See also: rideshare. VC pumps in billions so that Lyft & Uber can be cheaper than taxis at a HUGE loss -> taxis go out of business -> Lyft & Uber jack up their prices because they own the market.
Did the rideshare companies actually jack up their prices at any point? How would they do that when they're still in competition with each other and the barrier to entry to the market remains low? Any attempt to raise prices would immediately result in more competitors.
That was the whole thing with the taxi medallions. It was a cartel, because that market has very low barriers to entry and the taxi companies didn't want the competition.
Uber didn't make prices artificially low, they just provided competition which stopped them from being artificially high. They're not losing money on rides, they're "losing money" on self-driving car R&D and things like that.
And "fair trade" is a marketing device. People want to feel good about not exploiting people, so companies not exploiting people get to charge a premium for that. That doesn't mean companies who are paying suppliers less don't still exist or offer similar products for lower prices purchased by customers who don't care as much about that.
Neither of these are examples of what you're describing.
How is that even possible? They get a percentage of the fare and their unit cost is only a tiny bit of server utilization.
Medallians only apply to NYC. Cities have been hit hard (portland, austin). But to be fair, it caused Radio Cab to modernize with an app.
Profitabilty: Here, I did your research for you, not too hard:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lensherman/2019/06/02/can-uber-...
https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-lyft-...
Please take at least one second to google next time?
Fair Trade absolutely has an impact, by your own admission! You are applying the "if you can't fix everything don't bother fixing anything" fallacy. I don't know why certain personality types have to hide behind this when someone is trying to do something good. Do you just hate yourself?
So you have no evidence that they'll raise prices and the claim that they would is pure speculation. Which still doesn't explain how they would be able to when they still have to compete with each other and when the barrier to entry is very low such that if they ever did they would quickly get new competitors.
> Profitabilty: Here, I did your research for you, not too hard
Websites explaining why they currently spend more than they take in (answer: long-term investments like R&D and advertising), not how they would lose money on the average ride.
> Fair Trade absolutely has an impact, by your own admission! You are applying the "if you can't fix everything don't bother fixing anything" fallacy.
I never claimed it doesn't do anything. It's just not an example of dumping or anti-competitive behavior. Non-fair trade coffee isn't excluded from the market in any way. The higher price for fair trade coffee doesn't come from market power, it comes from marketing and selling a different product (a specific brand of morality) which is worth more money to some customers.
There is no cartel there. There is nobody stopping anybody new from paying higher wages and marketing their coffee as such, nor from paying lower wages and charging lower prices.
If that’s all “fair trade” is, that’s an impressive marketing tactic.
