I would say that what enabled this in Oslo and similar local apps was a (relatively) respectable taxi industry. Taxi drivers had to agree to be honest about pri

I would say that what enabled this in Oslo and similar local apps was a (relatively) respectable taxi industry. Taxi drivers had to agree to be honest about pricing and practices to standardize on an app and there are still plenty of places where they're more interested in profiteering from bad practices than being honest competitors. I used to spend time in the south of France for work and the taxi drivers there were awful rip-off artists. They'd try to scam tourists for over twice the standard price. We used other known taxi firms and Uber moved in to save the tourists. The taxi drivers went on strike and rioted but being honest would have been better. Uber is a distributed & centralized taxi company with software that isn't overly complex to copy on a local level. It had first mover advantage but is very susceptible to local competition, especially when local laws come into play (even if they're not obvious anti-competition laws). In the end the main aim should be the drivers earning a decent wage, which is something Uber hasn't always been good at.