Uber's biggest asset is the installed customer base. Uber's drivers are technically their biggest liability... as this ruling well demonstrates!
I'll also speculate this this is a pretty big competitive advantage. Collecting that much ride data is not trivial.
Actually it pretty much is, if you're willing to snoop on handshaking data from peoples' cell phones.
When I want to get from point A to point B, it doesn't really matter what my friends or other people are using, I just personally want good service at a good price - and I don't think I'd be particularly loyal to any one provider.
I expect that smaller regional providers of self-driving taxis would be able to compete on even footing with larger companies, once self-driving vehicles are purchasable commodities without heavy R&D costs.
If Uber can operate 100,000 robo-cars in San Fran you can walk up to the sidewalk and press Hail and presto you have your ride. They can dynamically balance load between nearby cities on a day-by-day even hourly basis dispatching streams of robo-cars from their garages when the surges hit. Large events which drive demand are pre-scheduled and automatically reflected in both car distribution and the number of gasoline futures they trade on the options board for the upcoming week, etc. etc.
You can bet these robo-cars will be getting robo-tire-rotations and any other effeciencies they can squeeze out. (Imagine a line of them going through Uber's robo-washers)
5? 10? 15 years out? Doesn't really matter but I'm convinced it will eventually happen. It will be awesome and terrible all at once.
Incidentally, this is why car manufacturers like Daimler and VW are running carsharing systems
Companies like Uber face problems most of us can't even imagine, such as regulatory capture by the incumbent taxi industry. Yes, Uber plays dirty, but to some extent I think they have to, because it's a dirty game.