Lyft Profiles

Viewing this as a branding exercise is missing the whole picture. UberPOOL and Lyft Line will revolutionize transportation by convincing drivers to pick up passengers during their commutes to and from work to pay their gas, maintenance, and then some. They&#x27;ll convince riders to get in cars with strangers for prices that make owning more than one car in a household unreasonable, even in the suburbs.<p>Doing that requires far more people to get comfortable sharing small spaces with strangers. Profiles are a step in that direction.<p>EDIT: Either I missed it the first time, or they added a big chunk to the article about Line. Regardless, the branding angle is far secondary to Line.

<i>&quot;If a user has connected their Facebook account, the Lyft app can show if drivers and passengers have mutual friends in common.&quot;</i><p>I see so many possibilities around adding a social dimension to ride-sharing services. What if the app would in fact try to preferably connect you with a rider who has mutual Facebook friends with you? What if the drivers and passengers could check a box indicating they were single and would like to use rides as a way to have an informal, inexpensive, casual date? What about matching people based on common business interests (looking for an employee or employer)? People-to-people contact during a ride finally makes social &quot;real&quot;, unlike Facebooking while sitting in front of your laptop alone in your apartment.<p>The potential is really immense. One day, Uber and other ride-sharing companies being valued so high won&#x27;t look so ridiculous.

Thought experiment: if Lyft had a fleet of autonomous cabs called Lyftbot that was 10% cheaper, but not social, would anyone pay more for the &quot;social experience&quot; of a human cabby?<p>This feels like a feature from 2010 when every interaction was destined to become social. Social shopping, social search, social everything... until it wasn&#x27;t.<p>I love Lyft and use it all the time. But it&#x27;s there to get me to a destination. I enjoy chatting with the driver, but that&#x27;s incidental. I hope they don&#x27;t mess it up by forcing it to be more social than it need be -- let&#x27;s call it &quot;pulling a Google+.&quot;

I personally wouldn&#x27;t feel comfortable putting up a profile for a service such as Uber or Lyft. I especially wouldn&#x27;t feel comfortable for my SO to have a profile - she already feels uncomfortable using these services by herself (though safer than a taxi, sexual assault incidents do happen). I&#x27;m not sure if this is a step in the right direction. The drivers in my area aren&#x27;t people I would want to connect with or share personal info...<p>Instead of sharing personal info, why can&#x27;t we know when the driver started driving for Uber or Lyft? Some have just started and have 5.0 ratings even though they may have only completed a handful of rides...

Not a fan of this. 99% of the time I just want to get from A to Z, not become besties with my Lyft driver.

I believe this is a great step for Lyft to continue to differentiate themselves from Uber. In SF they are perceived as the &#x27;friendly&#x27; service, but when I&#x27;ve talked to friends in other parts of the country they don&#x27;t seem to view them differently than Uber.<p>I hope the profiles are limited in what they ask so users aren&#x27;t turned off of the service because they feel that they have to share too many personal details.

I love this. It indicates that Lyft truly has a big vision, just beyond ride sharing. I bet Fred Wilson blogs about this tomorrow.

This is a good move by Lyft. Uber has cornered the market for taking someone from point A to point B. Lyft needs to give customers the perception that there&#x27;s more to the industry than being a low cost taxi. Not sure if it will pay off...not sure if Lyft has much of a choice...but seems logical for them to go down this path.

I&#x27;m a fan of the branding moves Lyft has been making recently. Will these moves be enough to supplant Uber as my preferred ride-share service? Probably not.<p>I don&#x27;t see the introduction of profiles hindering Lyft&#x27;s progress as some have suggested, but I don&#x27;t see this as being a huge leap forward to gain ground on Uber either. If anything with more information about my driver the greater obligation and guilt I will feel to tip them more. I am now emotionally invested in my driver&#x27;s wellbeing. This is an obligation that I don&#x27;t feel when choosing Uber, but I can still engage in the same conversations with the driver should the mood strike.

Has anyone ever used something like the &quot;MichiVan&quot; from vRide? It&#x27;s been around for quite some time as a work carpool service. I&#x27;m curious how it compares with Lyft&#x2F;Uber in terms of cost.

I&#x27;ve heard in a recent interview that the work force will be over 50% freelance by around 2020. Looks like even the cab industry is going that way.

Why does the driver matter when choosing a cab? Lots of room for profiling etc. Another way to subtly discriminate e.g. avoid women drivers or anybody who likes ethnic music.<p>Choosing someone who you &#x27;get along with&#x27; is a code phrase for excluding everybody different.