I disagree. I remember Mac users doing the same thing and their market share is still significantly below Windows. Developers make plenty of money on Mac. Regardless of market share percentage, they're are still millions on Windows phone users and it is easier to reach a higher percentage of that pool. There is profit to be made. If not, we would have no apps at all.
That's not really an apple's to apple's comparison (no pun intended.) It's all about the user demographic. Apple users tend to be very "spendy," i.e. they're the most likely of most tech demographics to actually pay money towards anything that their applications do. Whether that comes in the form of paying for the apps themselves, or shopping the most (notably, in spite of Apple's comparatively small market share to Android, they still spend more via their phones, and not necessarily even on anything related to the phone itself.)
Windows Phone, good or bad, does not offer that. In fact most of those "millions" you speak of actually buy low end Windows Phones, and barely spend anything on the apps, let alone the services. Furthermore, Lyft is a US company that operates in the US. Most of these "millions" of Windows Phone users you speak of are in developing countries and wouldn't use Lyft's services. Lyft is talking about expanding internationally, but I don't think any of the markets they're expanding into are popular markets for Windows Phone.
But, don't take my word for it.
http://news.yahoo.com/windows-phone-thriving-low-end-dying-high-end-213021720.html
This is the only driver in why, for example, in spite of Apple not being anywhere close to the top in market share (that is, they're a distant second) they still get market exclusives without the need for Apple to pay off the developer to stay exclusive.
I have had ridiculous conversations with people interested in Nokia camera technology, buy they were convinced that there were no apps on the platform. One person was even under the impression that Windows phone didn't even have ships available and that it was a fancy feature phone. No, lobbying seems the more prudent approach, to me.
That really depends on what their intended use for the phone is. It ultimately isn't about the number of apps available (Google and Apple stopped counting apps a long time ago for this reason; countless apps duplicate the functionality of one another so badly that it's just utterly pointless.) Windows Phone suffers from another problem entirely that I'll get to in a minute, but it begins with this: What matters is whether YOUR apps are available. Musicians can pretty much forget about Windows Phone, as even a Microsoft developer once pointed out:
Low-latency audio on Windows Phone 8 (hint: forget it for now...)
If you're a network engineer like I am and you need apps to help troubleshoot networks, you can forget about it as well:
http://forums.windowscentral.com/windows-phone-apps/235446-wi-fi-analyzer-possible-wp8.html
That, and apps like Fing, aren't even possible on Windows Phone. Windows Phone also has nothing in the way of native printing and scanning capabilities, and a ton of other issues related to missing functionality, which stem from this:
The biggest problem Windows Phone suffers from is its limited UI back end. Basically, if Microsoft hasn't already thought of the use case, then the app developer can't implement it. Android and iOS don't really have this limitation however. Go browse the Windows Phone app store and look for technical applications (as in apps that do more than provide information) that are ports/clones of applications from iOS or Android. A ton of them don't have feature parity, and the reason stated is typically "windows phone doesn't support this feature" rather than something to the effect of the developer is being too lazy to add it (which is a common accusation I see around here.)
Wouldn't the "bad taste" you speak of pertain to users too? What is they come over here and can't get a ride like they can on Android and iPhone??
What I mean by this is that you can't have the attitude that Windows Phone is for everybody, have them try it, and then complain that the whole platform sucks when they find out it isn't for them, just like your friend with the app complaint did. In fact really no platform is for everybody. I am mostly an Android user because I'm very much a power user (which mainly has to do with what I described earlier) and my Android can do a lot of things iDevices can't.
However the reverse is also true as my iDevices can do certain things with apps that by their nature have to make very rigid assumptions about the microphone and camera (which isn't at all practical on Android and Windows Phone because both of them are made by various OEMs. It doesn't matter how good of a quality the mic or camera is, rather in certain cases its necessary to know the EXACT specifications and quirks that APIs don't typically make available.)
I'm not quite sure what Windows Phone's niche is, maybe cameras, but I think that would only apply if you own a Nokia brand phone.