Has the HN population really been skeptical? I think most see the scam (uber, WeWork, Airbnb, etc) for what they are (mostly illegal efforts to steamroll laws and blitz scale to a monopoly), and they want in.
Nah. Back when Uber was boasting about all the laws they were flouting, I was pretty anti-Uber, and I was among the minority here on HN. Most of the comments were about how problematic the taxi system is, and how it's great Uber was breaking the cartel.
Liberal democracy may be the worst form of government, besides all the other ones humans have tried, but it has also failed to deliver on promises so people are again considering those other forms of government. Coming out of WW2, it was easy to deliver the first part of the pareto, the last part has not been delivered. Eg. building schools and hospitals was easy, making education and health care good is not so easy.
So... maybe there is an actual reason many of these companies had/have success that you may simply not be privy to?
It looks Uber like, 15 years to be profitable. It's still not profitable everywhere. The only reason they solidified their place is because they spent a ton of money to do it.
It's not a scam per-se, these companies do have value. The question is if their value makes any economic or business sense in an objective way, and the answer has been no. But it doesn't matter, because capital forgives all.