Ridesharing is profitable today. The reason these companies lose money is because of investments in other areas. Whether that's wise or not is up for debate, but both Lyft and Uber are public companies. Neither is seeking VC money at this point for further injections.
Who says it is? I'm questioning whether the taxi drivers actually have any more rights. The parent comment here said that the disruption that caused ridesharing to rapidly grow this mobility segment was because the drivers were independent contractors instead of being employees. My point is that taxi drivers were never employees, either, and that the success of the ridesharing companies had more to do with user experience and reliability than their business model.
Most traditional taxis are independent contractors as well. It's the ridematching versus dispatch system that is the advantage, not the employment model.
It's easy to see all the folks here who don't remember having to wait an hour for a taxi to show after calling, if it ever did. Pushing a button on your phone and getting a ride five minutes later is magic in comparison.
This is the same logic my extended family uses when they tell me that their phones eavesdrop on their conversations to target advertisements. Just because it's possible and fits your narrative doesn't make it true.
No brand or PR team that I've ever been near has the capacity to monitor and then manually downvote this kind of thing, even on major sites, let alone a niche news site like HN. Who has the budget for this?