Been very good in my experience for going from San Francisco -> East Bay.

I have used uber and lyft in many cities and been satisfied. Never once in NYC. I probably just have bad luck, but honestly in manhattan it's the same price to get a cab even at 3am and doesn't require an app or surge pricing. I've heard the same anecdotes from friends. The notable exception is going to or from other burrows. It's often cheaper to get a car from a service if there's no surge, though the green cabs are starting to compete when traveling from somewhere outside manhattan.

In general transit problems (and thus solutions) don't translate from other cities to New York or vice versa.

This is the core of why everyone argues about Uber online. In some cities it's fantastic. In others it's terrible.

yeah been great for me in sf as well but kind of shitty in seattle. wonder why.

Yeah I had the exact same happen to me, really annoying. I understand they're just doing their job, so i can't really have a go at them for it either.

I would rather pay the extra for UberX now (or whatever it is called) instead of UberPool

What was the price compared to a cab, though? $10 vs $30?