But did their business model require them doing that forever? That seems like something they can cut back on once there is a healthy size of drivers in a market.
Yeah I agree it was the original plan from the beginning: use Saudi money to strangle competition and then get the prices back to taxi level (or higher). I believe they partly succeeded by making a compromise here: they both cut the payments to drivers and increased prices.
The original plan worked because in the switch-and-bait phase they were visibly cheaper so in the last year people's mental and speech model changed from "call me a taxi" to "call me an uber". But at least in my local market, the price difference between a taxi an and uber in 2025 is negligible.
A decade ago in NYC, they were giving out free rides left and right. I used Uber for months without paying for a single ride, then when they started charging, they were steeply discounted. I could get around for a little more than a subway fare.
Lyft did the same thing, got a bunch of free rides for a while with them, too.