That's exactly the point for Uber: they lost against a local company, because the government did everything it could do so that didi would win the battle.

What did the government do?

I've used both Didi and Uber in China many many times, and it seemed like they were competing against each other pretty hard, without discounts etc.

From my perspective as a customer, it seemed like they were both just trying to outspend each other to gain market share, and Uber just decided it was no longer a good use of cash.

Yeah, but Didi has Jean Liu, daughter of Liu Chuanzhi who is founder of Lenovo. She helped Didi raise the largest fundraising round in history.