I've not up or down voted you but it's pretty obvious to me why you are being down-voted:
As you can see from the debate at the top of this page, it's disrupting the regulation of the cab industry which is about creating artificial scarcity of the cabs in order to keep the prices of rides inflated. (EDIT: actually the price of rides is regulated and would be the same regardless of how many cabs there were. It is actually to ensure daily revenues for the cabs remains high by ensuring optimum utilization)
From that perspective it is even more disruptive than Netflix because Netflix operates in a free-market environment. You could choose to rent your DVD's from Amazon or Blockbuster. With cabs in cities like SF you have no real direct alternative.
The cab industry could easily add a web-interface for booking cabs.
They could but they won't because they already have more potential customers standing on street corners wanting cabs then they can service (because, as already explained, the number of cabs is artificially restricted).
There is no benefit to the cab industry to innovate in any way (such as build an app) unless regulator steps in. Which is why a private player able to do this is so disruptive.
Sounds to me like you don't really understand the way the cab market works which is why you're not getting the disruptive element.
As you can see from the debate at the top of this page, it's disrupting the regulation of the cab industry which is about creating artificial scarcity of the cabs in order to keep the prices of rides inflated. (EDIT: actually the price of rides is regulated and would be the same regardless of how many cabs there were. It is actually to ensure daily revenues for the cabs remains high by ensuring optimum utilization)
From that perspective it is even more disruptive than Netflix because Netflix operates in a free-market environment. You could choose to rent your DVD's from Amazon or Blockbuster. With cabs in cities like SF you have no real direct alternative.
The cab industry could easily add a web-interface for booking cabs.
They could but they won't because they already have more potential customers standing on street corners wanting cabs then they can service (because, as already explained, the number of cabs is artificially restricted).
There is no benefit to the cab industry to innovate in any way (such as build an app) unless regulator steps in. Which is why a private player able to do this is so disruptive.
Sounds to me like you don't really understand the way the cab market works which is why you're not getting the disruptive element.