No, the argument is that Uber was going to lose money hand over fist until all of the alternatives were starved to death, then raise prices infinitely.
Taxis sucked. Any disruptor who was willing to just... Tell people what the cost would be ahead of time without scamming them, and show up when they said they would, was going to win.
Uber (and Lyft) didn't starve the alternatives: they were already severely malnourished. Also, they found a loophole to get around the medallion system in several cities, which taxi owners used in an incredibly anticompetitive fashion to prevent new competition.
Just because Uber used a shitty business practice to deliver the killing blow doesn't mean their competition were undeserving of the loss, or that the traditional taxis weren't without a lot of shady practices.
There is so much more information available in the electromagnetic spectrum than just the narrow range a human eye can see