[laser]

"Uber passengers were paying only 41% of the actual cost of their trips; Uber was using these massive subsidies to undercut the fares and provide more capacity than the competitors who had to cover 100% of their costs out of passenger fares." Is either mathematically incorrect or extremely misleading. You can't take Uber's cut of passengers payments (~18%) and then divide by Uber's costs to say "passengers were paying only 41% of the actual cost of their trips", as the bulk of the cost of the trip goes directly to the driver. If you take this into account the rider is actually covering about 80% of the total cost of the trip, with Uber subsidizing about 20% of the cost on average, which includes their massive infrastructure building and expansion efforts. This means that even break-even Uber at a 25% higher cost, or a 20% profit margin Uber at a 50% higher cost, is still cheaper (and more convenient and enjoyable) than a taxi.