There isn't much of a network effect at all once you hit a certain, relatively small, size which is why national ride-hailing businesses keep pushing the big ones out of their respective markets, and why there already are quite a lot of them competing profits away.
There's an illusion of network effects due to the investors willingness to burn their own money. Otherwise, like the actual transportation industry it's just a low margin business with tons of competition.
Meaningful network effects don't just make your company marginally better as you get bigger, that's true for virtually any business. It has to be shown that the size actually makes you run away with it instead of just leveling off.
The same is true in the fintech industry with all these much hyped neo-banks running on debt. Internationally they all tend to lose to local competitors because knowing your market and getting the details right is more important than scale.
There's an illusion of network effects due to the investors willingness to burn their own money. Otherwise, like the actual transportation industry it's just a low margin business with tons of competition.
Meaningful network effects don't just make your company marginally better as you get bigger, that's true for virtually any business. It has to be shown that the size actually makes you run away with it instead of just leveling off.
The same is true in the fintech industry with all these much hyped neo-banks running on debt. Internationally they all tend to lose to local competitors because knowing your market and getting the details right is more important than scale.