It's amazing to me how successful the smear campaign against the taxi industry has been. It's mostly a bunch of small business run by immigrants. But they're the corrupt ones who resort to "bully tactics." The MegaCorps dumping onto the market by operating at losses are the good guys/victims.
It's very reminiscent of how companies successfully smeared unions.
Taxi companies didn't have a great reputation before uber, though. Stories abound of long and circuitous routes, "broken" credit card readers and surly drivers. I'm not sure I've heard of too many cases of great customer service (though of course people talk more about negative experiences). It's also certainly true that Uber did not innovate on the model of "independent contractors" that do the actual driving.
I see a couple of possibilities. One is that the corruption in cab companies is similar to that in other industries, which people also smear (e.g. finance), and ridesharing PR plays that up. Another thought is that their "local" sketchiness (unclean cars, shady drivers) gives a sort of halo effect, so people are more willing to believe stories of in deeper corruption.
I guess they also tend to be (at least marginally) involved in local politics (to the extent that any local business is going to lobby local politics), and local politics tends to be more corrupt.
It's very reminiscent of how companies successfully smeared unions.