I'm guessing you live in one of the top 5-10 populated cities in the US. (Or a major city outside the US).
The issue is taxis are generally fine in these area, but outside being a dense population center calling a taxi is a flip of the coin.
However, those smaller areas don't have taxi medallions to avoid and typically have less taxi regulations in general. Obviously, there is still a dumping component where Ubers are sold at a loss, but the main concern I heard most people have with Ubers was them ignoring the various taxi regulations that made it work in dense areas. Things like horrible traffic jams caused by too many Ubers all converging on one location, refusing to pick up minorities, etc.
Edit: To clarify, since I was misunderstood. I don't mean taxis are good at picking up minorities. They, historically and through today, have not been (with some minorities). That's why there are laws that try to make it so taxis have to pick them up. That is one example of a regulation that Uber/Lyft have ignored. AFAIK, this has caused some issues with Uber drivers and no way to appeal except to hope that Uber corporate believes your story.
This is why your experience is so different from mine. If you're just using them to get around, during the day, going between major traveler landmarks (airport, hotels, tourist destinations), yes, taxis are fine.
Almost all of my taxi/Uber use is as a local. I spent way too many nights in my 20s drunkenly wandering around downtown at 2-3am trying to find a cab to get home.
Taxi cab companies are infamous for avoiding entire parts of suburbia all over the US. You should spend more time outside of your urban bubble, live in middle america (or in poor LATAM, where uber exists and taxis are unsafe) for a few years, enough to realize there's an entire population underserved by existing taxi monopolies, that have been literally rescued by Uber.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/07/25/ride-hail...
As opposed to
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/07/23/...
Have you talked to minorities about their experience with taxis?
I speak a little Spanish. But I couldn’t imagine trying to get around Los Cabos, Mexico for three weeks without Uber.
And they're pretty thin around where I live 50 miles outside of Boston.
I did see someone post on frontporchforum post that there were now a driver for either Lyft or Uber.
Your confidence in the uberness of Uber I thought should be broaden.
It’s not a big deal, it’s just so silly that they made a big thing about being a “data company” but would still essentially do the bad friend thing (texting “On my way!” when you haven’t even got in the shower yet)
This and only this. I've never even had an adequate experience with that damned airport.
I found taxis waiting in taxi stands in known locations of busy areas, or they would come if you call. If they had to come, I found them far reliable in terms of "when the vehicle would get there" than Uber or Lyft. Both of which promise arrivals and then often have to recalculate.
I found taxis to be more predictable in price. I could get a pretty accurate estimate from a taxi driver. Meanwhile, Uber and Lyft only gave you their estimate and had no problem silently charging you more. (I believe that has been fixed).
And cabs ability to take cash was great. Yes, rarely they tried "the machine is not working", but that was rare and easy to deal with like you said. Meanwhile, if you wanted to do something non-standard (e.g. make multiple stops[0]) you could, either by paying a small cash extra or because they were a person not a machine they could handle it.
Meanwhile, the reason there was so much taxi regulation was that without it traffic becomes unbearable. There would be hour long traffic jams of ubers going to pick people up near the front door whenever an event let out, as opposed to people walking to where the taxis had to pick them up.[0] But in general they are horrible for traffic.
[0] Uber/Lyft can handle that now, but could not earlier