Doesn’t really match my experience at all visiting a city without Uber (Barcelona).

Driver took advantage of their complicated fare system to add supplement charges that didn’t apply: charged us the baggage supplement for our backpacks that we carried in the car, and charged us a supplement for going to the train station, which should only apply from the train station.

The local taxi authority requires us to complain by post with an original receipt.

The postage costs of sending that with tracking defeats the purpose.

Most people wouldn’t even realize they were overcharged, after all, we paid what was on the meter. And issuing receipts is only by request.

We don’t have enough data to determine if the driver was excellently skilled or suicidal.

Meanwhile with Uber, you get a fancy receipt emailed to you listing route/charges, a sensible (if unregulated) complaints process, and ratings from other riders.

I agree that they need to be profitable in order for this to matter. If they were, it would help with local traffic too as people would still prefer to only have one app installed. In my city there is a concurrent company that pays taxes locally and almost all of the drivers work for both Uber and them. I still sometimes order rides through Uber because of habit.