Uber competitors didn't exist in Europe before Uber did. You are talking about actual "sharing economy" like the french carsharing service but thats a very different thing.
Airbnb didn't really exist either you are talking about things like Novosol that functioned as a middle man apartment renter.
1. Uber competitors existed – although those were usually financed by the Taxi companies.
2. AirBnB competitors existed in the way that you could rent your apartment to others via such services. Renting out private apartments was standard for decades and centuries even.
Taxi companies are regulated which means there was there is a limit to how many taxi drivers are allowed. Uber doesn't have such a limit and is thus undermining the market. Uber is planning on replacing all drivers with automated cars, how many taxi companies you think are working on that right now?
What you are talking about is car-sharing which is something Uber also does but not what they do mostly.
With regards to Airbnb. If airbnb ish companies existed before why didn't they then outcompete airbnb? Why is Airbnb fighting fights and not European rentals.
Anyway we are getting away from the main point which is that american companies dare take up a fight with legislation very few european companies if any do that. Because of reasons I mention in the essay. Tesla, LendingClub, KickStarter and so many others have had to find ways through the legislation system.
US companies just have a better culture for challenging incumbents and legislation. A much richer culture for lobbying and so on.
Well, the argument is that we don’t need that kind of lobbying, because that kind of restrictive legislature doesn’t exist.
Anyone can start a service to drive other people around for money where I am as long as they have an appropriate drivers license and insurance, there’s no limit on how many drivers there are.
Uber only has to fight legislation because they want to get around the insurance.
Hum, maybe that's true where you live, but as another EU citizen, I can tell you it's not true everywhere - around here, there was no on-demand service beyond taxis, which are limited to a certain number of licenses. And as far as I know, the same is true in Madrid and Paris.
Thats a wrong argument then given that the legislation is in fact in place to hinder too many drivers to flood the market. And so to get into the taxi market is very hard and politically controlled.
In most European countries european insurance isn't really a problem.
Ironically your view on this is proving my point by mixing your political view with what the discussion is about.
And so instead of European companies disrupting the American market you we have American companies disrupting the European.
AirBnB is literally doing what people in Europe had done for decades, just with a neat web listing.