Most companies are not alive "because they chose mysql over something else" they're alive because they have "good enough" tech to get the job done. The job that they're trying to accomplish is the thing that makes them successful.
Uber isn't super huge because it used a specific database technology. It's huge because it's good at marketing, it's providing some value to people.
If it silently corrupts data over years and gets discovered much later. (As was the case with my previous company, an e-commerce retailer that lost large chunks of order history)
> How do you know that similar or worse problems did not exist in alternative solutions at the time it was implemented?
Because I've been working on database solutions for over 10 years, there are problems in other software but I consider data loss to be worse than any of them. For example the autovacuum in postgresql 8.3 and before was mostly garbage which ended up bloating highly transactional databases. But deleting data when you fail a constraint is worse.
Still, if you are making choices for yourself, you don't choose mediocrity and hope to muddle through: you choose excellence. Choosing MySQL isn't choosing excellence.
Do you have objective or quantifiable data and references upon which your opinion is based, _and_ is universally applicable to any arbitrary problem that a SQL database might be an appropriate solution for?