Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

I'm not a fan of companies like Uber or AirBnB who attempt a violent takeover of a market. However, as a consumer who needs to get from A to B, or stay at some random city, I find those services invaluable. The black cabs in London are expensive, never around when you need them, and until recently might have refused card payments (now they just seem unhappy about it). At the very least I was hoping Uber would make that industry wake up and join the modern world, but instead they chose to protest and block roads. With Uber, I always have a car available within minutes and the prices are reasonable. I just hope that the competition will take their place (and driver mass) if they do end up leaving.

Yep. I'm always amazed at how quickly people crap on Uber. In hindsight it's not a particularly revolutionary service. But does everyone remember how much the Taxi system sucked?

London has had 10,000's of mini-cabs for decades that served a big chunk of this non-Black cab market. They weren't perfect but they were cheap, pretty ubiquitous and served most (if not all) of the spaces left in the market by black cabs.

So Uber as a service hasn't been that revolutionary in London, the things they HAVE done is improve the ordering UX and making CC's ubiquitous.