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Uber would only need to raise fares 10% and not increase driver payouts to be in the black. The dire predictions don’t seem connected to the balance sheet I’ve looked at. Everybody wags their tongue at uber quarterly “loss” but they pay no attention to the more important measure of free cash flow

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Break even does not enable them to pay for massive investments. A 20% increase would cost them significant ridership, but is more or less required to have any significant profit.

They would finance it through debt and equity, do it post IPO etc. There could be a merger instead of an acquisition. Currently if they cut their R&D by a bit and raise prices by 10% their more than healthy enough.

If they only raise prices by 10% it will cost them rides and drivers to Lyft / taxi etc. It's hard to say how much market share this would cost them, but you can't assume their numbers are going to be static with a price increase or they would have already increased prices.

10% is plenty to drive business to Lyft, especially with Lyft’s better brand.

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