Re: How times change
To be fair to Uber, they were very popular early on, as their app was easy to use and there are so many artificial restrictions on city taxi schemes that they're alwways either expensive or there aren't enough of them. Or often both. So a bit of competition cutting through the regulatory capture might improve things. Whereas minicab firms were too small and under-funded to have fancy apps - and even ones that did aren't going to be universal.
However, since then, more news has come out about what Uber get up to. And they're basically indefensible.