Originally Posted by tandempower

Basically all these costs amount to attacks by people who want to push these companies to provide them with money at rates they have come to expect within an economy that has traditionally be underwritten by giving everyone a 5-year loan to pay for a car. An economy where significant numbers of people are not locked into such contract-sales for a vehicle is simply not going to generate the same amount of paper-trading, so all these people who want to milk that level of money out of these car-free living businesses are just going to put them out of business, which will have the effect of removing alternatives to automotive purchases, which is the same thing as forcing everyone to (pay to) drive as an economic stimulus project.

In short, it is a non-governmental fiscal stimulus project to kill car-free alternatives by demanding automotive-economy levels of profit from them. It would be like telling bike commuters that you're going to fine and tax them until they generate as much revenue for you as if they bought a car from you. The bottom line is that riding a bike or sharing a car should never cost as much as owning and driving your own car, and that should be something that is achievable in business without a bunch of investors getting involved to drive your stock value down because they want you to pay for a car so they can make money in quantities that satisfy them.