Apps are supposed to improve the lives of people. The taxi protest in London, Paris, Madrid and Berlin yesterday against the success of  Uber seemed to have the opposite effect. The lives of millions were disrupted for hours.

I am not convinced that these demonstrations will lead to much. On Friday, Uber “revealed that its latest funding round had raised another $1.2bn (£700m) at a valuation of $17bn (£10bn), and its backers now range from Google to Fidelity Investments”. That is a lot of financial clout.

While Uber may be the largest player around, it faces competition. Besides Hallo, Lyft and My Taxi, the next largest is arguably Get Taxi from Israel. While Uber’s sales are estimated at about US$500 million,  the start up from the Holy Land rakes in about US100m. The founders of Get Taxi expect a fourfold growth by 2015.

Again, big bucks however you look at it. And Get Taxi is also looking to raise money, maybe on a valuation of US$3 billion.

What’s next. All the competitors will be looking to expand their reach, and Uber is already active in nearly 40 countries. There are also indications that the size of the taxi market is growing, as more people are able to play the role of ‘driver’. In turn, this should allow the consumer to benefit from better prices.

The joke is worth repeating. taxi drivers tried to disrupt lives of million, because their industry – protected from change for decades – is now forced to respond to a classic disruptive technology. Yeah for the software engineers of America and Israel.