That graphic with the unicorn ditch is f'n hilarious. Mike Isaac had a part in his book about Uber: [...] The Chinese scam losses were tens of millions per week. This model isn't going away until hyperconcentrated VC is dead in the water. Until then, reap thyne benefits wherever you can, I guess.In new York in 2014, 20% of all revenue went to fraudulent scammers. Uber was bleeding money by the millions. Drug runs and escorts were driven around on stolen credit cards. In China, drivers and riders collided to collect the incentives, collaborating through online forums by creating fake accounts and going on fake trips together. Kalanick could not stop the incentives because he had to keep up with Didi, and did not want to make signup anything more than a name, phone and cc as it would lead to UX friction. Putting a dent in growth was not an option. People ended up making circuit boards for hundreds of sim cards to automate the process of skimming money off of Uber.
If restaurants and drivers complained about DoorDash but DoorDash was raking in juicy profits, you could be like “what do you want, innovate or die, the market has spoken.” But in fact restaurants and drivers complain about DoorDash, and it lost $450 million in 2019 on about $1 billion of revenue. Arguably the market has spoken and said “stop it, come on, this is dumb.”