Middlemen will always try to extract maximum profits, and even if they look better in the short term in the longer term they'll be just as bad or worse, but more entrenched.
They may be good now, but the instant that they see a method of increasing their profit by screwing someone, including customers, over then that's what they'll do.
There's more to the world than NYC
The only things that improved with Uber were price and coverage, and they tried to fool us into seeing other improvements that didn't exist, largely by painting cab drivers as scary, stinky, subhuman swindlers and implying people that drove Uber were all part timers who usually worked at real jobs. Now the prices are sky high and the things take as long or longer as cabs did to show up.
Maybe there's room for an Uber in tiny places that don't need cab companies or even full time cabbies, but everywhere else, they've just added another layer of rentseeking over a familiar experience. We could have gotten rid of the medallion system without replacing it with this thing. Let's make gigwork illegal so Uber will have to contract with local companies, or reduce themselves to people they're willing to employ.
Street hailing never existed.
Okay, but price and coverage are very, very important?
"Uber reported a net income of $394 million in the second quarter. That number includes a $386 million unrealized gain from equity investments, so it's not quite as good as it looks. "
https://www.fool.com/investing/2023/08/02/uber-is-profitable...
It will be interesting to see if they manage to close at least one bookyear in the black. If with a windfall like that they can't manage then they likely never will.
The only time it doesn't make sense in my experience is if you're in a low-traffic area.
Not invariably, sadly. Uber, for example, didn't seem to be overly hurt by their lawbreaking.