I think this vastly overstates it. Versailles cost some significant fraction of France's GDP - possibly as much as 25% in some years. WeWork's $10B is a mere drop in the US' $20T GDP.
I use Uber all the time, as does everyone I know. Hell, I even drove for them for a while.
They provide a needed service and they are subsidizing that to get rid of competition like Lyft and to grow a huge user base. Then, it's likely they will raise prices and start making money.
But it is not a Ponzi scheme. Last I checked, a local taxi company that is still in business wants $30 to take me into town, which is 5 miles away. Uber is $7.
The cost of that $7 are the billions they lose every quarter. It's not sustainable. They're a public company now, so to come up with fresh cash, they have to issue bonds and pay interest on them. How will they repay it when they aren't generating fresh cash through profits? They can't rely on VCs opening their wallets whenever they needed money.
They will raise prices eventually, they are in the "get a lot of regular users" phase still, growing that until they are ubiquitous.
Yes, they may face monopoly concerns then, but that is down the road.
What they will not face is competition from the $30 taxi companies, because unlike the taxi company they do not own any cars and the resultant costs of that.
Cheap rides are to gain marketshare and customer acquisition. Not saying the strategy will be fruitful but it is a strategy.
(Hopefully someone more knowledgable can chime in,) but I always thought VC was a mix of government, private, and institutional funds?
If you assume that the government needs $X to perform its function then when tax rates are cut for corporations and those wealthy enough to game the system, its everyone else whose taxes pay the shortfall. The reason there is so much money floating around the top end is specifically because they've figured out how to foist their tax burden onto others.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebe...
Economic disparity has reached a point where those at the top end literally have more money than they know what to do with and are increasingly spending it on stupider and stupider things out of some perceived need to do something.