And even then, there's 0 indication or evidence that there's any link between the price paid to drivers and the price paid by riders. For all we know Black car drivers could be receiving more right now than they were when Uber came out, but from what I've seen there's no evidence anywhere in any of these articles about what the historical and current driver rates are?

Not taking sides (and I'm more of a Lyft guy than an Uber fanboy), but there's really no way to work out whether this whole argument is valid without more information.