Uber isn't going up against one company though. It is going up against 1000s of governments.

Uber may be good at skirting local laws, but as a company it's a ticking bomb.

Uber is not a ticking time bomb if it is able to convince a sizable portion of the regulators of the markets it operates in to continue to operate for the foreseeable future

What does Uber do?

They run an illegal taxi service. There's an app for it too.

Half of Uber activity is illegal (UberX in states, it was called Uber Pop in France but it got banned). The other half is perfectly legal and convenient.

However, due to their miserable practices I am glad that almost all (if not all) drivers for Uber also drive for the local taxi-in-an-app service.

It's legal in many cities.

It's become legal (after the fact) in several cities, and Uber has allegedly intentionally attempted to subvert attempts by law enforcement to investigate their operations.

Some cities it was legal to begin with, btw.

Only following the law in "some cities" is not a good thing.

"Mostly legal now" doesn't change the fact that it was illegal in the past and is still illegal in cities that are not in the "vast majority".

Not to mention that they (allegedly) attempted to subvert law enforcement attempts to investigate them, by "greyballing" law enforcement. Whether that is considered obstruction of justice is a secondary question to whether it is incredibly shady.

I know. I'm using "illegal" to mean "against the law".

So is Airbnb...