We've seen:
* Systematic flouting of laws in public
* Even further hidden avoiding of laws
* Sexism complaints across the board
* What appears to be a pervasive toxic culture, inspired (if not explicitly encouraged) straight from the CEO's behavior
Are they actually too big to fail?
Essentially they're undercutting all competitors by artificially keeping fares very low and subsidizing drivers. Subsidies were the primary source of their enormous financial losses in 2016.
Once the competition is completely gone (local cabs, and Lyft in some areas), then they can stop subsidizing themselves and basically hold a monopoly. It's their entire strategy.
They could force drivers to only work for Uber. "If you go to the competition, you can't work for us", they could try to lobby so that other networks can't legally operate, just like Taxi companies did... They just want to replace Taxi companies, that's why people who think they are the "hero of the libertarians" are misguided.
It would be rather profitable to be able to hold the world hostage, single out whoever you want and make them hoof it. Particularly if they'd got used to using Uber to get to work or something. Long game would be making private vehicle ownership illegal, but that's very long term indeed. I'm just saying, you can keep going and every step of the way is increasingly profitable. Wall Street would love it.
For Uber to really become a monopoly would be hard, at best they could split the field with Lyft or others by making an under the table anti-"employee"-sharing agreement similar to the Apple-Google thing last year.
Really, it's hard to imagine a future for Redbox in ten years. Even the convenience of a vending machine movie store is nothing next to me not even getting off the couch.
The gist is that scandalous behavior doesn't matter until it does. All the negative stuff everyone already knows about a protagonist is discounted, for a time. And then a switch is flipped and everyone piles on.
One example given was Clinton's sexual indiscretions. It was an open secret. It only became a "scandal" when opinion shifted. (For whatever reason.) Then it's unshakeable.
TLDR: Uber's time at the wood shed will come.
Not even close. If Uber disappeared tomorrow it would have literally zero impact. You'd get the same driver in the same car via another app and one ride later you'd have forgotten Uber ever existed.
Enron's peak valuation was $70bn. Worldcom's peak was ~3x Uber's ($186 billion).
What I have noticed is that even people that have concerns about their culture and unethical acts, will often use the service because it's convenient and (for now) cheaper than other alternatives.
As long as Uber is fighting cities (instead of state/federal governments) and continues to have deep pockets... They will be around.
I'm extremely surprised their lawyers signed off on it. Maybe they're libertarians though, I've heard some really odd arguments that turned out to be predicated on various 'natural law' theories.
They're the Trump of the startup world.