The long term profitability strategy of the ride-share, scooter, meal-delivery apps is to sell user financial information. The author totally misses this crucial point. The goal right now is to continue growing the user base, profit will come later.

“You might call it the Millennial Lifestyle Sponsorship, in which consumer tech companies, along with their venture-capital backers, help fund the daily habits of their disproportionately young and urban user base. With each Uber ride, WeWork membership, and hand-delivered dinner, the typical consumer has been getting a sweetheart deal.”

For those of us living in SF even five years ago when this was all beginning, the clear lack of viable unit economics was obvious. We called it the “VC-sponsored lifestyle”. Uber and Lyft weren’t regulated back then so prices were even lower. VCs were also more optimistic and willing to fund losing business models. Now their new investments are more conservative, but the big startups that they’ve already sunk hundreds of millions into are going public and still tied to unprofitable models 🤷🏻‍♂️