I suspect we may be still defining the actual market. There are definitely some components of the WeWork experience that are a hard sell even in their target market. The noise, lack of privacy, and casual nature for example. It would not be hard for Regus and friends to roll out trial balloons for variations on the theme.

I see WeWork has having a few damning problems that aren't issues of questionable business or accounting practices:

1) Since they're an challenger in a hot real-estate market, they're starting at a price disadvantage to anyone who already has properties. If other brands can copy enough of their magic at 20% less money, watch WeWork disappear from approved-vendor lists.

2) They're pushing for scale in a non-scale business. There's not huge synergies in supply, marketing, or purchasing. The fact they have hundreds of locations doesn't matter for many "I need an office in one specific place" use case. I don't doubt a WeWork of a handful of locations, as a niche product, would be a modest success. But they need that investor-pleasing hockey-stick growth which means "open 500 locations speculatively" and "generate huge debts and close 50% of locations once we figure out what won't perform".