It's the Uber business plan - losing money until the competition loses more and goes out of business. So far Lyft seems to be doing okay, which proves the business plan doesn't really work.
Uber market cap makes places it in the top100 in the world, whereas Lyft is around 1/25th of Uber in market cap, and not even top1000. I would consider that a success...
That is basically as much winner-takes-it-all one can realistically get in a global market. Cases where the top is just 5x the runner up would still be very winner oriented.
Because the competition hasn't gone out of business (at least outside the US where tons of other ride hailing apps are available in most major locales) and because 16 (SIXTEEN!!!) years after founding Uber is still net profit negative: over its lifetime it has lost more money than it made.
The only people that really benefited from Uber are:
2. if you add Uber's financial numbers since creation, the crazy amount of VC that was invested Uber would have provided better returns by investing it in the S&P 500.
3. Uber will settle in as a boring, profitable company that's going to be a side note in both the history of tech and also of transportation and will primarily be remembered for eroding worker rights.
So the much, much riskier Uber investment has barely matched a passive S&P 500 investment over the same time frame. And the business itself has lost money, more money was put into it than has been gotten back so far.
I'm not even sure why I'm in this conversation as it seems ideological. I bring up facts and you bring up... vibes?