<i>For example, there is no way cab companies, the largest of which may have a few hundred drivers, could ever deploy the kind of software infrastructure Uber has developed.</i><p>No, but a small business could build and support the software for many of them, as a service. In fact, there are plenty of startups doing just that. Scale doesn&#x27;t have to come from building up, it can come from building horizontally, in a web of small businesses supporting each other.<p>Unless you&#x27;re facing a stupid number of regulations, which scale linearly with the number of firms, encouraging the centralization and monopolization of markets.