Ridiculous, anti-competitive laws were in place in these systems, I applaud their death.
I can disprove that all by myself, since that's exactly how I reacted when I first heard of Uber.
That's because it was falsely framed as "ride sharing" to begin with, when it was obviously a taxi service.
It should also go without saying that millions in VC cash can prettify anything and buy enough positive PR and lobbying to give the service an air of legitimacy.
... Rebrand existing services with unregulated, zero-hours contractors, using their own unregulated assets, with a layer of brokering software.
It's marketing wank, for both consumers and workers.
Sidecar/UberX/Lyft etc have always just been wildcat taxis, except at least a real wildcat taxicab probably has some experience. In my experience, most uberx/lyft drivers have been doing it less than a year, the good ones all leave as soon as they see how bad the pay is, and nobody knows what the fuck they're doing.
It's amazing they haven't killed more people, tbh.