Taxis work like this in Panama. Prices vary wildly ( but are low by developed world standards) and trying to get across town in times of high traffic is nearly impossible, nobody will take you ( they ask you where you're going, snort and drive away) until you offer at least four times the standard fare.

They're also unsafe, my brother was robbed at gunpoint by a fake taxi. I've heard multiple women who had to jump from a moving taxi to escape a potential rape.

Uber is more expensive in Panama, but I use it nearly exclusively.

It doesn't, because at 3am in a sparsely populated bit of town, there aren't enough participants for a market to work.

For me to have real choice as a rider, I need at least a few different offers from drivers on the table, at which point I can pick the cheapest/fastest/highest rated/whatever.

Likewise, for the driver to have a true choice, he has to have multiple ride offers in front of him to pick the best.

The reality is that in most local markets, most drivers spend the majority of their time sitting around because there are no riders (and therefore would never turn down any work), and riders are frequently so far from drivers that there is only one driver to choose from within 10 minutes waiting time, so they would be forced to accept the ride, whatever the price.

It was a $20-something fare. It'd vary between $22 and $26 based on traffic. I'm not sure how much of that was airport fees. For pleasant drivers, I'd bump it to $30 with tip.

Yeah, $20 and about 1 in 3 were visibly angry and not shy about letting me know it.

Context: I took this route almost weekly for a few years.

As a tourist in Shanghai/Beijing last year, this (technically illegal) practice is quite common if you don't have the right apps set up. We did frequently pay the higher fare, though the difference in currency was like $1 vs $3 iirc.