> But "destroying the taxi cartels" wasn't a good thing, because it replaced an imaginary taxi mafia (that supposedly spanned cities) with a single taxi mafioso

> But "destroying the taxi cartels" wasn't a good thing, because it replaced an imaginary taxi mafia (that supposedly spanned cities) with a single taxi mafioso that's a global corporation. This is simply bullshit, through and through. Uber, at best, is just a middleman that provides billing services. Those performing the service are local corporations that are free to pick whichever billing service they want. In fact, after Uber started to cover my region the local cab companies were quick to setup a competing service. With them, other multinational ridesharing services started covering my region as well. In two occasions I took a ride whose driver stated he also worked through two Uber competitors. This is a huge improvement over the old cartel system.