[ghaff]

They've allowed (or even actively encouraged) this narrative to develop around how they'll make money as soon as they have self-driving cars. This requires not just the availability of self-driving on some small scale in specific places or along part of a driving route but broad availability in urban areas where a lot of people live (i.e. where self-driving is especially difficult).

Admitting the tech is a ways out means either 1.) Admitting that they have no idea how they're going to make money or 2.) Admitting that they're going to have to significantly raise prices to both improve per-mile profitability and cover the inevitable associated volume dropoff.

The only real explanation I have for why Uber hasn't accepted the inevitable and jacked up rates is that so many people are feeding at the trough no one wants to be the one to admit that the emperor has no clothes and there's no magic fix for making money at the current rate structure.