It's hard to see how this has anything to do with the app. Although it was almost certainly fake, HBO had a show called "Taxicab Confessions" back in 1995 claim

It's hard to see how this has anything to do with the app. Although it was almost certainly fake, HBO had a show called "Taxicab Confessions" back in 1995 claiming to be real rides filmed with a hidden camera in which the passengers did and said things no one would ever admit to if they expected to ever see the driver again. It has been a trope since well before smart phones became a thing. As Robin Hanson was quoted in this article saying, people not exactly treating service staff the way they treat their friends is not unique to app-mediated transactions. I've never really lived in a city where cabs were much of a thing, but had a limo for prom, been in buses. People have been having sex and doing drugs in the Greyhound for decades, acting not only like the driver isn't there, but the other passengers aren't, either. It's arguably even worse with a limo, with the privacy shield trying to give you the illusion the driver legitimately doesn't exist at all. How do you think the janitors at your school felt? What things did they see? Landscapers at your corporate campuses? What about hotel staff? I can hardly remember the number of times one of us forgot to put up the Do Not Disturb sign and a maid walked in on my wife and me. Thinking about when this was the worst, nothing could ever compare to having a girlfriend in high school. We had public sex all the time, but why? Because we had no privacy at home. Where else were we supposed to do it? I'd rather be seen by a total stranger than my 5 year-old sister. People need me time and couples need we time. If you spend most of your day in a house full of kids or an office full of coworkers, when is that time supposed to come? A commute could potentially be that, but if you find yourself having to rely on someone else to drive you, you might just behave as if you're alone anyway because it's still the best you're gonna get.