I tend to agree that Uber and Lyft are qualitatively different from traditional cab companies although, as many others have said, I'm not sure they have much of a moat or economies of scale. For the overwhelming majority of Uber users, it's irrelevant that they're in 72 countries or even multiple countries. In fact, I'm sure many users would switch to a better service that just operated in their own city.

Uber and Lyft have worse economics than traditional cab companies. Traditional cab companies have the advantage of fleet maintenance and higher utilization rates. Without VCs and financially illiterate drivers subsidizing fares, Uber and Lyft would be the high cost providers.

Outside of US the Uber brand is not so strong. In EU they are very regulated and they compete with local players that understand the market. Asia is also dominated by local players. So Uber exists in these markets, but almost nobody uses it there.

Almost nobody is a wild exaggeration. Most EU business travellers I know use it very often.

> no american cab company operates in 72 countries outside of america though

... while complaining about the big evil taxi cartels