[mailund]

This has been a known strategy from Uber for a long time. Run at a loss to squeeze out the existing offerings, then dramatically increase prices once they've established a monopoly.

Combine this with exploiting loopholes to get around local labour regulation or just outright ignoring it just because, giving them an unfair advantage over competitors that were operating more or less honestly.

I wish I could say I was surprised they got away with it just because they were doing it through an app :shrug:

[mannykannot]

Doing it through an app is what made it possible to turn each transaction into effectively a pair of opaque auctions with Uber holding all the information, but they got away with it because consumers really like low prices.