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That’s a decent amount of revisionism.

Uber used VC money to heavily undercut the taxi rates, heavily inflate driver pay and decided to speedrun breaking as many laws as possible

As for getting into strangers’ cars, getting in a taxi is no different.

Do you think Uber was able to become as ubiquitous as it is if it didn’t heavily subsidize both sides of the equation and abide by the laws?

I doubt it.

Like you aptly describe now the fares as on par if not more than taxis, because now that they’ve attained dominance over the market by burning VC money, they can squeeze the customers and drivers alike. I’m not even sure if they’re turning a profit yet.



> I’m not even sure if they’re turning a profit yet.

Uber recorded its first ever operating profit last quarter:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2023/08/02/uber-just-report...


Is it legit profits?

Iirc Uber had some creative accounting practices in the past offsetting loses from one quarter to another, and making a single quarter look good.


No idea. I don't really keep track of Uber at all, I just happened to remember their recent announcement about it.


> now that they’ve attained dominance over the market by burning VC money, they can squeeze the customers and drivers alike

Lyft still exists. To say nothing of local upstarts, like Revel in New York.




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