I don't think Uber is looking to increase consumer surplus, I think they are very interested in charging people the maximum amount that they will bear over the

I don't think Uber is looking to increase consumer surplus, I think they are very interested in charging people the maximum amount that they will bear over the long term. So, to the extent that Uber succeeds at being a middleman, users will be paying exactly how much they're willing to pay and drivers will be earning fractionally more than their best alternative and Uber will be capturing the gap between those two price points at huge volumes. I think the real issue for drivers is that before Uber they were protected by a monopoly on medallions, but now they need to compete with anyone with a smartphone and enough credit history to rent a car, so wages are falling to the level of McDonald's because driving is a very common skill. Oh, and the main skill taxi drivers did have above and beyond most folks - the ability to navigate to almost arbitrary addresses - has been devalued by Google Maps, and made irrelevant by apps like Waze which can actually do better.