This has always been mischaracterized. The thousands of cancels were simply a byproduct of their shady driver recruitment efforts.
Uber was not interested in cancelling rides. They were interesting in contacting as many Lyft drivers as possible to recruit them to become Uber drivers.
The act of cancelling was not of any significance other than being an unavoidable step in their recruitment efforts.
I imagine their playbook looked like this:
1. Request a ride using the Lyft app.
2. Have we already contacted this driver?
a. If Yes, start over at step 1
3. Contact driver and convince them to become an Uber driver.
4. Add this driver to the shared database of contacted drivers.
5. Start over at step 1.
With enough effort Uber could contact every Lyft driver currently online. Imagine how many cancels would happen if Uber kept at it until no new Lyft drivers could be found to contact?
RIDEGURU
This has always been mischaracterized. The thousands of cancels were simply a byproduct of their shady driver recruitment efforts.
Uber was not interested in cancelling rides. They were interesting in contacting as many Lyft drivers as possible to recruit them to become Uber drivers.
The act of cancelling was not of any significance other than being an unavoidable step in their recruitment efforts.
I imagine their playbook looked like this:
1. Request a ride using the Lyft app.
2. Have we already contacted this driver?
a. If Yes, start over at step 1
3. Contact driver and convince them to become an Uber driver.
4. Add this driver to the shared database of contacted drivers.
5. Start over at step 1.
With enough effort Uber could contact every Lyft driver currently online. Imagine how many cancels would happen if Uber kept at it until no new Lyft drivers could be found to contact?