I would argue instead that the current state of the ride-sharing industry is merely a natural progression due to technological advancement (smartphones, Interne

I would argue instead that the current state of the ride-sharing industry is merely a natural progression due to technological advancement (smartphones, Internet, etc.) and strong economies Not to mention complacency by entrenched industries -- before the Uber days, San Francisco had a half dozen competing cab companies, you'd call for one cab (talking to a human dispatcher), he'd tell you a cab was on the way, then you'd wait and hope your cab showed up, meanwhile you might see several cars from other companies drive by... and as you wait, you consider whether to ditch the cab you called and flag down one of the others. If they'd pooled their resources, come up with a central dispatch system for all companies and some sort of app that tells you when your cab is going to arrive (even an SMS saying "Driver XXX is .5 miles away and should be there in XX minutes" would let you know that there really is a driver on the way), I wonder if Uber would have taken over there.