I've always found the cases where people like Uber/Lyft to be a bit absurd. I live just outside Chicago. In the city, there were (and still are) abundant taxis.

I've always found the cases where people like Uber/Lyft to be a bit absurd. I live just outside Chicago. In the city, there were (and still are) abundant taxis. It's a simple matter to hail a cab from most parts of the city (when I lived in the city proper, I would occasionally cab to work instead of take the bus if I was running late, or use one to get home from band practice and it was my usual mode of transport for dates since I didn't have a car) and the people who will go into an app to schedule an Uber or Lyft always seem absurd because they could be into a taxi in no time just by going to the corner and raising their hand. In the suburbs, it makes more sense because taxi service here is a much worse,¹ but I don't see a single defender of ride shares in the current threads talking about a suburban experience. The taxi driver/credit card thing varies on city, by the way. L.A. taxi drivers are always grumpy about taking credit cards. Chicago taxi drivers have no problem with it (I think because they've discovered that they tend to get better tips with credit cards than they do with cash which makes up for the processing fees. Fast food places discovered something similar where accepting credit cards increased their average order price enough to make up for the loss in net revenue from CC fees). ⸻⸻⸻ 1. This, admittedly is the case in some cities as well. Los Angeles (used to? I remember there was a proposal to change this but I don't know if it passed) banned cabs from picking up passengers who hailed them from a corner and that's the case with the suburban taxis in the Chicago area as well—they can only pick up dispatch rides, except at the airport.