>WTF did Uber build with all of that spend? How did it meaningfully impact their revenue in a positive direction?
Uber (and quite a few bay area companies and startups) can afford to spend that money. There is no expectation of profit, Uber lost ~62B and growing: https://uberlosses.com/
As much as I love to hate on Uber, that website is from 2022. Uber has been profitable since 2023.
It's profit margin seems to have stabilized around 10%.
The real economic crime is losing at least $40bn over 10 years scaling a business that ended up having retail profit margins (i.e. low profit margins).