Seven things you need to know about Lyft moving into Canada

The Lyft app launched in 2012 (Uber, originally called UberCab, in 2009), but Lyft started life as a side project for Zimrides, a carpooling service founded in 2007 that leveraged Facebook and students for long-distance ride-sharing back when Uber was just a limousine-shaped gleam in the eye of Canadian co-founder Garrett Camp. It was Lyft's team that provided the first regulatory window in San Francisco to test ride-sharing, a practice that most suspected would be illegal for drivers without a taxi licence (according to journalist Brad Stone's excellent book on Uber's founding, The Upstarts). Lyft has had tipping as a core part of its service and to date has distributed more than $350-million in tips to drivers. Uber only introduced tipping in the summer of 2017 (in its first two months drivers earned $50-million)…

The Lyft app launched in 2012 (Uber, originally called UberCab, in 2009), but Lyft started life as a side project for Zimrides, a carpooling service founded in 2007 that leveraged Facebook and students for long-distance ride-sharing back when Uber was just a limousine-shaped gleam in the eye of Canadian co-founder Garrett Camp. It was Lyft's team that provided the first regulatory window in San Francisco to test ride-sharing, a practice that most suspected would be illegal for drivers without a taxi licence (according to journalist Brad Stone's excellent book on Uber's founding, The Upstarts). Lyft has had tipping as a core part of its service and to date has distributed more than $350-million in tips to drivers. Uber only introduced tipping in the summer of 2017 (in its first two months drivers earned $50-million). Lyft Line (a car-pooling offering) was introduced in 2014, just as Uber launched the competing Uber Pool option. Lyft is in close to 400 cities, in all 50 states, and says it is reachable by 95 per cent of the U.S. population. Uber is in more than 450 cities around the world."