[stormbrew]

Profitability in their case does include a requirement of an expectation of safety (one that in my experience exceeds the expectation of safety I can expect with city-approved taxi services, incidentally). I am not, in general, a fan of appeals to the invisible hand (I fit somewhere on the socialist end of things, to be honest), but the truth is that the capitalism of uber is an improvement on the quasifeudalism of taxi oligopolies.

And no, it does not appear as that at all. The prior arrangement may only be minutes before, but it includes knowing the name, license plate, and location of the person who's picking you up, all of which can be verified before getting in the car. This is categorically different from a taxi hail. It baffles me that someone could assert they're the same.