Really? Myself and most of my friends have never taken a black cab and will never do. We always go for Uber, much cleaner, less expensive and friendly drivers.
I did once. Went less than two miles, and ended up £20 worse off. The other time I tried to use it I got yelled at for getting in it without telling him where I wanted to go.
I do use uber or other private hire in London on occasion - when shifting lots of stuff around, but Black Cabs?
Uber didn't exist 10 years ago, and taxis are still around so clearly Uber hasn't _completely_ wiped them out in that period.
I'm mostly an Uber user now, but even I still end up in a taxi on (very rare) occasions at home and more often when travelling and unable to use Uber or another ridesharing app for some reason.
There's also a decent population of older people who don't use rideshare apps and depend on the taxi system (I write from the perspective of an Australian, not a Londoner, but I'm guessing it may be similar there).
Add to that that then-telephone-only private hire companies are moving to the internet, you're now left with the question of what makes Uber better than another private hire company
Demonstrably false. I have taken an Uber while my friends jumped in a black cab, both going to the exact same destination(because stupidly you cannot order 2 ubers at the same time), and yes, the "base price" for uber was cheaper, but the final bill was a good few quid higher than the black cab.
Which laws? Uber is perfectly legal in the UK, same as Addison Lee. Sure there's lots of complaints from the buggy whip manufacturers, but given their product is
1) Worse to use (standing in the rain with you arm out in the hopes someone will stop, let alone trying to get one on a side street)
2) Based around getting lost (taxi drivers are too arrogant to use technology so will drive into roadworks and traffic jams when modern cars use things like waze or whatever to avoid them)
3) More expensive
4) Less safe (who's driving? Who knows! Lets hope it's not John Worboys)
Given Uber have suppressed investigations into crimes committed by their drivers, point 4 seems overly optimistic.
The fact that Uber hasn't yet broken laws in the UK doesn't make using them more defensible. Would you accept a babysitter that only abused children when on holiday in Thailand?
Undermining unionisation and actively promoting the casualisation of labour in the way they have are to be discouraged whether legal or not.
On the other hand I don't know anyone who does use them.
Uber service is better and cheaper. Why would you ever use a black cab when they're so expensive and often refuse fares or try to scam you by going weird routes?
So you would argue that bus lanes should be HOV lanes - if you have at least 3 people in your car you can use it (although if it's a taxi, minimum would be 4 people)