ONDC commoditizing Rapido's marketplace

The real threat is that ONDC can reduce ride hailing apps from destination marketplaces into interchangeable demand pipes. Rapido still does the hard work of recruiting drivers, balancing local supply, and keeping wait times low across 270 plus cities, but if rider demand can increasingly come through many buyer apps on a shared network, its pricing power and take rate become harder to defend.

• Rapido makes money mainly by taking 15 to 20% of fares, and is now also shifting some drivers to daily subscription fees. That model assumes the app itself owns the rider relationship. A zero commission networked model attacks that assumption directly.
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• ONDC is built so buyer apps and seller apps are separate. In practice, that means a rider can book through one consumer app while fulfillment comes from another network participant. ONDC already describes buyer apps sourcing supply from multiple sellers, and mobility examples like redBus show that pattern moving into transport.
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• That shifts differentiation down a layer. If matching becomes shared infrastructure, the advantage moves toward whoever has the lowest driver acquisition cost, best local ops, strongest city density, or extra services like parcels, food, and travel that raise driver utilization and keep users inside one app longer.
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Going forward, the winners in Indian mobility are likely to look less like closed marketplaces and more like operating systems for local transport supply. Rapido is already moving in that direction by layering subscriptions, parcel delivery, food trials, and travel bookings on top of its network, which can make its driver base and city density matter more than simple ride aggregation.