> Uber could operate at breakeven by raising prices slightly more than 10%. [...] Uber could be highly profitable by raising prices 20%.

No, because the demand would be different at those price points, and lower demand might not compensate for high fixed costs.

I got a timely reminder yesterday in (newly Grab-monopoly) Singapore, taking a Grab for $15 that used to cost me $3-6 on Uber.

I took public transport back. One ride was enough to shake me out of my years-trained habit of taking Uber/Grab everywhere when it cost only twice the MRT or bus ride, never really looking at the price.

Travis Kalanick's apparent vision was to create an enormous amount of demand for private drivers by dropping the price to the floor, thus creating the volume needed to make the numbers work, in the same way that Standard Oil's massive facilities dropped the price low enough for Rockefeller to bankrupt all his competitors.