Did you never take a cab pre Uber? It was a poor experience. At best it went ok. But you have to be constantly paying attention, know the local roads (when on vacation/business that didn't work, or even when it did, you are having to straight call out old boy for being a scummy scammer and taking the wrong streets), deal with the 'sorry the mileage ticker is broken' 'sorry I can't take credit cards' after saying they did at the start. Uber fixed a TON of that experience.