That’s the thing that bothers me with the whole sharing economy. Uber’s mission wasn’t even a bad one. Let’s do something about the cruft in the (San Francisca

That’s the thing that bothers me with the whole sharing economy. Uber’s mission wasn’t even a bad one. Let’s do something about the cruft in the (San Franciscan) taxi industry and offer a better service. Unfortunately they had to grow exponentionally. So, offering a better product wasn’t enough. It had to be cheaper too. Though even paying drivers no salary and not needing taxi medallions there still was no good way to undercut them on prices unless they poured investor billions like a Ponzi scheme into the fold. More and more money was needed as more and more rides were subsidised as the company grew. It will be interesting to see what happens now that investor money won’t flow freely post-IPO and how much prices can be raised until passengers jump onto the next subsidise scheme. Grab in Singapore is the exact same story. More and more billions put into a market that already has a solid taxi industry.