After having used Lyft/Uber daily for hundreds of rides, I've all but forgotten what stereotypical taxi drivers are like. Talking on their phones, refusing to use navigation software and complaining to me about other drivers/traffic/politics. Lyft/Uber on the other hand has been a delight. The drivers see themselves as business owners who control their own work hours and work load. Sometimes I even get free candy. The future is awesome.

I agree about the taxi drivers. I do think they have gotten better in terms of customer service since Uber has come on the scene - probably in response to losing business to them. Competition is good. That's partly why I hope both continue to exist (and maybe a 2-3 uber type companies). But yeah, still irks me when a cabbie won't use navigation.

I don't disagree with your comment, but I think that drivers that see themselves as business owners are delusional.

There are a lot of definitions of a "business owner" and the uber:driver relationship meets none of them.

Getting to the airport is actually the one time that I still use a local car service, because you can actually schedule them. I can say that I want a car to JFK at 5am tomorrow, and they will reliably be outside my door.

You can't schedule an Uber, and just hoping that one will be available at the time I need one (or else I miss my flight) is scary.

On that point it's exceptionally odd to me that uber doesn't offer scheduled pickup.

Scheduled car services are a pretty different business from Uber. When I schedule a ride to the airport, I'm paying a premium to have a highly reliable on-time pickup. And, coming home, I'm paying for a highly reliable pickup where I expect my service to do their darndest to work around flight and flight schedule changes. (There's also basically no Uber out where I live.)

The car service is actually cheaper than Uber for me - I don't do it on the way back because there's reliably 100 Ubers hovering around JFK.

> You can't schedule an Uber

Really? That's a surprise. I use Gett mostly, and you certainly can schedule it — so I don't see why Uber couldn't implement it either.

They seem to believe that scheduling a future ride goes against their entire business model. I completely disagree (see comment in link):

https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-Uber-allow-customers-to-pre...

I have been WAITING for ride-sharing pickups to be available from LAX for what feels like ages. They've actually implemented a pretty sane system - ride sharing services have marked areas that they can pickup from but they can drop off anywhere. You request a car and the ask what marked area you are near, then they show up there, it doesn't get much easier.

Taxis still aren't focused on the customer in LA and I don't think they will ever be.

Hailo or similar works reliably for on demand cabs. It's the "call in an wait" system that's dying. In cities where taxi regulations are not very taxing on (eg London's The Knowledge, New York Medallions) Uber found a way around them. They also added a convenient UI, but that works just as well for regular cabs.

Anyway, Uber is cabs, for any sane definition of them.

Not the definition "vehicle that arranges rides by line of sight without a third party". And that's not trying to be cheeky; there are very good reasons tfor the historically lighter regulation of livery service (where the customer has to ask for and pay for the ride through a central booker who monitors the transaction) vs cabs in the above sense of the term.