Cause and effect. Uber operates at a significant loss at the whims of VC investment. Operations undercut competition so the competition may have to close down s

Cause and effect. Uber operates at a significant loss at the whims of VC investment. Operations undercut competition so the competition may have to close down shop and sell off assets or get bought out by the monopoly of the area. When this is the case (monopoly) then you have unfettered control over how pricing works. Uber has to eventually make a choice about whether they need to cut costs, jobs or assets at some point in the future; or just wait it out until all the other competition dies out and they are the monopoly of the area. But, as a result of pulling out of a city, a location, or a reduction in services, you have twofold problem: 1. Loss of jobs 2. Loss of local companies (or adding the monopoly scenario) 3. Loss of price gouging prevention Now what makes this type of market more feasible to resiliency is that the assets are distributed (i.e. owned by actual people). So if Uber did have to bail out, people could feasibly still work anyways. This is different than other models where major assets and investments are required to even operate at all. That being said I worry about how long this is going to last. Uber is operating with the expectation that there will be fully automated self-driving cars and drivers will be unnecessary. This seems to indicate, at least to me, that the distributed asset model would go away (unless all cars are self-driving). It's an interesting thing to consider, whether their future depends on continued reliance on VC subsidies (which is going to run out), and whether it relies on significant investment in self-driving assets, or whether it relies on everyone having self-driving vehicles. But perhaps part of the math is to balance the book by pushing more in that direction. (At least that's the pitch to the VCs). Basically, I am skeptical that this is sustainable to operate this way at a loss for so long that eventually they will have to increase prices or cut operations. In the case of the monopoly scenario, you have no way to competitively prevent price gouging (however temporary it might be). My hope is that some aggregator services come along and turn the model into something more distributed with an open-pricing model based on efficiency metrics like operating cost for a self-employed/freelance driver.