[jacobr1]

I think Uber showed the demand curve is there, given both the lowered price and lowered transaction costs. It is certainly possible that when the dust settles there exists a larger taxi/hailing industry than before, operating more efficiently.

> The individual driver has no buying power to negotiate This is true for the full-time driver, and certainly uber drivers have by in large become this in larger markets. But where I am, most drivers are still part-timer that do it for extra income on nights/weekends. In that case, their capital expenditures are already sunk costs, and they just need fuel+maintainance to balance out, which they can probably deal with at lower margins.

One can certainly imagine a world with app-dispatched taxis (already here) that is more efficient, with burst capacity from part-timers. That is probably a world with more taxi usage proportionally to the population than 20 years ago.