Search for "stockholm taxi scam" for a great example of why your ass might indeed need saving

True, that's quite scummy, but surely it's an example of under-regulation, not over-regulation. This scam (not sure that's the right word since what they're doing is perfectly legal albeit morally reprehensible) literally cannot happen in places where taxi fares are fixed.

In my opinion, I'd rather not have to research the taxi legistlation of countries I visit. Uber provides a globally uniform service at an uniform price, and like it or not, taxis do not.

That's fair, I guess. It seems like a relatively minor point in the grand scheme of cultural differences you will have to deal with whenever you travel somewhere else and I find it hard to relate to the desire for standardisation and uniformity that I notice mostly from people in the tech community, but I'm not going to pretend that variations in taxi legislation are a charming cultural quirk worth preserving, so nothing makes my opinion more valid than yours.

In those places they just take a longer route instead.

Until there's a taxi strike or you get overcharged or you order a prepaid taxi and they never show up. I live in France and taxi drivers as a group are not even in the same league as Uber drivers. I speak French and know my city extremely well and they'll try to take some ridiculous routing until I call them out on it. In Paris especially, I would only hire private car services or Uber, never a taxi. I don't have to beat my head against a wall more than a few times before I realize that taxis are a pain point that needed solving.