I'll never understand this phenomenon (since I've never used this or any other such service), but was it really so hard to get an old fashioned taxi cab? Or was it more that they were selling a lifestyle: you don't need to be caught riding in a lowly old checkered cab (and feel guilty about how the driver is likely an immigrant living a hard life), when you can get a ride in a regular looking car with someone who you can pretend is one of your peers! (Though they're probably having a hard time making ends meet too...)

I wasn't trolling; I said right at the beginning that I have no experience with these kinds of services, hence my questions.

1 and 2, I can kinda agree with both of you. Taxi service in Seattle used to be a sorry joke, so Seattle's taxi companies really did bring it on themselves. They created a situation where an unregulated competitor could come to town and eat their lunches because the service they offered was collectively so very bad.

However, I don't use Uber because when I attempted to download the Uber app, I was offended by how much personal information it wanted to trawl from me in order to just be able to call a car. Un-uh. Maybe you don't give a shit about your privacy or the privacy of your friends, but I do. I'm just not going to give Uber that kind of access to my data. Then I found out from an acquaintance who tried driving for Uber that his Uber income averaged out to a low-end hourly wage. And now with the sexism and harassment issues seeing daylight, I'm even more disinclined to ever use Uber under any circumstances because in a pinch I still have my two feet.