I have seldom seen a company where wishful thinking about creating a new business reality spilled over so effortlessly into wishful engineering when it comes to self-driving vehicles and in iffy strategies when it comes to changing the legislation around the issue of ‘independent contractor’ chauffeurs. The types of people it is hiring, only reinforce this vicious circle. The danger is that other providers (in regional markets) find a way around what’s troubling Uber, by learning from Uber as frontrunner, and playing it differently. The benefits of having a one-stop global player in ride-hailing are overrated, and may well be offset by VMOs (Virtual Mobility Operators) that offer a tailor-made travel plan per destination. The customer gets to choose between all available transport options, including public transport, and local players and governments can become stakeholders in ‘Mobility as a Service’ providers. Particularly if they are against yet another airbnb type of business, that tries to set the rules from as far away as Silicon Valley, becoming too powerful.