Uber fares are cheap, thanks to venture capital. But is that free ride ending?
The 2010s have been the decade of the subsidized ride.
Uber and Lyft duked it out on the streets of American cities, burning mountains of venture capital to keep fares low in the hopes of winning the battle for market share. The costs were steep: Lyft lost nearly $1 billion in 2018; Uber, with its global scale and broader ambition, lost $3 billion.
The private investors that pumped money into these companies were looking for growth at all cost, betting
