It’s tough to stand out in today’s cutthroat ridesharing market. Consumers, who can hail either an Uber or a Lyft virtually anywhere, are fickle — swayed only, perhaps, by the company that currently has the best deal or promo going (the free market, ladies and gentlemen!).
But maybe, just maybe, ridesharing companies can win loyalty (and the requisite stable income) with a subscription service model. Lyft, formerly of the fuzzy pink mustache, is testing such a model in D.C. (and five other cities) next month.
The subscription, called “Lyft Line Pass,” has two membership tiers — pay $20 and every Line trip (shared trip) you take will cost just $2, or pay $29 and every Line trip is free. Passes for November are now on sale, but must be purchased by Oct. 31. It’s like a bus pass.
The model is not new, not even to ridesharing. In August, Uber tested a “POOL Pass” option, offering $1 uberPOOL trips (up to 20 of them) for $30 up front. Now, according to my app, Uber has “Uber Plus” available — 10 $2 uberPOOL rides (or $8 uberX rides) for $10 up front.
The subscription model makes a lot of sense as a business model for ridesharing — it locks in fickle users. A subscription also positions the ridesharing services as fairly affordable commute options, which sounds like a nightmare for time spent in D.C. traffic but then again maybe, given SafeTrack, this is a tradeoff you’re willing to take.
As usual, then, Uber and Lyft are competing on the margins. So the question is — which will customers choose? And how will they decide what to choose?
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