Everywhere. That’s not a nyc problem.

Ubers success is largely from breaking this customer unfriendliness. I use uber because the app is more convenient and effective than finding a taxi and trying to tell them where to go. Uber is less expensive, I can track the route if I disagree with it, and I have the opportunity to give feedback. At least as importantly, uber is far more common than taxis were. From a customer perspective, it’s a pretty good deal.

However they bent a lot of laws to get there, and exploit their drivers. Limited taxi medallions were originally in place to establish standards for customer service mandate service to underserved areas, on the one hand and to support reasonable wages on the other, although likely got captured by the industry. Every “gig economy” business is bending employee/contractor law and most are likely dependent on violating minimum wages, benefits and worker protection laws, what little we have of that.

Downtown I can get an uber in minutes, while there were never enough taxis. Here in the suburbs it takes a long time to get an uber, but medallions always required there be taxis on duty (I actually don’t know if taxis are still in business here). I imagine coverage is even worse in less populated or les desirable parts of the country, and that’s one of the things we lost with taxis