The insurance is part of why it works. I looked up commercial insurance rates for a taxi and it's like $2,000 every six months. And while that's doable if rates are the same or only a little lower it's still one hell of a gut check. Because you don't know if you're going to get customers. Uber and Lyft absorbed that risk.

So what's likely to happen in the near future is uninsured or under insured open source ride-sharing that will need to crown a winning app or two before it gets predictable enough for people to pay that.

And that means it also needs to survive that stage with Uber and Lyft strongly messaging normal people about safety and quality concerns.