Do you mean meter manipulation? I think that's pretty hard at least in the places I've taken taxis in. What's much more common for taxis (and much harder to prove) is taking a circuitous/slower route on purpose.
>But what I need: easy way to order a car, know exactly how much I am going to pay
Same for me, and Uber has been hit and miss on both lately.
I've both had drivers cancel on me (or even ask me to cancel so they don't take the Whuffie hit) because they don't want to go to some place, and drivers taking detours for which Uber would later charge me (as "unexpected extra time").
Why? They are not providing anything real service in this case.
As with any gig work, the payout drops down to horrible levels once the company is established and has no real competitors. This may explain why some drivers now want to avoid Uber for longer rides.
They connected the driver to the passenger, and negotiated an acceptable rate between both. They build and maintain the infrastructure necessary to make this happen quickly and reliably at global scale.
If that’s not a valuable service, drivers and passengers wouldn’t rely on it. But they do.
It seems you want to use the service, and just don’t want to pay for it.
Taxi drivers and their schemes are half the reason people use Uber, it's certainly the reason I do.
But this behavior of taxi drivers that would rather do one drive in 2 hours instead of 2 rides, and they make approximately the same amount of money - that is what created Uber/Lyft. Passengers frustration with the taxis.
And I had bad experiences with Uber/Lyft and with Taxi. Cars can be filthy. But what I need: easy way to order a car, know exactly how much I am going to pay (estimate is fine with adjustment to changing traffic/time), what I don't want - not knowing if they will decide to charge me between 50-300 EUR/USD. That is not an estimate.