My gf and I live 15-20 minutes from central London by scooter, or 45-60 minutes by public transport. We'd take an Uber home from a restaurant in preference to public transport almost every time if it's on the same side of the city to our home.
Given that a meal for two will typically be in the £80 to £200 range for us, the Uber itself is not an enormous sum.
Together we earn over six figures GBP. It may be an earnings level thing too.
I'd bet typical users live closer to the city center. I've been using uber and lyft a lot in Chicago, Austin, and Denver recently, and my average cost per ride is probably around $12.
Re:How Uber conquered London
by esoteric_nonces on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @07:52PM
(#11625174)
Perhaps.
I used to live in Zone1/2, and had 24 hour bus routes. So still ~an order of magnitude - 10GBP vs 1.50.
I'd forgotten about sharing with friends. Taxis certainly work out well there. Maybe that's it?
It's probably simply that I hate spending money! :)
For personal use, they're just so astonishingly expensive that it's difficult to justify them. As far as I can remember I've used Uber once, to get home after missing the last public transport, and I had to really consider whether it was worth just finding something to do for a few hours until the 5am train.
I live <1h from Central London via train. The fare for that is ~3GBP off peak or 5GBP peak. An Uber costs an order of magnitude more (~30-40GBP).
It would be an extremely notable expense in my budget - probably the largest single item.
I think I'd have to have a home paid off and a fairly high salary before a taxi became anything other than a frivolous luxury, to be honest.
(Business use is excepted here. I've used taxis plenty in my professional life. Uber as a platform doesn't seem focused on business travel, though.)