So the big difference between your example and London which is how this thread started, is that London (where I live), is a place I can assure you is not transit-sparse. There are many, many public transit options.

For example this map is the night bus map just for the area around the Bank of England, and most of those will run at 15 minute intervals: http://content.tfl.gov.uk/bus-route-maps/city-of-london-nigh...

This is not unusual - other maps exist for other parts of London, and even when I lived in W6 (Zone 2), I could get a bus at all hours of the night from Piccadilly Circus to my home or vice versa. Even now living out in TW1 which is some 11 miles out from central London, I can get a night bus all night, every night to and from Oxford Circus.

Costs are also low: £1.50 a ride, with a second ride taken within 60 minutes of your first ride being free/included.

Realisitically that means you can easily get from one side of London to the other in the middle of the night for £1.50 - £3.00. It might not be the most direct or fastest route, but it's popular, and with good and obvious reason.

Tubes also run all night on some routes a few nights a week, and even when they don't 5am is a typical start time.

Poor people don't tend to use Uber in London as a utility that it sounds like happened in your city - it's a luxury product with luxury prices. Their target market here are those who are drinking and meeting friends off the beaten path from home or work on the tube network.