The real question to me is do Uber's stockholders understand that they own the stock, or ar they indirectly holding them through some sort of pension -> managed fund -> ??? style chain where they are exposed to the madness without realising it.
As long as Uber's owners know who they are, it is on their heads if burning money turns out to be a bad idea. Not a problem for the rest of us, if we can be confident we don't own the company.
Assuming the government doesn't helpfully bail them out at some point.
This, in combination with 'small government' and deregulation, is a recipe for a race-to-the-bottom disaster where everyone gets shafted (including the customer themselves) except the big corporations that run the whole show.
I think it has been sufficiently shown by now that making everything as cheap and abundant as possible, everything else be damned, is a net negative in the long term.
The supply chain flavor of that is playing right in front of us now.
This is the main reason why big companies are never allowed to fail. Why banks and all the traditional giant establishments continue to live. It's also why publicly listed companies that have been dividend paying for some time would rather layoff employees when growth prospects are scarce than to rather maintain them on payroll.
So if your company's stock is ever owned by government/pension funds, you'll have a pretty good argument for getting bailed out until you find your next trick.
That's just refusing to exercise personal responsibility. I'd hope an average consumer is capable of more than that.
People shouldn't assume the free market will somehow optimize for fair play, because it doesn't. The market quite directly optimizes for the things people (in aggregate) use to discriminate between purchase options; unless people vote with their wallets on the conduct of companies, you cannot expect the market to provide your conscience for you.
Another thing is: taxi innovation isn't either Uber or nothing. All these improvements Uber boasts about could have been achieved (many were achieved in some places) without tolerating illegal business practices by a thoroughly sociopathic international corporation. Maybe the progress would've been a bit slower, maybe there would be more competition on the market (which is usually considered a good thing). But it would be there, and done the way civilized people do things.
And before someone replies, "but MLK was also doing illegal things!" - which is a response I see surprisingly often in Uber threads - let me remind everyone, that MLK was engaging in civil disobedience to fight for the common people and a just cause. Uber is a for-profit company with long and documented history of antisocial behavior, and one which only cares about dominating their market by dumping any and all externalities onto the society at large.