I don't think it matters that the justification is after the fact. I think you could actually predict a decrease in drunk driving with better access to transportation that Uber provides before the fact.
> capture even more of the economic pie
I think Uber expands the economic pie more than it takes a share of it. And once there are self-driving cars, services like Uber will become a commodity because there are no network effects on the driver side. Any company with a billion dollars will be able to create a sufficient scale of self-driving cars in a city to compete with the rest of the self-driving car services. The rich people capturing the value will be the ones who own the technology to navigate the car.
I don't think it matters that the justification is after the fact. I think you could actually predict a decrease in drunk driving with better access to transportation that Uber provides before the fact.
> capture even more of the economic pie
I think Uber expands the economic pie more than it takes a share of it. And once there are self-driving cars, services like Uber will become a commodity because there are no network effects on the driver side. Any company with a billion dollars will be able to create a sufficient scale of self-driving cars in a city to compete with the rest of the self-driving car services. The rich people capturing the value will be the ones who own the technology to navigate the car.