You'll never ride alone

摘要

UBER'S INITIAL public offering, due after The Economist went to press, will be one of the largest in tech history. The hoopla cannot drown out uncertainty about the firm's future. Ride-hailing platforms have grown hugely in recent years, changing the face of urban transport. They have also been virtuosic losers of money (see Business section). Lyft made an operating loss of nearly $1bn in 2018; Uber, about $3bn. The flow of red ink mainly represents subsidies from investors to riders: cash that allows average Joes to feel as though they have a personal car at their beck and call. It will not last. But Uber passengers are not the only road-farers facing straitened circumstances. Car-related subsidies of all sorts are becoming harder to sustain. Their loss could reveal mass travel in single-occupancy cars to be a no-longer-affordable luxury.