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What assets? Almost all of WeWork's office space is leased. The company owns nothing.

The "exploiters" Uber and Airbnb were at least able to build a sustainable business. WeWork was a scam from day one.

Ehh, I disagree. OP is incorrect in that WeWork owns little of their own real estate, but from what we can tell they were leased at fair market rates from their actual owners (some of whom are Adam Neumann himself, which is... bad).

The only parties that really got fleeced here were Softbank and their totally unclothed VC siblings who bought Neumann's messianic complex like rubes. Building owners by and large seem to have been treated fairly?

I would argue the gig economy has been worse, since those who got fleeced were largely working people being squeezed and having massive externalities and liabilities dumped onto them.

The building owners were absolutely greedy fools to sign those lease agreements they will go bankrupt

Uber and Airbnb are sustainable because they exploit in the first place. They have zero risk on the assets because they are owned by the users.

And why is that a problem?

Because in capitalism profit is the reward for taking the risk.

That's part of the deal.

Their share of the profit is disproportionate to the risk they take

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