve Business

Uber Eats 2018 to 2022 Quarterly revenue

In addition to the travel business, online car-hailing companies are also actively looking for "second curve" business. Didi entered the food delivery business in 2018, and the community group buying business that it will invest heavily in in 2021 has not achieved success. The difference is that the potential of the food delivery business was discovered by Uber.

The takeaway service Uber Eats was launched by Uber in January 2016. During the new crown epidemic , with the surge in consumer demand for online food ordering, the company's food delivery business revenue has also exploded. By 2021, the revenue scale has reached 3.3 times that of 2019, and once surpassed the taxi business to become the largest revenue segment.

Comparison of the market share of each food delivery platform

However, taxis with Uber The business generally occupies a leading position in the European and American markets, but the takeaway business does not have such a strong market position. According to data from Bloomberg Second Measure, even if only looking at the US market The combined market share of Uber Eats and its acquired food delivery platform Postmates is less than 30%, which is far behind the 55% market share of industry leader DoorDash.

So, if you look at Uber Eats alone, its future prospects seem unclear, However, when the ride-hailing and food delivery businesses are combined, Uber's flywheel effect has been achieved.

According to the analysis of Dolphin Investment Research, When the taxi-hailing business shrank sharply during the epidemic, the fast-growing food delivery business filled the gap; and when the food delivery business stagnated after the epidemic, the taxi-hailing business took back the baton of growth. With the help of the two, the order value of Uber’s taxi + food delivery has reached 175% in the second quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2019, and the year-on-year growth rate of the current order value is still 26%.

Therefore, the flywheel effect of taxi-hailing and food delivery makes Uber a Risky and pro-cyclical scarce targets.

More importantly, the flywheel effect of Uber’s taxi and food delivery business is not only reflected in financial From a perspective, users and drivers of food delivery and taxis can also be converted into each other during actual operation.

In foreign countries, in addition to the delivery of takeaways by deliverymen riding electric vehicles like in China, some takeaways are also delivered by cars (because the delivery distance can be longer long, the delivery fee is more, and can afford the cost of car delivery). Therefore, drivers on the Uber platform can freely switch between delivering people or delivering food, or working on two jobs at different times to earn more income.

Increased the number of times consumers use the Uber platform and improved user stickiness.

In general, the significance of the food delivery business is not only to bring Uber Generated considerable incremental revenue. In a more core commercial sense, it provides higher order density for taxi-hailing/take-out platforms with weak bilateral network effects, so that drivers can earn more money, users are more willing to use them, and the platform can also benefit from limited resources. Consumers and drivers get more income, forming a "triple win" situation.

Looking at the entry point of "Web3 online car-hailing" from the pioneer Drife

"Web3 online car-hailing" is not a new concept. As early as 2016, Ethereum founder Vitalik mentioned Related content, he describes that decentralizing Uber requires only "a search engine that can locate both drivers and riders with a built-in reputation system and payment system". At that time, token economics had not yet been widely used. With the popularization of cryptocurrencies and the blossoming of the encryption ecosystem in recent years, Web3 online car-hailing is also developing rapidly. From the perspective of the pioneer Drife, there are mainly the following entry points.

Cancel commission to attract drivers

As mentioned above, the current income of online car-hailing platforms is mainly obtained through commissions, and a small number of platforms can make profits from the second curve business. If you want to win over drivers, you have to make a breakthrough from the point of commission. Drife seeks to eliminate commissions entirely, and drivers will receive the entire fare paid by riders without the platform taking a cut. So how does Drife make money?

At present there are mainly two aspects:

1. Subscription system

To enter the Drife ecosystem, drivers need to pay a fixed subscription fee. According to the official statement, the annual subscription fee that drivers pay is as low as the monthly commission that drivers currently pay on other online car-hailing platforms, and plans to cancel the subscription fee in the future and hand over the platform to the community.

2. Franchise

Want to get Drife's franchise Rights and operating rights need to purchase Drife's $DRF Token and pledge it, which will help the price of $DRF Token rise, and the team can make a profit by selling the Token in their hands.

Open and transparent + reputation system

Firdosh Sheikh, the founder of Drife, once cited some very straightforward examples: When women take a taxi alone late at night, they may be more inclined to score higher in order to ensure their own safety When traveling during peak hours, some passengers have high requirements for timeliness, and some passengers pursue cost-effectiveness; sometimes both drivers and passengers have certain preferences and requirements for the itinerary and each other's choices. These examples imply that some needs of both drivers and passengers have room for customization and choice.

So Drife developed the "Dynamic Pricing Model" and "Temporary Negotiation Model" to enable both drivers and passengers to match at a price that both parties are satisfied with :

Before the trip, passengers can enter the details of the ride and quote in advance, and the driver will receive Get the quotation and learn about the itinerary details

The driver can preset the itinerary he wants to pick up and quote in advance

The system will calculate a fair price in advance for the reference of both drivers and passengers

Both drivers and passengers can negotiate before reaching an agreement on the order price to improve matching efficiency

After the order is generated, the price will not change during the itinerary (Uber will surge when it is difficult to use the car Pricing)

Drife also hopes to establish a "reputation point system" to provide assistance or Both drivers and passengers who prevent social dangers in a timely manner have the opportunity to receive "reputation points" and $DRF Token rewards, thereby bringing a safer ecosystem to passengers and drivers.

In addition, both drivers and passengers can obtain each other’s complete information before travel, including other people’s Comments and Feedback. All information such as comments and journey experiences will be stored in the blockchain, which is open, transparent and cannot be tampered with.

Drife believes that the disadvantage of traditional online car-hailing platforms is that each travel order Pricing power is not in the hands of users, and drivers and passengers cannot choose their preferred orders. The above measures not only help to improve transparency, but also help to build trust between passengers and drivers.

Choose the battlefield that suits you

Compared with the United States, why does the online car-hailing market develop faster in China?

Cheng Wei, the founder of Didi Chuxing, said this when attending the 2016 GMIC Global Mobile Internet Conference Leadership Summit : "The very important reason is the price factor. In the United States, if you drive a car, the cost of travel is relatively cheap, because it is cheap to buy a car, and it is relatively cheap to use a car. The average cost of a trip of seven or eight kilometers is about seven or eight dollars. But if you take a taxi The software is about 14 dollars, and the taxi is about 20 dollars, so it is very strange in the United States, the poor drive their own cars, and the rich people take a taxi. In China, the cost of buying a car is very high, regardless of the price of the car, license plate, usage restrictions, etc. Wait. Buy a car and use it 4% of the time, but you have to pay for it 100% of the time, resulting in an average of 20 US dollars per trip, and all costs are converted into it. If you use Didi, it only costs 4-5 US dollars.”

Drife's founding team members are almost all from India

The same idea applies It is located in India, so its online car-hailing market has a lot of room for development. The founding team of Drife is all Indians, and the current offline expansion base is also in Bangalore, the capital of India. In addition, they will also be more familiar with local regulations on online car-hailing and cryptocurrency, user habits, etc. For example, Firdosh Sheikh, the founder of Drife, once pointed out that some taxi drivers do not know how to use smartphones. In order to seize the market, some Indian carpooling Companies even give drivers smartphones to teach them how to use; while ride-sharing is expensive to market and promote, Drift uses a referral model, hoping that drivers and riders will spread the word. It is very important for online car-hailing platforms to choose a battlefield that suits them, and it is wise to fight locally.

Token Economics

The total amount of $DRF Token is 1,538,400,000. You can see the unlocking details in Blockius. Currently Its use cases mainly include:

The community obtains franchise and operation rights by staking $DRF , thus earning the right to do business in a region

Reward riders and drivers through referrals, loyalty, ride events Earn $DRF

For discounts, riders can deduct cars Fee, the driver can deduct the platform subscription fee

Pledging interest

Yes The blueprint of the online car-hailing market supported by the Web3 concept sounds good, but whether it can really hit the mark depends on whether they can solve some deep-rooted problems in this industry.

Problems that "Web3 Online Car Hailing" may face

Source deduction: Does the online car-hailing industry really need Web3/decentralization/token economics?

From the perspective of the profit model of the Web3 online car-hailing platform Drife, compared with the traditional online car-hailing platform The most attractive point of the platform for drivers is to "cancel the commission" and switch to paying a fixed amount of subscription fee. However, this subscription fee model is not unique to Drife. For example, online car-hailing platforms such as Free Now and Gett also use the same "subscription fee without commission" model.

Even though this mode is exclusive to Drife, it looks like it's just Another way is to charge drivers. The competitiveness of this model pales in front of the tens of billions of "money-burning subsidies" of the giants.

In addition to the profit model, most of the interactions of "Web3 Online Car Hailing" Should only happen off-chain:

In order to protect privacy, passengers' itineraries are not suitable for broadcasting on the blockchain;

Travel is mainly a local service, and does not need to be broadcast to the world;

Gas needs to be paid on the chain

One of the value propositions of the blockchain is to exchange value in a way that minimizes trust and does not require permission. However, in order to ensure their own safety, both drivers and passengers need to establish trust under the chain.

But we still need these concepts to change the traditional industry, users have the right to choose which one they should be with It is valuable for travel platforms to share data, thereby getting rid of data silos and resisting censorship.

Products need to be simplified, whether it is necessary to add new elements such as Web3 and decentralization, how to add them, and where to add them. These issues are open to debate. Drife does not seem to have found a point to fundamentally shake the industry.

Regulation and compliance: Damocles always hangs over the ride-hailing industry Sword

On July 2, 2021, the State Internet Information Office issued an announcement stating that in order to prevent national data security risks and maintain national security, To protect the public interest, announced the implementation of a network security review of "DiDi Chuxing". In order to cooperate with the network security review and prevent the risk from expanding, Didi Chuxing stopped new user registration during the review period.

Two days later, the State Internet Information Office issued another announcement saying that after testing and verification, "DiDi The "Travel" app has serious violations of laws and regulations in collecting and using personal information. In accordance with the relevant provisions of the "Network Security Law of the People's Republic of China", the app store will be notified to remove the "DiDi Chuxing" App.

Didi fell to a high level in less than a month after its listing, ushering in a heavy blow.

One year has passed, on July 21, 2022, the State Internet Information Office Didi Global Co., Ltd. imposed a fine of RMB 8.026 billion, and the chairman and CEO of Didi Global Co., Ltd. Cheng Wei, and President Liu Qing were each fined RMB 1 million. In this regard, Didi Chuxing responded through its official Weibo, saying that it sincerely accepts, resolutely obeys, strictly follows the punishment decision and the requirements of relevant laws and regulations, conducts comprehensive and in-depth self-examination, actively cooperates with supervision, and earnestly completes the rectification.

In addition, the national competent authority also released the latest update on the review of domestic enterprises' map surveying and mapping qualifications There is no Didi in the public list. Map surveying and mapping qualifications are commonly known as "map licenses" in the industry. With this license, companies can legally collect domestic road traffic information and draw high-precision maps.

In the context of anti-globalization undercurrents, countries are facing complex In the international situation, there are growing concerns about user data, privacy protection and network security. Online car-hailing platforms often have sensitive information such as national high-precision maps and tens of billions of user travel records. Businesses related to national security are naturally key targets of supervision.

Coincidentally, also in July this year, many media reported The "Uber Files" scandal, based on more than 124,000 records shared by The Guardian with the non-profit International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, reveals that during Uber's global expansion between 2013 and 2017, Attempts to lobby and recruit politicians to help it rewrite laws, pave the way for its own regulation and "disrupt the taxi industry."

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Uber ex-CEO Travis Kalanick and Nelly Kross visit Silicon Valley in 2016

The document details much of the help Uber has received from top officials including French President Emmanuel Macron and former EU Commissioner Cruz. In order to prevent the raid investigation by the police, former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick (Travis Kalanick) also personally ordered the use of a technology called a "kill switch" (kill switch) to cut off external access to Uber's servers and block Investigations by Law Enforcement Officials. The documents also reveal for the first time that Uber planned to spend a whopping $90 million on lobbying and public relations in 2016.

Even the online car-hailing giants, Didi and Uber have to act as technology companies at the same time In addition to facing the "bottomless pit" of continuing to burn money and waiting for the inflection point of profitability in the foreseeable future, they also walk in the gray area intentionally or unintentionally, between regulation and compliance. The sword will always make them worry.

For "Web3 Online Car Hailing" platform Drife From a practical point of view, it has long-term worries: on the one hand, it needs to face the above-mentioned existing regulatory and compliance issues in the traditional online car-hailing industry; Encryption policies tend to be tightened around the world, these are uncertain factors on its business expansion path.

Make up for shortcomings in funding, technology, public relations, etc. It is also a big challenge

After the above introduction, the current online car-hailing platforms such as Didi and Uber Through the "scale effect" and "network effect", advantages have been established, operating costs have been reduced, higher gross profit margins have been achieved, and they have become entrenched giants. If Web3 online car-hailing wants to shake their position, they must first replenish funds, Weaknesses in technology, public relations, etc.

Funds

TR IP

The soldiers and horses have not moved, but the food and grass go first. According to report, Drife, the Web3 online car-hailing platform, completed financing of US$2.7 million in July last year; according to Decrypt reported that at the end of last month another Solana chain DEC, maker of ride-sharing app The Rideshare Protocol (TRIP), has raised $9 million in seed funding, co-led by Steve Vassallo of Foundation Capital and Thomas Bailey of Road Capital, with participation from former Uber New York general manager Josh Mohrer. It will be launched at the end of the fourth quarter of this year.

Web3 online car-hailing platforms have funds to ensure their survival, but "burning money for the market" Didi, Uber and other giants have strong financing capabilities and experience in "subsidy wars", not to mention the second-curve business to realize the anti-risk and pro-cyclical flywheel effect of taxi-hailing and food delivery. Once the premise of not being able to continue to burn money is established, the difficulty for newcomers to seize the market will suddenly escalate. Whether to hold high and "burn a way out" is the reality and choice faced by the giant's opponents from Web3.

Technology

As mentioned earlier, ride-hailing companies are actually technology companies, and technology companies ultimately compete for technical strength. From the current order dispatching algorithm, billion-level high-concurrency computing and tuning during the peak period, to betting on the future autonomous driving track, the giants have been cultivating for many years. Without technical reserves, Web3 online car-hailing companies cannot carry the corresponding level of market with only new concepts.

Road safety in India is worrying

Travel accidents, sexual assaults and other incidents are often unavoidable in the travel industry , The traditional online car-hailing platform is also troubled by these problems, but has already established a set of high-standard service management and public relations systems.

For example, in terms of customer security, we will continue to increase investment in safety education and technology, and try our best to Minimize the risk, these will invisibly build brand barriers in the minds of passengers and drivers. After all, the old platforms have faced these problems for many years, and have developed the ability to deal with these problems into a kind of moat. After new platforms enter the online car-hailing market, it will take time to cultivate relevant "soft power". These cannot be solved by spending money .

Conclusion

Travel is just needed, and the industry is quite resilient. Facing the broad prospects of a market worth hundreds of billions, traditional online car-hailing companies have stepped out of Didi and Uber after a near-death competition and other industry giants.

Now, the Web3 online car-hailing platform breaks into the old track with a new concept, wanting to grab food from the tiger's mouth, and trying to win over drivers to leverage Passengers and themselves stand aside, but they have not effectively solved the problems of the traditional online car-hailing market. The elements such as Web3 and decentralization that have been added currently seem to be "new for the sake of newness". It depends on whether we can deliver more sincere products.

"Words: Drivers want higher income, passengers want a better and safer experience at the lowest possible price, and platforms want more profit.

No one wants to believe that this is an "impossible triangle" that cannot be solved. The national economy and the people's livelihood, we all hope to get out of the predicament, and hope that someone can tell a new story between the old and the new, but this road may be more difficult than expected.