My old commute was pretty much door-to-door on the bus, I had to walk one block to the stop and it dumped me right next to the office. Not a bad deal for under $2.
If I want to take a train downtown, I can take one of three bus lines to one of two different train lines, all without walking much more than a block. The buses have GPS on them so I don't even have to leave my house until the bus is nearly at the stop. There's also a bike path that gets me 90% of the way from my house to one of the stations. I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't want to pay 5-10x more for Uber to avoid 5 minutes of walking.
Yes, but you are one of likely very few with that experience available.
You are beholden to the bus schedule. Your choice of where to live greatly affects your commute. You have to combine multiple transportation options. If the weather is bad, you are exposed to the elements.
Uber remedies all of the above, and yes, for a price, but not wholly unreasonable. Sure there will always be less expensive options, but Uber appears to be quite reasonable when you consider the big picture. Is it sustainable? They'll show us.
It also has the neat feature of being able to continuously optimise and become more efficient. Most other public transportation does not, is heavily subsidized, and extremely difficult to change.
Almost. I have a five minute walk to the office from the train station. While uber might be door-to-door for now, the streets around my office will probably soon be closed for cars that doesn't deliver goods or workers doing construction or maintenance work, so then it wouldn't even be any different from the train.