Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you lie when hailing the cab and once inside say they misheard you and say the genuine destination? Not allowed I imagine but pretty hard to enforce that rule? (Genuine question, as a UK reaident I’ve little experience of the US taxi system and have always had excellent service from taxi firms in the UK - as a result I’ve never really understood the problem Uber is solving in the UK)
Yes, I did that a couple of times. Then once I got in, i changed the destination. It made for a tense ride because you're already in an adverserial transaction for something that should be a default right of rider. Oh, and my mom has bigger problems. Cabs pass her by at Manhattan hospitals. Of course no one knows drivers' intents for sure, but there is some quick eyeballing, i'm sure, of whether the potential passeng…
Variable pricing solves this for people with the ability to pay. Rationing scarce goods by wealth is not necessarily a better overall outcome then distributing scarce goods by lottery.
Also, if full-time night-shift cabbies are driven out of business by part-time rideshares, you may end up in a situation where the only night-time service available - ever - is at surge pricing. This is less of an issue in NYC, then it is in smaller towns.