Uber’s business model change for Auto does not matter. It is too little, too late.

Every strategic move is offensive or defensive. Rapido launching 0% commission and charging flat platform fee from drivers was an offensive move.

If an incumbent has fat margin structure, you can attack its margin. Rapido makes money from 2W. So this expanded use cases for Rapido. Gave customers more choices. Supply switched to Rapido.

Even this was a response to Namma who did this first.

Assuming since then a lot of supply has moved to Rapido and Namma, and demand has followed supply to these 2 platforms, then this change from Uber is meaningless.

It won’t attract demand back to Uber. I don’t remember when was the last time I used Uber. Uber does not even have differentiated supply. Cars have become worse. No quality control issues.

Support is bad. Support is bad on all of these platforms, and it means for an user there is no clear difference between any of these platforms.

For a premium user there is no need to choose Uber over Namma or Rapido.

This commission/ business model change should have been made much earlier. But they could not. if they had changed the commission structure only for autos, their car drivers would have revolted.

And even if their India business revenue was only 1/2% of global, for a public company it was still meaningful. So they needed their revenue from cabs. 25% take rate is meaningful.

My guess is that Rapido and Namma took market share away from them. Not just in auto, but also Cabs. Rapido is 0% commission even on cabs.

This is a last ditch defensive attempt from Uber to protect GMV (assuming auto rides on Uber’s platform is significant % of their total rides), and give up on revenue.

And Dara made it clear that he is focused on only countries where they can be clear number 1 or 2.

So India will never be a focus for them. Eventually they will move to 0% even for cabs to compete, and run this business with a far leaner team. Just a technology player providing platform service and not a highly managed marketplace.