I find what Volkswagen did worse. They polluted our air beyond the acceptable limit. On the other hand, Uber broke taxi laws that were anti-consumer anyway.
Ohhh, they did a lot more then just braking taxi laws. According to this leak they engaged in illegal lobbying (which I would simply call bribery), and evidence tampering.
Volkswagen was the only one that was caught, you mean.
They weren't the only one that was caught.
Just like SMU wasn't doing anything the other schools were not doing. They just got caught. It is an example of how using the extreme punishment had a much larger collateral damage blast radius than intended.