I think Uber realizes this, thus their strategy is to eliminate Lyft and any future competitors from entering the market as soon as possible. AFAIK, Lyft currently makes no money on its operations while Uber does (by virtue of their greater scale).

I'm afraid of a world in which Lyft is forced to quite (as you only so long sustain on VC money), and Uber then abusing it's monopoly power.

The difference to the existing cab market is the extraordinary scale and growth Uber posses. They can simply afford to undercut everyone's prices for the short term with their billion of dollars in VC money.