I'm always very cautious of taking what opinion from HN (and others in 'tech') and extrapolating them out to the general population, so I read what you say (and my own opinion) with a grain of salt.

But like, Uber is in 230 cities around the world. Here in Australia I believe they added over 1000 new drivers over the past month. Here, Uber is the alternative. There is no Lyft or Sidecar - mainly because alternatives are too scared of legal action from government - ridesharing is essentially illegal here, but Uber plays the we're-waiting-for-the-law-to-catch-up card regardless.