Regarding sunk costs: in a strictly technical sense, you are correct, but in a practical evaluation a personal vehicle represents a large sunk cost for an individual. How do I justify this? People only sell their car to finance buying a new one. Individual car owners always have a large amount of their capital tied up in a vehicle, even though the specific vehicle will change over the course of years. For those (vast majority) of car owners who do not choose to eschew personal vehicle ownership, it is entirely accurate to consider a vehicle a sunk cost.

That being said, I don't really disagree with most of what you have to say, though I do disagree with your negativity.

It is expensive to drive for a living - so expensive, in fact, that it was not a living until monopoly pricing was forced by government regulation.

The excess capacity of vehicles owned for personal transportation is huge. I don't want to repeat myself, so I'll link to another thread discussing Uber (and friends) where I participated that makes my position very clear[0].

I do not view Uber as an underdog. I agree with you that they are a rational business pursuing their profit. I also believe that in pursuit of their profit they will provide a great amount of value to consumers, and to ride-sharers who can defray some portion of their cost of ownership of a personal vehicle. The point is not to make a living, but to defray costs. The historic trend of jitney services (a combination of ride-sharing and public transit in widespread practice before regulation - history in linked thread) was of a high turnover driver base, with many performing relatively few trips, and some few working "full time" for a short time frame. This is the model that Uber (along with its friends) improves upon.

While I do not debate the narrative you have presented as common about Uber (and friends), I have not made arguments that follow it. It is a valid point that does not apply to the discussion I have engaged in. I view as a net positive the dissolution of all 3000 firms you have referenced if Uber (and friends) can provide an analogous service more desirable to consumers and at a lower cost (I do not deny the transitional pain - note I said net positive, not absolute). We can certainly disagree on this point and have a discussion about the merits of industries being displaced and altered with technological and regulatory change, if that is what you'd like.

Even if Uber manages to acquire patent protection over every aspect of its business model and on the terms they have applied for those patents, this is still a superior situation to the stagnant monopoly pricing that has been enforced by medallion systems for nigh on a century. Patents will expire before another century has passed.

That being said, the fact that there are already multiple players in the market for ride-sharing apps indicates that the ideas are, while novel also rather obvious. I would be surprised if they managed to acquire patents that remove their competitors from the market completely.

I agree that Uber is not a benign force trying to help people get luxury rides to the airport. I also agree that they are a rational business making rational business decisions. The way I read the situation, though, is that they are eliminating significant deadweight loss that is a direct result of the status quo they are challenging. They are providing significant competition in an industry which has seen consumer-harming regulation for a century. Forgive me for not being upset that a company pursuing its own self interest is also doing good as a side-effect.

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8874249