Uber wants people in its app, they want to show ads for their subscription membership services, and they want to upsell you on services, and they want you to see sponsored restaurants first when you order food. Uber wants to own the relationship with customers, so they can ~exploit the customers more~ extract more value.
VC backed and publicly listed companies need endless growth, user-centric systems like what Rabbit is offering break those business models apart. Which is why I predict everyone is going to be fighting super hard against making UIs that just get shit done.
Watching the keynote, I found myself thinking how unhappy Uber would be with skipping over interacting with them entirely: there's no "Uber experience" you have when you're in the car, so what do you get from Uber that any random company with a tie in to Rabbit can't get you?
Option 1: a shift in devices/model like Rabbit pull the magic carpet out from under companies like Uber, and everything becomes purely transactional.
Option 2: rabbit-like market creates exclusivity-based need, to ensure Uber is the number-one (or only) rideshare choice, so it doesn't matter that customers aren't "experiencing" Uber. Uber relinquishes the experience to the agent (unlikely).
Option 3: Uber et al wage war against agents and make their use impossible
VC backed and publicly listed companies need endless growth, user-centric systems like what Rabbit is offering break those business models apart. Which is why I predict everyone is going to be fighting super hard against making UIs that just get shit done.