Personally the main reason I hate cabs, especially in SF, is that most of them feel dirty, old, and not well maintenanced. When you sit inside everything is kind of rattly and broken, things are sometimes duct taped together, the whole car gives you a grimey feeling.

I've never once had that with Uber. All cars are fairly new and super shiny. When I sit in an Uber I always feel the car is well maintained and clean etc. There's no grimeyness.

And when I call an Uber, I know when it's coming. After the ride is done, I get a receipt that shows the exact route and so on. It's really neat.

Cabs on the other hand are a black hole. I call a cab and it's theoretically on the way, but I have no way of knowing and there's no indication on how far it is and when it's coming. After I pay for it, the money goes into a black hole and other than a small piece of paper that I lose after two minutes, there is no indication of it happening or how much I paid.

I also get harassed about using cards with the cabs, I rarely carry cash (for good reason considering the neighbourhoods I go through), and it's always a "ITS BROKEN CASH ONLY GO TO ATM AND MAKE SURE GIVE ME TIP"

The trick for that: When you are about to enter the cab, ask "Do you take [type] cards?" And then skip that cab if they say they don't. It's magical how the potential of losing a ride suddenly fixes broken card machines.

Uber is popular because they circumvented regulations that limited supply of labor and price controls and can therefore offer cheaper rides.