They lost their primary source of where they find drivers... the borders have been locked down in terms of migrant workers and immigration.
Whether the US restricting certain inbound flights from certain high risk pandemic countries, or so many other countries locking down their borders.
International immigration has come to a grinding halt.
I cannot remember the exact numbers, but it's something like 80% of drivers quit within 6 months. That is insanely high. I do not thing any normal company could opperate and stay in business with a churn rate like that.
SOOO.... Uber has ALWAYS relied on immigrants who are willing to work a very hard, tiring, boring, low wage job... and those people are, primarily immigrants who are very low on the socio-economic scale.
Uber doesn't care if you speak English. All they care is if you had a DUI. Immigrants have clean USA DMV/MVA records.
They can do into a HERTZ and pay $1100 a month for a dirty Camery that smells funny, and work 80 hours a week... and if they bust their ass like that for 6 months they might be able to have enough to save enough to buy a car-- to get a normal job, like at Target, which pays them $18 an hour, has normal hours, they meet people, have medical, or certain basic benefits.
Uber drivers have ALWAYS been fleeing the moment they could. The Churn/Quit rate has ALWAYS been exceptionally high. Uber has for years counted on an ENDLESS supply of desperate people who come to the USA on a VISA and have very little money to start out.
NOTE: I am not knocking these people, it's gotta be incredibly hard to do so especially with how expensive living is.
But now Uber and Lyft have been screwed by the Pandemic... So to speak.
Drivers who were on the platform went on PEUC, and didn't drive.
They saved money... literally, and bought a car, or relocated. And now? The last thing on earth they would do is go back to such a terrible way to try to even make a buck.
Uber now due to the restrictions on immigration, cannot find new drivers to fill vacancies they always had due to churn rate, and the drivers they had are gone.
There are a number of scholarly articles on this subject, that Uber will likely fail in the next 5 years. It was never mean't to succeed. The initial investors, Dara, they all made 10s if not 100s of millions. They know it's over, so why try to bail out a ship that is certain to sink.
They don't care, they have moved on. And for the time being, try to milk every last dollar they can by overcharging passengers and preying on the few remaining desperate drivers by paying them an unthinkably low wage.