Non-GAAP numbers are allowed when it helps clarify financial numbers for investors. The SEC will not allow anything to be called non-GAAP if it’s misleading. Saying revenue is $100 and shoving a discount as a marketing expense is fraud and accounting 101. There’s literally no room for interpretation. What Uber does with non-GAAP ebitda numbers has no bearing on this conversation. We are talking about straight up revenue recognition and the example given in the original post is well understood.

In terms of X vs Pool, it depends on the risk that the company takes. If Uber advertises a fixed price for the customer but they pay their drivers a variable cost (time and distance) then there is risk that Uber takes less money than they predicted or even a loss. That is the Principal model and they take the gross. To be extremely clear, this is what they are supposed to do under GAAP. If you look at their 10K which I’m guessing you haven’t, they don’t call the driver payouts a “marketing expense.” They call it “Cost of revenue”.

If they charge a % on the ride and there is no risk of revenues changing, it’s an Agent model and they take the net. I don’t know what the current model is, but I believe in California it’s the Agent model now. Pool used to be Principal a few years ago but again I think things have changed in California. Other countries will have different models so it’s on Uber to make sure their accounting is correct in all jurisdictions.