I know I won't be popular with this comment and most likely downvoted, because Uber is so beloved (especially in Bay Area circles). But here it comes: Why do people support a single company (like in this case Uber) taking over the business of thousands and thousands of existing companies and hence monopolizing an industry?

In most European cities, taxi companies are small, almost mom-and-pop entities with anywhere between one and say twenty taxis. In fact where I am living now I can call 4-5 different ones all in my vicinity. If there was an app that consolidated the booking process for those - awesome!

But why would there have to be a company that owns the market globally - from Karachi to Karlsruhe, from Amsterdam to New York, taking 20%, killing competition by it's pure überstrong market presence, brand and financial backing.

The same people that hate Comcast for oligolopolizing it's market (and hence using it's almost-monopoly powers for their benefit) yet somehow wish Uber would succeed and take over the market around the world. Why? Because it's a hip SF 'startup' (if you can still call an entity with $1,500,000,000 in funding a startup)?