I don't agree it's quite that uplifiting. The culture had to be absolutely horrible, all the way up to the top, for Fowler's story to have an impact. Uber was already gearing up their lawyers against her, and if their culture hadn't been so pervasive, and if there weren't a series of other contraversies at the same time, things might have ended poorly for her.
No, but it did cause it to flare up after a lot of smoke and smoldering. I'd say the problems started ~2 years before that, partly from disregarding local regulators with impunity (rather than putting up a show of trying to cooperate) and partly from a strong of poorly-handled customer complaints where the firm seemed unwilling to take any responsibility for screening drivers. Those led to a persistent consumer narrative of indifference to social norms, which is never a good thing to have attached to your brand.