Uber has many shareholders. One of them, SoftBank, has assumed a huge element of the boardroom with its latest investment in the ride-hailing pioneer.

Yes, Uber is now part of the SoftBank Network. Also in that network is the world’s most valued private technology startup, China-based Didi. It was Didi that gave Uber heat in China, and later on picked up the assets of the U.S. ride-hailing app pioneer. Besides Uber and Didi, SoftBank has Grab in the network through Didi.

In Africa, SoftBank controls Uber. SoftBank also controls Taxify because Taxify is backed by Didi which is under the control of SoftBank. This is head, you win; tail, you win. These super-investors never lose! That said, the news that SoftBank wants Uber to exit Africa is unfair to Uber minority shareholders [Uber is not taking that; it wants to continue to do  business anywhere it wants].

Rajeev Misra, a board director with SoftBank, believes the ride-hailing company has a better chance of success—and profitability—if it focuses only on core markets such including US, Europe, Latin America and Australia

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Since launching in its first African market in 2013, Uber has quickly expanded to operate in eight countries including South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Egypt, and Morocco.

Here is why asking Uber to leave Africa is wrong: the valuation of Uber was not done without the consideration that it is in African markets. Those markets are emerging and that means they would grow over time. If Uber exits Africa to make space for Taxify and other empires under the control of SoftBank, it is only SoftBank that would win while Uber would lose value especially now that it is planning an IPO in coming months.

Yet, it would not be an easy decision. A big dilemma since Uber could also decide to fight this riding battle in Africa, and just burn cash which could have made it look better before investors, as it readies itself for public listing.  But there is a way everyone could be happy: follow the China truce.

Yes, when Uber saw that it could not win in China, it sold its Chinese assets to Didi for equity. Uber can do same in Africa by selling its assets to Taxify (for equity) so that as the latter does well, Uber will get benefits and values. And by having that structure, Uber can put in its IPO prospectus that it has African exposure (albeit through Taxify).

And most importantly, its minority investors would also see wins, unlike what SoftBank wants right now where Uber exit from Africa would only benefit it [if Uber exits Africa, the remaining SoftBank companies would have better positioning, but other Uber investors are not investors in those firms]. But if Uber sells its assets for equity to Taxify, Uber will get the up-momentum as Taxify does well, without necessarily being exposed. That model would free resources to battle Lyft at home, and other areas where SoftBank empire has limited operations. I predict it would end this way: Uber would sell for equity to Taxify.

But no matter what happens: only one company is winning the ride-hailing business, and that is SoftBank.

In all these redesigns, SoftBank is now the largest ride-hailing business in the world. It is irrelevant that it is not making apps in Japan. Right now, SoftBank is creating the apps that really matter: feeding platforms with dollars to dominate a sector. It has eminently done well and we can now say that it has won this category. Yes, the global ride-hailing app sector belongs to SoftBank

Netflix is showing us how to win the web. The results the company is showing is mind-blowing. Simply, if you can differentiate in content, the world would reward you. Today, Netflix is worth about $100 billion. This is huge as the company has built a video content business that rivals YouTube on market capitalization. Yes, I do think that YouTube, if a separate business from Google’s Alphabet, would be around $100 billion in market cap. At Alphabet’s $814 billion in market cap, investors have priced YouTube as a key component besides Google Search. Apart from these two properties, other Alphabet businesses are marginal. Or better, other businesses are supported by the oasis which is the search business, as explained in my one oasis strategy.

Back to Netflix, here are the latest numbers, courtesy of TechCrunch.

• Revenue: $3.29 billion, compared to $3.28 billion estimates from Wall Street
• Earnings: 41 cents per share, in line with estimates from Wall Street
• Q4 US subscriber additions: 1.98 million
• Q4 International subscriber additions: 6.36 million
• Q1 forecast US additions: 1.45 million
• Q1 forecast international additions: 4.90 million

As the referred piece noted, “Netflix’s biggest challenge has been to aggressively invest in good original content that’s going to bring in new subscribers”. “Original content” is indeed a challenge because having it would drive good quarterly report and growth. As we experience a redesign in the web business, we would increasingly see companies putting more contents behind paywalls. It is irrelevant whether the content is news, video or commentary. Washington Post which has deepened its reporting is now profitable because it is getting more paid subscribers.

Besides Aggregation Construct

I am a big fan of aggregation construct where entities build platforms to monetize raw materials created by others. From Google to Facebook, aggregation is at the heart of the new internet-driven commerce. But based on what Netflix has done, there is another dimension to growth, albeit if you have the money to create those contents. Indeed, besides aggregation, there is a clear parable for web business: originality.  This parable is clearly explained by a TechCrunch commenter thus: “I signed up to support their original content, not the latest rehash from Hollywood. I also find I’m watching a lot of foreign content (South Korea, Norway, Japan, etc.) – most of which isn’t available elsewhere”. That is what it could take to win the entertainment and informational business on the web.

In a TechCabal newsletter, the curator wrote something very insightful: there is a possibility that the way we create ecommerce websites may not necessarily capture how Africans shop. In other words, in the open African market, we are not used to fixed prices as they have in American malls and stores. Here, you have to negotiate price with the seller before arriving at an equilibrium number.

Yes, when Amazon digitized American malls and stores, it made that listed price digital. But in Nigeria and across Africa, we never have listed prices in our four-day markets, open markets and traffic-light markets. So, why do we have ecommerce portals with listed prices?

Hold on: something is going here. The African shopping is social and conversational. It is not a mechanical process of “here is the price, pay or leave”.

You know what? That could be the reason why informal Facebook Group is growing, becoming the second ecommerce ecosystem in Africa, as I noted few days ago. Facebook groups mimic the African physical way of shopping with unconstrained haggling and bargaining.

According to Geopoll, a polling company, Facebook group is growing massively, threatening companies like Jumia and Konga on ecommerce. The informal groups in Facebook are now ecosystems of digital commerce as users use them to shop without going to the traditional ecommerce companies.

Now, would you design an ecommerce template that would replicate how Africans shop? That is what Facebook did in these informal groups since the sellers and buyers haggle over prices before money and products exchange hands. And they are growing. Just as the zip codes on our digital shopping carts, managing effectively how prices are determined may be an eureka moment in the Africa ecommerce sector. The American copycat-template may be totally irrelevant here.

We asked the client to remove the zip code field. Immediately, the conversion rate went up. Yes, zip code could destroy your online store capacity to get customers to buy. Our finding was that it frustrates shoppers by asking them to provide something they cannot technically provide. No one knows his or her zip code in Nigeria unless you are working in the Post Office. Yet, asking for that, even optional, is common in online stores in Nigeria.

Of course, there is nothing that says that a number may be in the price field. You can just ask the price to quote a price while you counter-propose. It is Africa, people.