I'm dismayed that twice, the titles have obscured what the essay is about. The article's title is "Dear Unit Economics, I hate you" which buries the lede, and

I'm dismayed that twice, the titles have obscured what the essay is about. The article's title is "Dear Unit Economics, I hate you" which buries the lede, and then the (original) HN submitted title "The Most Terrifying Term in the Entrepreneurial Dictionary" is another distraction. The article doesn't explain any strategic thinking or tradeoffs around "unit economics". It's mostly about the "on-demand" startups that are trying the "Uber for X" model not making money. Yes, their unit economics are bad (so far) but the author doesn't make a distinction between strategically losing money on purpose to try and gain market share vs a fundamentally broken businesses models that loses money forever. Example of negative unit economics that turned out fine would be Paypal's $10 credit promotion for new account signups. They had negative unit economics from 1998 - 2002 Yes, the vast majority of on-demand startups will fail but they feel their unit economics will eventually become positive. A better analysis would explain why they will never become positive. (If the speculation on eventual W-2 employee status for all "contractors" is the main reason, well, I suppose you could have titled the article "W-2 threatens all on-demand startups") A lot of them are losing money now but we (and the VCs funding them) already know that.