How would you explain to drivers in India that neither OLA nor Uber are in profit, but drivers believe that they are making profit?

It is hard to explain what OLA and Uber have got themselves into. It is hard even for educated people to understand how these app taxis are bleeding so much and where the money is actually going into, leave alone the poor drivers who have sold everything they had in the dream of getting into the middle class.

A few years ago, they were a win-win-win for everyone. They made money for the drivers, discounts for the customers and looked like a great opportunity for the investors.

Now, it is the other way around. They are terrible to their drivers. They have become bad investments for many of their recent investors. And they are increasingly not that good for consumers either. The only ones to benefit seem to be their advertisers and their employees. Like the dotcoms of the 1990s.

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I have been a heavy user of OLA and Uber and have now scaled back a lot. Our team moves around a lot and at one point our company used to take dozens of app taxi rides everyday. Now, we have been moving out.

Their fares are often higher than the alternatives. I have started booking the cabs the old fashioned way through calls - especially for outstation. We have started making relations with local transport companies. I’m also using Zoomcar far more within the city as I’m never sure of getting their taxis on time. Sometimes I’m going for bike rentals too. And changed my lifestyle a bit to require fewer taxi rides.

I have found it sometimes cheaper to take the autorickshaw directly than to go through Ola [especially in cities like Chennai]. And the availability of cabs is horrible [I had to once walk from MG Road halfway down to Koramangala with no Prime or other options available].

The customer service is horrible for both — and a business in this space cannot live long without having a good customer experience. A long time ago I was quite excited about both and was a great advocate of them. I wrote a lot of articles in their earlier days about the potential they could bring. Now, I would not mind both of them going bust. A great idea managed terribly.