Did you ever use a taxi before uber? Nothing you said is grounded in reality. Taxi drivers are usually extremely unprofessional, underpaid, and horrific drivers. It's actually gotten much better since Uber came around.
People really need to specify a geographical context for discussions of Uber; I've no doubt that wyager and coldtea are both reporting their experiences, but taxis are necessarily a very local service. Clearly some cities just have really bad taxis.
In London, Uber is a taxi service. The people driving for Uber are taxi drivers, with taxi driver licenses [1], and the vehicles they drive are taxis, with taxi licenses [2]. The experience is therefore much the same. The difference arises from three things: Uber has a nice app, whereas legacy taxi offices are a shambles; Uber drivers are desperate to keep their star rating up, and so might be nicer; Uber subsidises the whole operation to win market share. The app is the only significant difference, in my experience.
