By steamrolling local taxi operations in cities all over the world and cultivating cheerleaders in the business press and among Silicon Valley libertarians, Uber has managed to create an image of inevitability and invincibility.
Journalism is about trolling 24/7 now. Uber is bad etc but first and foremost, people use that stuff all the time. All the fucking time. That’s how Uber became huge in the first place. It was such a small thing barely 5 years ago. We all made them insanely big because that ride-sharing shit is ultra-convenient. Starting an article about Uber by immediately spitting in their faces by implying that this is all because of lobbying, crazy SF libertarians and such, is not journalism. It’s trash. Boo Uber doesn’t make money. Netflix isn’t either. Tesla just barely started to? But those are for a certain slice of the population. Uber is used by everyone, from the prostitute at the corner of a dark boulevard to teenagers going back home to Bel Air’s heiresses going out.
You can be mad at how much money Uber raised or argue how they will replace drivers with level-5 cars (which is when they’ll be able to make profit) but the service itself? Leave it alone. We needed it.
Also maybe y’all could stop investing in businesses solely based on growth, wins-it-all promises? Maybe.