Bingo.

Subsidized not only by VCs, but also by gig economy workers who genuinely don’t understand how little they’re being paid because their liabilities are complicated and often hidden/deferred.

This seems to happen a lot especially with food service startups, because of how price-sensitive that market is. Selling anything below cost or undercutting the competition by even a little bit in that industry will give you exponential growth for as long as you can sustain it, but the instant you want to turn a profit the market will turn their back on you and go somewhere else.