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This paper is not about grabbing most of the market etc and eventually making a profit. As the abstract quoted above says, it's about creating an illusion that this can be done so as to sell stock to a greater fool. Uber was quite successful at this, as were many others.

Really, from the pov of Travis Kalanick and the original funders, Uber is a fabulously successful business.

The original founders and the venture predators made their money. The professional execs at the top running the business now are also making lots of money. It doesn't matter to any of them what happens to competitors, employees and current shareholders.



> about creating an illusion that this can be done so as to sell stock to a greater fool.

Yup, that's the entire point of the paper (and it's really clearly written and approachable by non-experts!)

Parent was equating predatory pricing (in general) with loss-leaders, which have nothing to do with the subject of this paper.




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