The Millennial Urban Lifestyle Is About to Get More Expensive
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The Millennial Urban Lifestyle Is About to Get More Expensive
As WeWork crashes and Uber bleeds cash, the consumer-tech gold rush may be coming to an end.
OCT 15, 2019
Derek Thompson
Staff writer at
The Atlantic
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I
dont know if it makes sense, and I dont know how long its going to last. Is there a better epitaph for this age of consumer technology?
Starting about a decade ago, a fleet of well-known start-ups promised to change the way we work, work out, eat, shop, cook, commute, and sleep. These lifestyle-adjustment companies were so influential that wannabe entrepreneurs saw them as a template, flooding Silicon Valley with Uber for X pitches.
But as their promises soared, their profits didnt. Its easy to spend all day riding unicorns whose most magical property is their ability to combine high valuations with persistently negative earningssomething Ive pointed out before. If you wake up on a Casper mattress, work out with a Peloton before breakfast, Uber to your desk at a WeWork, order DoorDash for lunch, take a Lyft home, and get dinner through Postmates, youve interacted with seven companies that will collectively lose nearly $14 billion this year. If you use Lime scooters to bop around the city, download Wag to walk your dog, and sign up for Blue Apron to make a meal, thats three more brands that have never recorded a dime in earnings, or have seen their valuations fall by more than 50 percent.
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