Traditional taxis are threatened by new competitors, but the plural here is important. It's not just Uber, it's Uber, Lyft, and all the others that can come up. Here in London we already have a large number of minicab companies. Uber is very successful because they're cheapest. But as soon as they'd raise prices someone else will take the crown.
Developing a basic app for taxis (calling a cab, paying, ETA) will probably not cost more than a few millions. Getting people to drive for you (in addition to other companies) is also very easy at the moment. That makes barriers to entry extremely low in the market. It's not an Amazon with huge warehouses and not a Google with a highly sophisticated search algorithm. Uber just competes by price, they have no real technical advantage here.
Developing a basic app for taxis (calling a cab, paying, ETA) will probably not cost more than a few millions. Getting people to drive for you (in addition to other companies) is also very easy at the moment. That makes barriers to entry extremely low in the market. It's not an Amazon with huge warehouses and not a Google with a highly sophisticated search algorithm. Uber just competes by price, they have no real technical advantage here.