And once they have driven (literally) out the competition, the rates are going to rise, as sure as you're sitting here reading this.An obvious but rarely asked question is: whose cash is Uber burning? With investors like Google, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Goldman Sachs behind it, Uber is a perfect example of a company whose global expansion has been facilitated by the inability of governments to tax profits made by hi-tech and financial giants.
[...]
[T]his money is parked in the offshore accounts of Silicon Valley and Wall Street firms.
[...]
Some of these firms do choose to share their largesse with governments – both Apple and Google have agreed to pay tax bills far smaller than what they owe, in Italy and the UK respectively – but such moves aim at legitimising the questionable tax arrangements they have been using rather than paying their fair share.
[...]
While you might be tempted to ascribe the low costs of the service to its ingenuity and global scale – is it the Walmart of transport? – its affordability has a more banal provenance: sitting on tons of investor cash, Uber can afford to burn billions in order to knock out any competitors.
[...]
Uber’s game plan is simple: it wants to drive the rates so low as to increase demand – by luring some of the customers who would otherwise have used their own car or public transport. And to do that, it is willing to burn a lot of cash, while rapidly expanding into adjacent industries, from food to package delivery.
Guardian
I'm assuming they've addressed their drivers' grievances, but I could be wrong. In France, they've generously offered to allow any taxi drivers who are being driven out of business a second job driving for Uber. Once they've succeeded in driving them out of business, there may be no other work for them, and then...well, we call that 'over a barrel'. I'm not sure why. But I know that when you are 'over a barrel', you don't have any bargaining leverage.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
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