From what I've read, it appears that Uber operates largely within a zero-sum space. I. e. they're not build around some innovative technology that improves ever

From what I've read, it appears that Uber operates largely within a zero-sum space. I. e. they're not build around some innovative technology that improves everyone's life, but have simply ignored a few rules, allowing them to reward one class of people with $1 for every $1 they take from another class of people. The statistic that's going around is that they're subsidising each trip at a rate of 50% – i. e. taking from the VC investor and giving it to the customer. At the same time, they're undercutting the income and benefits currently enjoyed by taxi drivers. The net effect is both the lower and upper class paying to the mostly middle-class customers. The contribution from investors isn't going to continue forever, so lets assume they somehow find the economies of scale, or market power to raise prices, to break even –although I'm somewhat sceptical because I don't know how a trip in LA gets cheaper if there are also drivers in Barcelona. So now the customers get rides that are cheaper by anywhere from 50% to 0%, the latter if Uber manages to establish some sort of market dominance. And taxi drivers earning $40,000 are replaced by Uber drivers earning $30,000 and having no health insurance. Is that worth it? That probably depends on your politics. There's the economic fundamentalist perspective that markets are always fair and if that means you have to work in a coal mine where the air smells funny and by the way Johnny didn't make it out today, then you should have better paid attention in school. Personally, I think more equitable societies are more fun to life in, and kicking possibly hundreds of thousands of people a step down the economic ladder will, in the long term, hurt almost everyone – the trickle-up effect seems to have much more empirical support than the opposite