While I get your point, I don't particularly dislike Uber.
The point is that, like arguments for backdoored crypto, imagine when Uber hits some political roadblock it's had trouble overcoming, and uses the described "eyes everywhere" idea as a way of selling one of their already gathered externalities as a public safety benefit.
Basically, it comes down to what kind of sci-fi you like - are the baddies evil corporations, or evil government. I just happened to conflate/combine the two...
I mostly second this thought (our potential dystopia resulting from some combination of corporate and government misbehavior).
I'll just add that it isn't exactly science fiction. I think it's happening already, case in point, the frequent: NSA +- AT&T, Google, [corporation recently accused of collusion]
The point is that, like arguments for backdoored crypto, imagine when Uber hits some political roadblock it's had trouble overcoming, and uses the described "eyes everywhere" idea as a way of selling one of their already gathered externalities as a public safety benefit.
Basically, it comes down to what kind of sci-fi you like - are the baddies evil corporations, or evil government. I just happened to conflate/combine the two...