Uber and Lyft battle their way into the Silicon Valley title sequence.

A couple of weeks ago,

Season 3 of Silicon Valley premiered. Besides the cringe-worthy characters and true-to-life social commentary on The Bay Area’s tech industry, I found something else notable: the title sequence. The animation features an eagle eye view of Silicon Valley, complete with the tech giants and success-slated start-ups. Season 2’s intro featured an Uber hot air balloon lifting off. Now, for season 3, a Lyft balloon floats up to battle the Uber balloon.

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Of course, Uber was here first. After launching in 2009 as a black car service, they expanded to an app in 2011 and started taking on larger cities. Lyft didn’t come onto the scene until 2012, but the creators weren’t foreign to the ridesharing world. Their original venture, Zimride, was a ridesharing community connecting drivers to riders though Facebook for longer, multi-city trips.

All this to say, they’ve both been around for a while doing what they do. Uber started as a luxurious black car service. Lyft started as a fun and friendly long distance ride solution. It’s only natural they meet in the middle as ride services for the general public to get around town cheaper than taxis.

So how and why do people choose the ride service they use?

Being in the marketing world, I wanted to assume it had to do with brand positioning, creative, and marketing tactics. So I set out to discover why San Franciscans choose one platform over another — using our Firewoodians as the sample.

The results gathered from 43 Firewoodians:

The basics

88% have Uber on their phone whereas only 65% have Lyft.

60% use Uber more often*, though 50% use a ride service app only once a month.

*10% of people surveyed used a ride service other than Uber or Lyft. One person gave a testimonial for Flywheel, though the others are unknown.

The good news is, people are pretty happy with their choice. ¼ has never been disappointed in their ride service. A recent Pew study supports this statistic. They found that 16% of ride service users had a bad experience.

The why

We were an indecisive bunch when making judgements on branding. 17 people preferred Lyft’s branding, 18 preferred Uber’s, and 8 people weren’t sure.

I tried to nag further about branding, hoping I could find some results that would show a subconscious choice for one over the other.

See where I’m going with this? Interesting that 60% valued luxury over fun — the same percentage that said they use Uber more often than Lyft. One person added, “It really just feels like a subconscious brand preference.” Another said, “Users tend to align with ride services that align with their personal identity.”

Sounds promising, right? I think so. Though first adoption definitely plays into it. Nearly 50% choose their ride service app over the other because they adopted it first. That’s substantially higher than rates, consistency of service, or brand identity.

In addition, when asked to speculate as to why users choose one ride service app over another, 5 people specified that users stuck with whatever service they downloaded first.

In that same vein, 7 people specified that they think users rely on friends’ recommendations. I found this to be true when I moved to the city. Groups of friends use the same app. In my crowd, we only use Lyft. I have the Uber app on my phone just in case (i.e. when I want to compare long rides to the airport or rates for an XL car). However, my buddy’s crowd (similar age and gender profile as mine, but different ‘hood’ and industry) are Uber people, and only keep Lyft just in case. And this seems to be the norm. In our sample, 63% never check which app is cheaper before requesting a ride.

On the subject of personal experience, here are more of the Firewoodians’ speculations:

Pro-Lyft

“Often people choose Lyft as they feel it is more human.”

“Lyft is for the people.”

“Lyft is cheaper and friendlier.”

Pro-Uber

“Uber serves a larger area.”

“Quality of cars and accuracy of location within app is more accurate with Uber.”

“I find Uber to be more reliable and accessible.”

“Uber cars and drivers are better and cleaner.”

Comparison

“I occasionally use Lyft if the surge multiplier on Uber is really high. I’ve had a couple of really strange experiences on Lyft (unusual drivers, weird smelling cars, etc…) so I choose Uber because I generally know what to expect even though they are pretty much the same service.”

“In this bay area bubble that we live in, it seems that users choose Lyft because Uber is perceived as more ‘evil’ while others choose Uber because they just want to get from point A to B without the pressure to socialize with their driver. It seems like Lyft focused initially on rider safety and brand, evidenced by the early required fist bump and pink mustache, while Uber focused on economies of scale to drive down wait times/costs.”

In conclusion…

In our Firewood sample, Uber wins. But not without a fight. And with rumblings of the tech bubble bursting and lawsuits against drivers for both Uber and Lyft, who’s to say how long the battle will last. We’ll have to wait for Silicon Valley’s Season 4 intro to tell us, I suppose.