Depends on the location. NYC taxis are generally pretty good. In DC? No. Especially if you're handicapped, a person of color, or in an area they don't like. Blind wit a service animal? You are SOL. Taxi's will flat out ignore you. They will drive painfully slow and drive in circles to run up the fare. Back when DC required cabs to take credit cards, the taxis would fight and say the machine is broken, or just not follow the law. These are the issues that pushed me away from taxis. I'd much rather deal with corporate Uber than government Taxi Commission.

DC cabs used to run on a zone system, rather than meters. Trips within the central zones were incredibly cheap, and there was no incentive to drive slowly or take a circuitous route, because there was no meter to run up. Meters are probably better for the drivers, though. Thanks for explaining.

To be perfectly honest, cab service in some smaller places is horrendous. For example, do you meed to get to work by 9:00am tomorrow morning? You gotta call about 6:30-7:am. It might take them 15 minutes to pick you up or two hours and you cannot order in advance. There are no places to flag them down, so you always have to order one. Oddly enough, I've found these poor cabs mostly in places with no other public transportation. This sort of things plays games with a lifestyle. A trip to the GP can easily go from an hour-long short visit to taking up most of one's workday. In these places, I'd have welcomed the choice, even though I find it more risky than a cab.

That said, in places with good taxi service (where I*m at, for instance), there isn't a reason to switch.

Thanks, that explains quite a bit. I assume that what's unsaid is that in these smaller places Uber is available and fills the niche left unfilled by public transport and taxis. This I did not know.

Speaking for London, the only taxis that you can hail are "black cabs" which are very heavily regulated (and generally high quality), but 2-3x the price of an uberX. You can book a taxi from a local taxi company, but that's typically over the phone, and ideally needs to be done in advance, they are often ~1.5x the price of an uberX.

  (and generally high quality)

To be licensed, cabbies must master a comprehensive London geography/traffic test, the knowledge required to pass it is literally known as "The Knowledge"[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom...

In addition to the drawbacks everybody else has mentioned, with taxis I often got a driver with no familiarity with the city, no GPS, and a very rudimentary command of English. So the ride consisted of me using my phone to figure out a route and using hand signals for "turn here." (Pre-smartphone, it was even worse.) And this was in NYC where taxis are actually good.* None of this nonsense happens with Uber or Lyft.

*Not as good as London taxis of course, but no place has taxis as good as London.

When I was young and still lived in my home town of NYC I got into a cab to go to Grand Central. The driver spoke no English and had no idea where that was. I used gestures to get us there. So I know. Can one expect Uber to be better?

Yes, Uber is much better. The drivers all have smartphones with GPS and they know where you're going before you get in the car. So even if their English is limited, it's much less of an issue.

That's egregious. How long ago was that? Was it a legitimate cab?

Until very recently, NYC's TLC required drivers to pass tests to prove geographical knowledge and basic English.

It was in the 1970s. I know others with similar stories. Yup, a legitimate yellow cab. There may have been a legal testing requirement, but I assume you know how that goes in the big city.

Yeah, wasn't shocked, just curious. I do think it's gotten better since then.

In my city Taxi's are horrible; I remember I was heading back from a party and I spent 4 hours waiting (calling back every 15-20 minutes to see where it was) before finally deciding to leave and spend the 2 hours to walk. Another time I had to go pick something up from a friends house that was 7 kilometers away, there and back cost me $56 somehow (I believe he may have started the clock before he arrived but I didn't confirm)

In Boston I've had cabbies at South Station try to get me to agree to pay 25 dollars for a ride that is 11 dollars on the meter. I don't really have a problem paying a bit more for taxis over Uber because as far as I know the cabs aren't using VC money to artificially lower their price, but I do have a problem when the cabbies try to blatantly fleece me in violation of their regulations

Two kinds of cities -- cities that already had good cab service before ridesharing took off (like yours, and mine) and cities that didn't (and ruralish areas, which, at least in the US, essentially had no taxi service at all).

That's why people are so polarized on whether Uber and company are the messiah or the devil. It just tells you which of the two kinds of cities/areas they lived in.

Uber is sometimes cheaper and Uber drivers have an incentive to provide a better service because if they don't their rating goes down. Taxi drivers don't care because they don't have a rating and will be rude, overcharge or take longer routes than needed to make you pay more.

That totally depends on location. In my city, price of Uber and taxi is pretty much equal or some taxi operators are even cheaper. Furthermore, there's a centralized taxi app that connects most of operators and you can also rate driver after your journey is completed.

Yes, the fundamental truth is that taxi service varies wildly depending on location, due to many factors including differing regulation and geography. You just can't compare taxis in Manhattan NYC with taxis in Houston TX.

I used to live in northern NJ, within commutable distance of Manhattan. Manhattan cabs, for me as a white person, were pretty easy: just stand on the corner and hail one. There wasn't any point in using Uber/Lyft because it would have taken more time to get out my phone and mess with the app! However, back at home in NJ the taxis were ridiculously bad: I had to call ahead and hope they would show up within an hour. Then they'd drive me in some weird long route to get a higher fare. Uber/Lyft were so much easier (aside from being cheaper).

>What's wrong with taxis?

Price.

Car services have existed forever. The point of Uber is making it affordable for everyone.