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Uber and Didi Call a Truce In China With a $35 Billion Deal (recode.net)
Kara Swisher, reporting for Recode: Uber, which has been spending hugely in China over the last two years, has folded, striking a deal in which it will merge its Chinese operations with its main rival there, Didi Chuxing. Under terms of the deal, Uber China, the ride-hailing company's Chinese subsidiary, will be part of a larger Didi company valued at $35 billion. Uber gets a 20 percent stake in that -- Didi's previous valuation was $28 billion. That's a $7 billion value for upward of $2 billion that Uber has frittered away, um, spent there. In turn, Didi will invest in Uber at a valuation of almost $70 billion. That was about the value of Uber's last round. Now, everyone owns everyone everywhere.
If they managed to get a stake worth $7 billion from spending $2 billion, that $2 billion is arguably well spent, even if the actually places the money went look silly.
Whenever China finds out that something you do is profitable, they'll sure find a way to wrest it from your hands. In the end, anything that's profitable in China has to be in Chinese hands, in one way or another. If nothing else, you'll be forced into a joint-venture with a Chinese "partner". With "partner" being something akin to being married in a shotgun wedding.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In a different article it was called "ride-sharing".
Why don't you just call it what it really is - an unlicensed, unregulated taxi company.