Uber is unsustainable, both the core business and for the drivers. They've survived this long because they were able to dance around regulations and take advantage of drivers. But things are changing: insurance companies are onto drivers and governments are onto the businesses. All of this is going to drive up costs. They are gambling on surviving longer than traditional taxi companies can.
Economics are not in their favor. There's a reason taxi service is expensive. It's hard enough to provide cost-effective public transportation, much less private transport.
Once driverless cars hit the streets, then the calculus changes a bit. But that's when the competition will really begin. What's more likely is Google/Amazon will create (or acquire) a driving service broker that will automatically hail for you from whatever service will offer the ride cheapest (and probably won't even take a commission).
For less regulated cities, sure. For the more famous ones such as NYC and Boston, it's because there are a fixed number of permanent licenses owned by rent-seekers who lobby the city government to keep it that way.
While there is definitely rent-seeking to combat, it's also true that the restricted-supply exists because we already tried the unregulated version and ran into problems. At one point it was creating painful costs (e.g. congestion) which were externalized onto everybody else.
Hmmm... Uber is basically unregulated. Whoever wants to drive for Uber can. Why hasn't the system imploded yet? Why isn't it solid gridlock in NYC due to too many Uber cars?
Economics are not in their favor. There's a reason taxi service is expensive. It's hard enough to provide cost-effective public transportation, much less private transport.
Once driverless cars hit the streets, then the calculus changes a bit. But that's when the competition will really begin. What's more likely is Google/Amazon will create (or acquire) a driving service broker that will automatically hail for you from whatever service will offer the ride cheapest (and probably won't even take a commission).