I wonder if Uber planned on announcing yesterday, or found out about Lyft Line and wanted to steal the thunder. They've both clearly been working on this product for a long time.
Since Uber's service isn't available yet, my guess is that they did a preemptive launch, which fits with Uber's consistently aggressive and impressively well-timed strategy.
Lyft can't catch a break. I look forward to the week both companies simultaneously offer a loyalty program.
@mulligan Pretty sure Uber launched quickly to beat Lyft, which had been working on the product since it acquired the team behind Rover. Emily Castor's (Lyft head of Community Relations) tweet says as much - https://twitter.com/emilycastor/...
Just took a Lyft Line today. The experience was pretty great. Got to know a person who works a block away from me! The only interesting part was that Lyft Drivers had no idea that this was coming. My Lyft Driver told me that he got an email at 9:20 am this morning telling them about this.
I've been waiting for this feature for so long! Originally, Lyft spun out of Zimride which was shared rides for long-rides like traveling home from college.
Sidecar also silently launched this feature a month ago without press to see if users would use it. Sidecar mandates users to input a start and end destination so a shared rides vehicle doesn't change their user experience much.
However, on Uber and Lyft, they've always been 1-click rides so it'll be interesting to see how this new feature affects their user experiences.
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