The Uber driver circling at 5 am may not be turning a profit with $15 airport rides. This business may only be sustainable for as long as VC money flows, and drivers are willing to go bust.
Uber makes something like a 36% variable margin [1]. Even adding back sales & marketing we find a positive, if small, margin. They lose about 11% per ride. But that varies wildly region to region. (New York, for example, is profitable.)
Drivers' economics are more precarious. But the "as long as VC money flows" argument hasn't made sense since Uber's 2019 IPO.
So on net, they may be out something like 11-30% per ride dependent on location. Those are awful economics. More concerning would be busy season/dry season dynamics for Uber drivers. If there are months where rides decline in frequency or become more concentrated - then driver economics may be substantially worse than the average would have you believe.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/uber-posts-nearly-6-billio....