> I'm trying to point out that cash flow negativeness is not the problem.

Cash flow negativeness in of itself may not be a sign of an bad company- see Amazon- but it does seem like it is present in many unsustainable business models, and those are companies that, at least in this tech cycle, tend to engage more vigorously in actions that result in side effects considered harmful.

> I don't get it.

Well, this also happened in the same time period:

https://money.cnn.com/2014/08/11/technology/uber-fake-ride-r...

> There is a very close correlation between high prices and bad service and monopolistic behavior.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/doordash-uber-eats...

> I am saying that your complaint is with all businesses that harm the environment or do scammy things.

That's not my complaint. My main point is that the influx of big dumb money coupled with unrealistic evaluations and this race-to-the-bottom, winner-take-all approach to startups is creating a toxic business environment. Moral hazards and externalities abound. Startups seek hyper-growth and burn themselves and their workforces out in the process. Consumers get exploited for their data, get lured into dark patterns, at times get offered shady legal gray area products from fintech startups. Good products worsen and die out as companies grow desperate trying to have it all, rather than focus on their core competencies. It all just seems unnecessary and gratuitous.

> I love data. By all means, do you have some data to show that DD is distorting the food delivery market in a way that hurts consumers?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/13/small-b...

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicago-will-now-requi...

> Cash flow negative businesses aren't the problem. Companies that ruin the environment are the problem.

How many cash flow negative tech businesses, Amazon aside, aren't the VC-propped up tech startups burning through capital that we're talking about? Actual case studies would be helpful here.

> No one is really getting fooled. The investors are smart enough to know what they're getting into. Especially investing in tech, especially in SV, especially in 2020.

Ask Softbank, or the Theranos investors. Ask everyone trading in CDOs in 2008. Everyone in a bubble looks smart, until it pops.

None of the things I'm saying are necessarily more critical of VCs than the words of say DHH or JWZ, or more radical than say the writings of Jaron Lanier. In fact, it would seem that on HN there is a growing backlash towards the excesses of these companies.

> Most new businesses of any kind anywhere have a high customer acquisition cost and almost no businesses of any size are profitable in the first few years. This is not new or particular to SV.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/ipos-for-unp...

> There should be headlines every day about how much oil Exxon and Shell have pumped that day and how much damage that will do to the environment. Why aren't there?

The Exxon Valdez oil spill took place nearly 30 years ago. Deepwater Horizon took place ten years ago. There are regularly new reports about climate change, coupled with information about advances in renewable energy and hot consumer offerings from Tesla and hybrid car manufacturers. To claim that the public is ignorant of the deleterious effects of fossil fuels is just plain silly.

> We're watching the world be literally destroyed before our eyes and we're arguing about pizza arbitrage.

This is Hacker News.

> I'm just saying its silly (to me) to be mad at Uber for engaging in exactly the strategy they told their investors they would engage in.

Is anyone actually mad in any of this discussion thread? Some people like to see Uber get taken down a notch, and going "haha your business plan doesn't actually make any money", but I don't see any moral panics actually taking place.

> Ok, so your complaint is that you don't like technology.

There are, shall we say, more palatable alternatives to most of these companies being discussed. In the food delivery space, there is ChowNow, which is less a delivery marketplace and instead sells software to restaurants. Coloradoan restaurateurs have created NoCo Nosh, which is their own localized food delivery service app from the restaurants themselves. Uber and Lyft's departure from Austin drove the creation of local ride-hailing services there as well (Ride Austin, Fasten, etc.). All such technological products can exist without being created from VC-funded unicorns.

To say that I'm against technology is rather reductionist. For instance, without it, we wouldn't be able to have long meandering fruitless debates. This Internet of yours is a wonderful invention.