[kneebonian]

Once you realize that sometime in the past 10-20 years the economy started having nothing to do with actual goods and services and instead turned into some sort of weird game played by the powerful and the rich it makes more sense.

Personally I peg it happening sometime around 2008 when it became clear the rules didn't matter, consequences were for the poor and party hearty. Explain how else a company like Uber that was losing money on every ride was able to raise billions in VC funding.

Think of it like that and it makes more sense.

[this_user]

All of that is a direct consequence of low interest rates. If money is cheap and easy to borrow, there is less pressure on a business like Uber to turn an actual profit. Instead, investors will encourage them to grow aggressively in the hopes of capturing the market. Once liquidity dries up, there will be more pressure to actually make money.

But the economy is working as intended and it's actors are merely reacting to incentives. The question is whether the wrong incentives have been set that have created large sectors of the economy that are completely dependent on permanently low interest rates.

[vuln]

> Once liquidity dries up, there will be more pressure to actually make money.

No. They IPO and the investors get their money while retail investors hold the bag of poop thinking they just got _in_ on something.

[vineyardmike]

It's not 100% retail investors, and whoever owns it today surely wants money. I don't know Uber's actual finances, but as long as you make enough money every month to cover last month's bills, you don't need to make a profit.

There are a lot of games that can be played with money to keep a company unprofitable but alive and healthy for a while. Look at amazon, a famously "unprofitable" company for almost 2 decades.

[paulryanrogers]

VCs want to capture markets. That's why they pour money into launching what could be the next market leader, even if the model won't work at predatory prices. Because once they own the market they can raise the prices to whatever they want.