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Re:Scale Ruins Everything by empath75 on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @09:13AM (#41848231)
Every business in a competitive market is "barely profitable", that's how capitalism works. If a company is raking in massive profits that's a sign that the market is distorted somehow -- a monopoly, collusion, regulation, etc..
Re:Scale Ruins Everything by kibwen on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @09:24AM (#41848332)
Yes, but P implies Q does not mean that Q implies P. IOW, a competitive market implies a lack of profits, but a lack of profits does not imply a competitive market.
Re:Scale Ruins Everything by camgunz on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @02:26PM (#41851553)
Maybe, but the point here isn't that Uber underperforms, it's that their innovations didn't sufficiently expand the market. I'm arguing cab companies saw that coming, whereas Uber/SV didn't and spent billions of dollars finding out.

It's an indictment of the VC model where essentially you build a company that hogs all the value for investors. If you think this is a good model, i.e. that investors make better decisions than governments, labor, and the market, then I think you have to reckon with the utter wastefulness that is Uber. A better thing here would have been to just build a ride hailing app for existing cab companies.