[ta1234567890]

> Right, but would they be profitable if you took out the advertising and expansion costs?

An issue with this line of thought is that you think that they could one day flip a switch and just like that stop expanding or acquiring new customers.

Two problems with that are: 1) most likely if they stop growing, they start shrinking - it’s not like they are the only ones out there doing what they do, and 2) a lot of their marketing and expansion expenses (as corroborated by the sibling comment) don’t go towards acquiring new customers, but rather new drivers, which given their turn over, they can’t stop putting money into.

So basically if they stop spending money on advertising and expansion, they will loose all their drivers and slowly churn customers as well.

Hence, it doesn’t matter if they could technically be profitable without advertising and expansion, because then their business becomes unviable.