>Really it smells like a smear campaign to make a bunch of immigrants driving cars 12 hours a day the bad guys and to make the 60 billion dollar corporate titan the underdog.
The taxi industry has been running its own smear campaign for the last 50 years by offering completely terrible service in the majority of the US.
From the consumer perspective, Uber/Lyft are the only real options for reliable taxi service outside of a few really dense urban areas. The status quo before was calling a number, hoping they didn't hang up or scoff at the route, waiting 20-120 minutes, getting scammed by taking an inefficient route, and then getting lied to about the credit card machine not working. Oh, and then your only recourse being a report to a local taxi authority which is completely unreasonable if you are traveling due to the time effort involved.
That status quo was the thing that made Lyft/Uber an instant winner in the USA. It often gets lost amid the noise of Uber breaking the law.
The pre-rideshare world was awful and full of ripoffs. Disrupting that is the win for all.
I remember the last time I had to use a taxi. It was in Saint Louis - there was no Uber/Lyft at that time at that ___location. They had no website. So I had to call somewhere - cell service was nearly non-existent for some reason. My flight left in 3 hours. The taxi dispatcher sent someone, but, well, I called the dispatcher after 30 minutes. He's on his way. Great. An hour and 45 minutes before my flight, the guy pulls up. Of course he got lost or something, I don't care. We make our way to the airport. Happily, this time the credit card worked.
A few years before that, I was in Boston. Taxi had a TV playing in the headrest in front of me. Of course it was charging me, but it didn't say that. The driver didn't have a credit card reader - until I told him that I had no cash, so he had to figure it out. Then the reader came out. I asked for a receipt (business trip), and he scribbled something on literally the back of an envelope.
The taxi industry has been running its own smear campaign for the last 50 years by offering completely terrible service in the majority of the US.
From the consumer perspective, Uber/Lyft are the only real options for reliable taxi service outside of a few really dense urban areas. The status quo before was calling a number, hoping they didn't hang up or scoff at the route, waiting 20-120 minutes, getting scammed by taking an inefficient route, and then getting lied to about the credit card machine not working. Oh, and then your only recourse being a report to a local taxi authority which is completely unreasonable if you are traveling due to the time effort involved.