Such schadenfreude and enmity are natural responses to people or entities which seem overconfident and braggadocios, or which play dirty, or which bully. Uber has created the perception that they are or do all of those things.

Perhaps, but if (and that's a big if) that's the main reason behind these articles, then I'm disappointed in these authors for not being above such pettiness. Or maybe my expectation of more dispassionate articles is naive...

But hopefully the "if" condition of the previous paragraph evaluates to false. :)

I'm not sure if it's pettiness. Perhaps think of it as a societal or economic immunological response. Such actors seek to punish, in whatever ways they can, entities viewed as "bad actors". This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and may actually be a good thing. As in creating social or economic consequences for those who fail to reciprocate resource sharing, these sorts of punitive actions can be net-wins for economy and society. This point goes beyond Uber itself; a conclusion might be that it's great to create a valuable and disruptive service like Uber... but one could be even more successful in doing so if they weren't a jerk about it (or were more savvy about avoiding the perception that they're a jerk).

It may be petty, as you say. Or it may not be. Regardless, it's sad that journalists today don't consistently go after all bad actors, if they're going to do this. Uber seems fairly inept and heavy-handed in managing their leadership brand, but many other companies have proven how simple it is to placate perception while behaving very destructively behind the scenes.

I agree with the principle of there being consequences, but what I don't agree with is for the condemnation to be deliberate and for journalism to be used in service of that, rather than impartial reporting.

When you describe the consequences as an immunological response, I think of something organic, more of an unguided process, not driven by awareness of meta-factors.

The article is from August 2015. Seems OP posted it now because it relates to the recent discussions about Uber and Didi.

Fair point, though I feel there's still something to my point in the broader context outside of this one post.