There was a time, not too long ago, when Uber was held high here on HN and most tech sites: Uber represented the democratic, egalitarian alternative to the evil

There was a time, not too long ago, when Uber was held high here on HN and most tech sites: Uber represented the democratic, egalitarian alternative to the evil taxi empire. Out with the old king... As an aside, quite some time ago I canvased a number of taxi companies in the Toronto area to gauge their interest in creating essentially an open platform Uber -- a product that would offer a rich user experience similar to Uber (not copying Uber, but naturally the functionality will converge), but integrated with their dispatch systems and so on. Running a contract development shop, I was essentially pitching a researched, well considered solution to the Uber threat. There were no biters (even though those same companies seem to have endless time to petition in the media and government), and it remains a silo'd world of terrible apps, and still a fertile ground for disruption.